Between my job and then working here at home on our farm has kept me pretty busy for the last few months, but I have been able to sneak in some time to work on the layout. Progress so far includes all of the benchwork being completed, most of the trackwork is in place and have started roughing in some of the scenery. I've added a few pictures to show the progress so far.
-This picture shows the majority of what will become Denton, MT looking east. The mainline and the siding that has the six hoppers on it are Micro Engineering code 70 flextrack. All other track that can be seen is hand laid code 55. I'm waiting to receive a shipment of rail and ties so that I can finish up the track laying. The ladder going off to the left side of the main is the lead for the three bay engine house. You can see a mock up of the engine house right above the turnout lead. Most of the grain bins on the right side of the tracks wont be used, they are just there for mockup reasons. The trackwork follows the prototype exactly (except it has been compacted obviously) and is limited in size, which is one of the reasons I opted for this plan. I enjoy simplicity.
-The bottom photo is a view of the prototype looking in the same general direction. It was a lovely smoke filled September afternoon when I took the picture.
-A few of the turnouts that I've hand laid. My first few attempts at building turnouts took forever to complete and were pretty rough. But now I've gotten it pretty well down to a science and can build one in less than two hours. This set of turnouts is used to access the small yard track as well as the industry track from the siding. The red elevator will be used on the final layout, but the the other bins probably won't. The red elevator will be painted white and heavily weathered to look abandoned, as it is on the prototype.
-This view shows the location of one of the elevators, known as General Mills-East. Very little grain is shipped on the CMR today as most farmers haul directly to the shuttle loaders at Moccasin or Fort Benton for better rates. However, when regular grain service was still a thing (before the Judith River Trestle washout in 2012), this elevator was generally only used once the other General Mills elevator in town reached capacity. The building footprint in the front of the of the photo will be a division office of Fergus Electric Coop. This building doesn't exist on the prototype (crews come from Lewistown), but I have way too many power company models to just let them sit and collect dust.
-Heading farther to the east we see where I have started to rough in some scenery. As you can see I use insulation board for my scenery, and shape it with Stanley Sureform tools and a hot wire knife. Another tool that works great is a farriers rasp. I shoe my horses myself, so once I wear a rasp out on their hooves, it gets reassigned to layout service. The strip of cork that runs to the left of the tracks is a road. I like to use cork as it gives the road a little bit of elevation which we see in real life. the white stuff covering the foam is regular old lightweight drywall mud. This section of the layout will be hay fields and cattle pastures.
-Completed staging tracks. Most of the staging action will take place on the tracks to the left of the mainline. I've gone pretty far outside of the prototype's operations in one area. On my layout, BNSF trains will occasionally come through Denton from Great Falls to simulate track issues on their prototypical Laurel Subdivision. When the rail was owned by the Milwaukee Road, this was their mainline into Great Falls. But the tracks were pulled up at Geraldine after the MILW bankruptcy. The curved track on the left is the swing gate that goes across the door into the layout room. The wall in the middle of the room was left in place because I need a place to hang a couple of lifesize taxidermy mounts. It's kind of a pain to work a few of the staging tracks with the wall in the there, but I've gotten used to it.
-View of the opposite end of the staging yard. The four tracks on the right will represent Geraldine and Moccasin, MT. I am going to simulate a unit train shuttle loader in Geraldine at the west end end of the CMR. Moccasin is the eastern terminus of the CMR and is where the CMR interchanges with BNSF.
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