Still working on the warehouse

      The four walls and the roof are done. The green will be painted black and fine ballast will be glued on top. I also ordered roof top units which I'll then install on the roof.

     I've also been working on my platforms. The platform roofs were given it's first coat of paint and all the pillars are now done. The side of the roofs is a balsa strip which solidifies the strings on the roof. I will now be able to cut the strings under the roof. I will install hanging lamps later.

Little details and the warehouse

     For the past few days, I've been working on some details such as this security gate made from scratch. This will be at the entrance of the container yard. I still need to make a few touch ups, but I'm happy with the result.

     I also tried making a link fence which will surround the container yard, I'm happy, but not satisfied. I'll have to give it another try later.

     I've also started working on my "L" shape warehouse. The walls are made of foam board. I searched the net for brick like walls in HO scale and found someone in Greece that sold them on EBay. The bricks are printed in color on embossed paper. I really like the look and feel of these.

New Year for the layout

     Before continuing on the layout, I decided to do a little staging of my container yard. I then realized that I needed to extend it in the back so that my tractor lift for the small containers could have access to the right side. Did a bit of weathering on the concrete with the expansion joints.

Roofs and already a modification to the plan

     I decided on making my own platform galvanized roof, well at least try. I used foam board which I sliced open and then inserted a piece of balsa to form the angle. To create the galvanized portion of the roof, I made notches and then rapped a sewing thread in each notch.

      As you can see from the picture, I will be building from scratch, a storage warehouse in a "L" shape and building a freight building from a kit. There will be a road leading to the warehouse and running in back of it to the freight building.

     I decided to move the passenger yard from inside the circle to the outside (bottom). In the center of the track, I will be building a little town so that the passenger train will circle the town. I will need to plan for that town later.

Concrete and more concrete

      I've build four platforms for my box car yard. A piece of wood was covered with foam board and balsa wood and the painted grey to look like concrete. Three of the platforms will have roofs with lights and of course more weathering.

     The concrete flooring of the container yard is now semi finish. I will be adding some weathering to the concrete and some black and yellow stripes.