Barrel factory progress

I have added the second story and a bunch of detail.  The second story is the finished barrel storage area.  The first photo shows the left side of the factory.  I have yet to make the office which will adjoin the left side of the lower area and will be a small clapboard structure.  Also there will be a stack at the back adjoining the boiler house.

The second photo shows the right side of the factory with the drying shed attached.  The large opening on the upper story is where the barrel conveyor will exit the building to carry the barrels to the loading dock on the other side of the rail siding.

I was at the Timonium Maryland train show this morning.  The October show there is usually their biggest but this one was disappointingly smaller.  I think most train shows, as well as hobby shops,  are losing their appeal with the ready access to products via the Internet.  I do almost all of my shopping by mail, though most of my model railroad purchases are merely paint, wood and detail parts since I only do scratch building these days.  When I go to train shows these days it is mostly for socializing.

Barrel Factory main level progress

This has gone somewhat slow but the basic main level of the barrel factory is mostly complete.  The roof is still in progress and the wall caps need to be added.  The brick portion in the center rear is the boiler house which provides the power and heat for the facility along with the engine room buried inside the main floor in front of the boiler house.  The side you cannot see has minimal detail as it will not be seen from the edge of the layout.

The right side will abut to the drying shed previously built.  On the left side will be a small office building adjoining the main structure.  The second floor will be on the right side of the roof covering only about half of the main floor.  

The building finish is merely the standard ink/alcohol stain.  The windows are Grandt Line.  There is a door in the indentation at the right front where the dried "bolts" (barrel wood) is moved into the building.  

More HO model railroad history

A few days ago I came across an old Mantua HO box car kit, probably from the 1940's, which had an interesting note on the end of the box.  It said "your car sides are not in this box - select them from your dealer - they are included in the kit price."  The other end of the box proclaimed it was an all metal kit.  Presumably the car sides were also metal.  I do not have that kit nor the car sides, but I thought that was an interesting marketing practice way back then.  The kit price was $3.50.

What I am very familiar with is the early printed card stock sides, particularly the colorful billboard reefer sides and I still have a stock of them saved for I do not know what.

I used to collect old HO kits but have since disposed of almost all of them as I pare my model collection down to what I actually intend to use.

Barrel factory drying shed

I have been working on preparing the layout site for the barrel factory.  The first part of the factory I have built is the drying shed for the barrel bolts.  The bolts enter the shed from the right (back of the factory) and are pulled through the drying shed by the manual winch on the left of the photo.  The platform car has just emerged from the shed through the canvas door cover.  There are 5 wood "bolts" on the car.  The shed side you see will actually face the back of the layout with the other side backing up to the wall of the factory structure.  The track through the shed is made from styrene.  The platform car is made from styrene with commercial cast metal wheels.  The winch is a cast metal American Model Builders product.

The shed is sheathed in corrugated metal sheets (actually a commercial card stock product).  The track siding runs along the sheathed side of the shed with the barrel loading platform on the other side of the track.

As with most of my industries this one is highly condensed as compared with a typical prototype factory.  I prefer to have lots of different industries spread around the layout rather than a few large industries.

Barrel company conveyors

I have developed a rough floor/room layout for the barrel factory to fit the layout site and have been adjusting the site for the factory.  All of the barrel making functions will be on the main floor with a second floor used for storage of completed barrels awaiting shipment.   The factory is served by a siding that is an extension of an existing siding.  I had to carve out some scenery to fit that in.  The factory will sit on a raised area (raised in comparison to the siding and the other industries served by that siding).  Adjacent to the siding on the opposite side from the factory is the shipping dock - may be a little strange but that is what works for this site.  The barrels will be moved from the upper level storage area to the loading dock by means of a barrel conveyor.  Below are two photos of barrel conveyors.

The first photo shows an almost vertical lift and the second a lift at about a 45 degree angle.  I think these are really neat and I will include something similar on the model.

The wood "bolts" delivered to the factory are initially stored in the back area of the site, then are fed through a dry kiln channel/tunnel and heated to remove excess moisture.  I am in the process of making this kiln channel.