Topic: Progress Reports
The cement factory's rotary kiln now rotates! Doug has concealed a slow motion motor inside the white styrene building at the end of the kiln closest to the camera. The kiln itself is a section of PVC pipe. The two pylons supporting the kiln were scratch built with styrene sheet. Small rollers are located inside the pylons permitting the kiln to rotate. Only one piece of the factory, the clinker silo, remains to be built. Guess I need to get going on that. I'm also considering adding more details to the tower at the far end of the kiln.
I have been working on structures for the plant which processes soy beans into vegetable oil. My inspiration for this is such a plant in Sioux City, Iowa. I took photographs of it when I had an interest in modeling the Chicago Central and Pacific. That was before the Illinois Central bought back it's spin-off, which was before CN purchased the IC. You can see how long ago I took those photos. 
Although the soy beans arrive by truck (no inbound rail shipments), it generates outbound shipments by tank cars and covered hoppers. The Sioux City plant is one of the smaller examples of these sorts of facilities in Iowa and thus seems a reasonable candidate for modeling. Even though it is small, it isn't quite small enough for the space I have for the oil processing plant. It isn't a simple factory either. Lots of pipes, and tanks, and unknown "things". Coming up with how to fabricate all of these "thingies" takes a little time. It also takes a bit of head scratching over how to fit it all in. Hence, my progress is slow.
Whenever tiring of all this pondering I have been working on other small projects. How about a change of scales. Well, actually is no "scale" to scenery but this is work on an HO layout, i.e., the coal transfer exhibit. Ever since the unhappy results with Woodland Scenics' "Realistic Water", I've wanted to replace it. I discovered that I could peel it up a little like you peel and orange. With that done I poured a watery mix of Hydrocal into the "riverbed". I'm now in the process of coloring the riverbed before adding Envirotex for the water. It is taking several applications of various color tints to arrive at a satisfactory appearance for a riverbed.
I am also doing the last bit of the rock work around Mound City. It seems a good idea to intersperse a few areas of natural rock cuts for relief from the significant runs of concrete retaining walls demanded by the seven levels on which Mound City rests. In the photograph work has progressed only so far as the shading stage, but I have since added several coats of color and should be able to finish up with the bleaching (or highlighting) tomorrow. 
These rock cuts are around the brewery and overlook the Mississippi riverfront. At the other end of the layout and in the Colorado Rockies I have a little bit of rocks to cast around the backside of the Nighthawk town site. Once the casting is done I'll color the new rocks and a few previous casts which weren't done when I was working on the front of the mountain. A bit of smoothing of lumpy hardshell is required on the building sites in Nighthawk to prevent some tilting buildings as if there had been some recent earthquake. Of course, there are those high canyon walls to the east of Nighthawk which are waiting on new rock molds . A very good reason for another trip to Colorado!
I have mostly completed scratch building the creosote treatment retort for the railroad tie and timbers mill. The two chambers still need doors on the front. I'm thinking of using steam locomotive boiler front detail parts for these doors. Of course, there is always the piping required by these sorts of things. I am coming to hate pipes! With animating the rotary kiln out of the way, Doug has turned his attention to the trestle and bridge needed to bring the tracks that last bit of the way into Nighthawk. These are quite a challenge! The trestle is on a side slope and is located at an angle to the slope. This requires each bent to be custom fitted. Cribbing around two mine sites are the only other structures remaining to built on the mountain. Now if I can just learn the technique for creating "bottle brush" pine trees all the pieces of the mountain should be in place. 
The yard in front of the mountains is going to be the first subject of turnout activation. I have given Dave diagrams of the various routes required through the yard and he has been work on the design for the electronics. Once this is done, our volunteers should have more opportunity to operate their own trains on the layout. I think the second area for activation will be in Mound City so those with an interest in switching can get a workout.
This is my first attempt with a new software for authoring the web log, I am not at all sure how this post will look when uploaded. It is a challenge for both me and my computer. The program seems to want more memory than is in my five year old computer and the computer chokes up at times. Whereas I don't know html, I must rely on the WYSIWYG function and the computer isn't too pleased to have to deal with that. I'm also working with new photo editing software which isn't all that happy with my computer either. And my hard drive that had seemed so large before is pretty puny in the face of the digital camera files it didn't have to contend with when I first purchased the computer. Too may bits for my little computer. Unfortunately, my budget is equally small and choking on the thought of a new computer. I don't know when a new piece of hardware will be in my future.
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