Quanah, Acme and Pacific (QA&P) - West Texas - Fictitious Model Railroad Layout Agriculture Industry

The weather has been horrible for doing things outside so there's been a little headway on the staging yard. A couple of photos attached.

 

How did you come to acquire so many padlocks?

GS

 

About 25 years ago I was in sales for a company that sold high security locks. My territory was TX / MS / AR / OK / NM. The attached photo shows some of their other locks. The one on the left is of a $200 padlock (current pricing). My customers were the military, vending companies, airlines (drink carts on airliners), railroads, Atomic Energy Commission, etc. You can't go to the hardware store and buy these locks. They could be keyed in many different master keying configurations. The larger ones are virtually unpickable, unbreakable, etc., etc. You can't get the keys at the hardware store. I did a test with the provost marshall at Ft Hood in 1999 on one of our locks. He had this 6' 5" well- muscled soldier with a large set of bolt cutters try to cut the shackle on one of our medium sized locks. It ruined the boltcutter. Back in the early '90's we did a test with the US Navy and used some locks on things that hung in saltwater. After a year they still worked.

The particular locks in the photo in the previous post were small locks for drink carts on airliners. When companies turned them in for new ones, I ended up with a sizeable box of old ones. The key code is changed for the new run of locks, so the old ones aren't any good to anyone and nobody has the key to the old ones except me and the company (that code is never re-issued--there are something like 2.5 million potential codes. They don't have tumblers on the inside--they have rotating disks). My box probably has 150 or more locks. They're great for track laying, modeling weights, etc.

Anyway, that's the long answer.

 

Those would work well. Anything heavy, flat on the bottom and skinny...

 

Amazing...the staging yard works like a champ. Nothing I've ever built has worked right the first time! The original plan was for five tracks, but there's room for six, so I may buy one more switch and a little more flex track and add the second additional track. You never know...it may be needed. Still need to cut rail gaps and add some feeder wires, but that will be easy.

Last week Tom Holley let me know that there was a listing on ebay for some used Aristocraft walk around throttles. I won them. Once that system is installed, the enjoyment level of running trains will be increased exponentially. But it will also allow me to go into the staging yard closet to move trains. As a result, I may not wire the switches. They've got ground throws, and since I'll be standing there to ensure the correct track was chosen, it would be just as easy to use the ground throw and save a bunch of wiring. The rest of the layout has hidden switch machines, but the goal on the staging yard was CHEAP, so I bought Atlas snap track 22" radius switches for the staging yard.

The slightly weathered F3A on the point came from Tom Holley.

 

For a couple of years I've debated about installing a DC walk-around control system. Tom Holley and I have discussed it and he told me what controllers he uses.
A month or two ago Tom told me that there were some Aristocraft Train Engineers for sale on ebay. I bid and won them. Electronics are not my forte. So after two or three discussions with Tom, a couple of conversations with another model railroader who is excellent with electrical things, I dived in yesterday and got the thing installed. It worked right the first time!! Amazing!!! That is probably a first for me.

Now I can walk around with the train and enjoy the west Texas scenery; use the handheld to operate the staging yard which is in a different room; etc. Modeling is still my area of interest--I'm not real gung ho on operations--but this does make running trains much more fun. Sorry about the lousy cell phone photos, but I was too lazy to use the real camera.

The two holes on the control panel are for the final two toggle switches for the staging yard blocks. It's easier to solder wires to switches when the switch isn't attached to the control panel. Once the final two tracks are laid I will install those two toggle switches.

Sherrel, if you see this, I made a GUMPS check in honor of you to be used before operations since I have a lift out.

 

There's a tiny community just north of where I live that everyone calls Muleyville. It's not really a town, but a highway intersection where a particular family has settled. Each family member has his / her own abode, and most are in serious states of disrepair--several being uninhabitable. The old Orient line ran adjacent to the north south highway about 100' from the little settlement.

Muleyville is on our railroad. It's a somewhat rundown industry siding that now has a flag stop (whistle stop) on the mainline in case someone wants to catch the train. There's a small scratch built lean-to to stay out of the weather while awaiting the train. The lean to has a bench to sit on made out of a 2 X 12. The walls are old, rusty corrugated metal. To access the whistle stop there's a path down the slope from the industry's dirt parking lot. Out in the field is a rusting hulk of an old automobile and some cattle grazing.

Something about the lighting in the railroad room makes the backdrop look bright blue. It's not that color at all, but I haven't been able to figure out a white balance in the camera to make it look correct. Oh well...

 

Goodness, PAUL, you are just humming right along. Those "f" Units look great!
I like your scenery and I do not think that the blue background is all that bad.

 

Thanks, Sherrel. Tom Holley painted the lead F3. The other two are factory painted genesis that will eventually get a little weathering.

How are you doing? Anything new on your end?

 

When we moved to Texas we brought the 6' X 12' layout with us that I had in Colorado. It's attached to the around-the-wall-shelf layout and operates. It sort of represents going from west central Texas to Colorado.

Some friends of ours here--both neighbors and attendees of the same church--are the Tanners. They used to own the local grocery store. The husband died of cancer in February of this year. He was one of the greatest people I've ever met. It seemed appropriate to have a grocery and dry goods store on the layout someplace and name it Tanners. There just isn't room on the Texas part of the layout, so I put it in the small town in Colorado. The grocery store and the two adjacent cabins are all paper buildings. If you build them properly and put them a little ways back from the edge of the layout, nobody will know that they aren't styrene or wood kits. And they were free!!!

If you've got any questions regarding paper structures, let me know.

 

Finally completed the grocery store and added gas pumps. That was pretty common with small, rural stores. Kenny Tanner loved to fish and had a fishing boat, so I put a little boat next to the grocery store.

Also designed, printed and built a one car garage out of paper. There was a nice stone wall texture I found online ages ago and saved it for a future use. First I had to make the stone wall the correct dimensions for all of the garage walls. We don't have a color printer (my neighbor printed the other buildings in trade for something I did for him) so I upped the contrast and brightness in photoshop and printed it on cardstock black and white. After coloring it with art pens it doesn't look too bad.

The doors are Tichy doors and have glazed windows in them. The area above the car door is clapboard and the roof is just painted styrene. My total cost on all three buildings is about $15 including the gas pumps, doors, misc styrene, etc.

 

Made a little addition to the flagstop / whistlestop called Muleyville. It now has an outhouse. This one isn't paper but made out of popsicle sticks. They are scribed and carved to resemble the individual planks. The door hinges and handle were made from tiny pieces of solder. It has a piece of rusty corrugated metal for the roof. After taking photos, it obviously needs a little more weathering, but it's getting there.

 

You're getting pretty fancy there, PAUL. Very Nice !!
P.S. The gas station needs a little clutter around it?

How did you make the wooden house - if you mentioned it before, I must have overlooked it .. sorry!

 

Normally you would be correct on the clutter. The Tanners--the people who the gas station is named for--are extremely neat and squared away. The gas station part of the grocery store was an after thought. The grocery store they owned 25 years ago didn't pump gas, so there might not be that much clutter. By the way, their original grocery store is now the volunteer fire dept here in town.

Do you mean the wood house between the garage and the grocery store? If that's the one you're referring to, it's a paper building that I downloaded, printed and built.

 

Muleyville is nearing completion. The somewhat rundown trailer is in place. It has patches on the roof; junk on the south end; a ladder leaned up against the north end to work on the leaky roof; an old dead car off to the north sitting in the pasture; etc. I may add a little double track and a dilapidated but usable vehicle on the south end.

 

It has literally been 105 degrees to over 110 outside since July 22. The main priority has been getting water on the pecan trees. But yesterday I decided to make and install some signs. All of these re named after friends at church. The Petty Oilfield Services is one of my best friends and he actually does some oilfield work (in addition to running a rural mail route and farming 300 acres); the little welding shop is named after a friend who welds, farms and used to be a County Commissioner (the only decent one we've had in 20 years); the Tanners used to own the local grocery store.

That's about it for now.

 

Had a good discussion with Paul Slavens a couple of weeks ago regarding the oilfield industry. As a result, a small (30' X 40') covered lean to is being built for the pipe yard and oilfield sales business to cover some of the stuff that is outside. No sides--just a corrugated metal roof supported by posts. A couple of photos showing the framework and the location on the layout . All that's done so far is the roof framework.

 

Finally completed the little lean to for the oilfield pipe yard. Nothing fancy-just a roof to keep the rain off. Hopefully, it's tall enough for the forklift to access what's under the lean to.