The Oil Depot Part 2

The oil depot is finished. 

The area was given some static grass and other bits of foliage. One mistake that I did make was not painting the baseboard first. This meant that some pen marks made on the baseboard were visible. I think that I may have tried to cover too big an area at one time and some of the glue had dried. This led to bald patches.

However, both of these issues were covered up with a bit of extra stuff.

Once everything was glued and stray bits vacuumed up, Billabong Marina was reattached. The chunks of lichen have come close to completing the job which I had intended. It might need a couple of more bits added.

The plywood that you can see will be covered up later.

The oil depot isn't looking too bad though. The oil loading platform had its damaged bits reattached (except for one of the filling pipes which is somewhere but not readily found) and placed into position. The platform must be about old enough to vote in the coming election and has been on a couple of other layouts before. It is made from two Walthers kits joined together.

As well as static grass, dyed sawdust, foam ground cover and lichen were also used to add some more character to the area. I also added some Noch laser cut flowers to add some small pops of colour. I have no idea what types of plants they are.

 I know that there will be some bits that not many people will be able to see without a step ladder but I have a couple of tall people in my operating group, I know that they'll appreciate the efforts.

What's next?

To be honest, I need to clean up a bit. I have another operating session planned and I need to put some things away.

After that, I have this little section:

It is a small little siding which hold no more than three bogie wagons. One spot will be for a small cattle yard. I have a few cattle wagons and they need a destination or two. The local dairy farmers will need to ship their cows in from somewhere and this cattle yard will help them out. The second spot will be for whatever needs to be unloaded there. The last spot is for unloading a coal hopper using a mobile conveyer. 

When I was at the Strasburg Railroad in the States last year I saw a grain hopper being unloaded into a truck using a conveyer. Model Railroader had an article about unloading coal hoppers into trucks using a mobile conveyer with one of their special project layouts as a small industry. I also found a pack of the Walthers kits in the model shop across road from the Strasburg Railroad. I thought that I could maybe modify it to unload grain. I haven't looked into it too much yet. In each pack, you get three of the mobile conveyers, so I reckon I'll get to it eventually.

Here's the plan for completing this section.

1. Make more retaining wall.
2. Use Scalescenes tarmac files for the coal unloading and middle wagon spots.
3. Repair the cattle ramps and adapt the fencing for the stock yard.
4. Find something suitable for the surface of the cattle yard.
5. Ballast track.
6. Add some more grass.

Until next time.