Late March Update

Between work travels and home improvement time to work on the layout has been at a premium, but a few late nights of work turned out some good results. Follow along as we cover three areas of interest since my last post:

Rolling Stock Acquisitions

Atlas Boxcar - MNNR 1313

Picked this one up at Becker Model Train Supply in New Brighton, MN. while traveling in the Twin Cities area. Figure it's fitting to acquire a railcar that calls the area "home" wherever I travel.

BLMA Models Pipe flat - PTTX 602332

This car was a birthday gift from family via a trip across to Discount Model Trains in Addison, TX. The pipe load is custom done by local friend and modeler Jock Luckett. He has built many unique railcar loads, and I plan to dedicate a future post to showcasing them.

Long story short when you are traveling take the time to check out google or the back of Model Railroader and visit a local hobby shop. It's amazing to see what they in stock.

Right of Way Upgrades

Part of the 2015 MCIS capital plan is detailing mainline power switches. Being we operate with DTMF remote controlled mainline switches, I am using the Details West switch machine as a basis for the GE / Vossloh modern power switches.

All mainline  turnouts will have a DW switch machine, solar panel, instrument cabinet, and BLMA N or Z scale radio tower. The passing siding at Grays Lake and wye at Upper Huron will additionally get the Details West switch heaters. MOW plans to have these items in for fall 2015.

Grays Lake Industries

The past few months I have been working on a salt mine mockup at Grays Lake. Unfortunately the scale and size just did not work for the scene and was overwhelming to say the least. Moving forward I removed the mockup and focused on a commodity one would find in this part of Michigan's Thumb... Agriculture.

Cooperative Elevator

This facility has capacity for four cars with  a one car load out in shed and dock door for spotting boxcars. This customer ships outbound bagged and bulk dry beans.

View west

View east

AmCan Polymers

This customer viewed in picture above will receive inbound plastic pellet hoppers and resin tankcars that will be transloaded in the building into trucks for delivery to their offline plant. I plan to have a two or three car spot that can host either tankcars or plastic hoppers.

Suburban Propane

Being this part of Michigan is very rural Propane / LPG is critical for homes and businesses. The siding has a capacity to unload three tankcars at once, but is a trailing point switch on the Grays Lake Spur coming off the mainline.

LPG cars on spot 2 and 3 above at Suburban Propane. The background will host multiple LPG tanks as the terminal is a regional distribution facility.

Mainline in foreground with Suburban Propane switch in background. This area will host a grade crossing and buildings representing part of Grays Lake.

With these three customers and a few others at Gerhard and Buhler (staging) there will be plenty to keep the R-GLBU busy.

Like I said not a lot of work done but enough to keep progress in the right direction.

Thanks for checking out the update.