Coming soon to the layout…..

 Coming soon will finally be some warning signs for the different industries on the layout including these from Scale Signs:

Switching out Monsanto….

 On a recent railfan outing we once again found NW2 8806 switching out Monsanto Chemical. We first caught the crew pulling the empties out as seen below:

The crew then replaced these empties with these loaded cars:

Next time we catch an unusual car being delivered to one of the area industries…..

The story behind the area modeled….

 Although my layout is pretty much freelanced based on the old NYC/PC west of downtown Cincinnati along the Ohio River, one industry is actually there: Monsanto Chemical. The other industries are fictional, but do represent some of the industries you did find in the area.

The local run is based supposedly out of Riverside yard which was a good size yard of the NYC/PC in I believe the suburb of Sedamsville, west of downtown Cincinnati. As i recall reading, Riverside saw the last of NYC steam power in the Cincinnati area in 1957. Sedamsville was also the boyhood home of Pete Rose for those baseball fans out there.

When I was little my father had a cousin that lived out along US Route 50 better known as River Road about two blocks west of Riverside yard, so always loving trains you can imagine where I hung out at when we visited!

Below is a photo I found on the internet quite some time ago of Riverside yard in NYC days, photographer unknown:

Railfan action yesterday….

 So about and about yesterday when we caught PC 5628 switching out several of the industries along the Ohio. First off we saw the crew pull two scrap gons out of Paxton-Sullivan scrap and replace those with one gondola as seen below: 

The crew then proceeded to pull cars out of Stephen’s Distributors, the team track, and Armitage Furniture:

These cars were then replaced with an N&W insulated boxcar for Stephen’s Grocery Distributors, a HLMX boxcar to the team track, and a Southern boxcar to Armitage:

Since dusk was falling we decided to catch some B&O action for awhile, then come back to take some night shots of our favorite railfan area:

Next time we’ll show the local switching out the oil/fuel dealer plus Monsanto so stay tuned… 

Finished and on the layout…..

 The pancake house/diner is now finished and on the layout. I think it looks fantastic and fits into the overall scheme! Photos below:

Build almost finished….

 So, this build is almost finished except for the tarpaper roofing and installing the exhaust vent and chimney. Several garbage cans, fire hydrant nearby and one or two customers will complete everything. Photos below including where this will sit on the layout:

And the build begins…..

 Since I’ve now received the Toppers Pancake House kit, I decided to start the build, at least start painting the parts. All the walls will be cement gray color with dark grey trim. Corner trim and upper part of the walls where they meet the roof will be a faded red, as well as the bottom panels on the front wall, alternating with white. The extension on the building will have white walls and dark grey door and trim. A black tarpaper roof will finish things out, along with a wall phone, newspaper rack, and several garbage cans. Photo of some of the painted parts:

Kit has arrived….!

 Well, the FOS diner kit is now in my hands. This looks like a bit of a challenge as the laser cut wood parts are very thin and fragile, compared to other laser kits I’ve built, but we shall see what happens! Again, I’ll post photos when completed…

Diner update….

 So the diner from FOS Scale Models has been shipped from Canada and should arrive hopefully safe and sound on Monday the 14th. I plan to build this right away in between weathering projects so stay tuned for when it’s completed and on the layout!

Coming soon…

 Coming soon to the layout, these two PC&F 5241 boxcars by Rapido:

Some random photos….

 Below are just some random shots we took the past month out along the Cincinnati Terminal sub: