Mini Tripod - New Siding and Closeups

On my travels with the Friday Night Gang I had experienced some difficulty taking pictures at our host's layouts. I had ventured out to Walmart photo department to drop off a disposable camera for my daughter and saw this little 5 inch high tripod that was just perfect for what I needed. It was small enough to fit in my pant pocket and the legs do expand to get more height on the shot. For nine bucks Canadian it was a great deal. I zipped on home and mounted it on the ol' Canon powershot pro1....started zoomin in on some trains. Maximized the apature to 8.5... put on the macro feature and started firing away. This first shot is of an Overland SD38-2. These ran from Edmonton to high prairie and eventually were bought by CN and still run today in the Sgt Stripe paint scheme.



My next shot I decided to photo the oil storage facility with power on the inbound tracks. You see the BNSF SD70Mac beside the MLW 424. I used a kitchen flour tile that closely resembled concrete around this facility. The track is peco code 75. The process I used for laying track was to take cork underlay and glued it to the 3/4 inch composite board with yellow carpenters glue. Then I painted flat black acrylic house paint where the track was to go. Then when dry, I poured 100% white glue over the black track area and rubbed it around to ensure the area was covered evenly.... no blobbs:) Then I connected to the finished track letting it lay naturally in the wet glue. In the area of turnouts I made sure there was no glue where the points and throw bar are, Look close at photo. Then, I liberally poured on the ballast taking a fine brush to spread it evenly between the ties so that the ballast and thin layer of glue met. When dry I took out my trusty dust buster stricly used for ballast clean up and ran it over the completed area. I emptied the contents back into by ballast jar and this saved a whole bunch for the next laying.









The next picture is taken in staging where the coal drag is parked on three tracks. The overland SD50AF 5501 and BCR Dash 8 4612 are waiting their train orders. Mike and I had a great time yesterday moving this big train through the crossover with the oncoming grain train approaching. The cars were from Atlas and are sold in 12 packs.








In the next picture the entrance to the main classification yard shows a mixed freight on the inside main and on the outside main a Unit BNSF grain train with an Overland gp60M and B unit at the front. The container transfer facility is behind. I am standing in the isle right at the siding that leads into three industries. A two track grain transfer elevator....a two track furniture manufacture company and a single track lumber ditribution centre. You can see the alco switcher heading toward the furniture industry. The bulkhead flat is an old roundhouse 61 footer that is custom painted using tamiya colours to be a blackish green. CDS dry transfers were applied to produce an exact car I had photoed in Halifax years ago. The lumber load was also from that car as you can see it was stagger stacked.



Today..my last day of leave will be spent completing my track work. Then the fun begins. I think I will start back at the time saver and paint the backdrop. Finish the kit for the cement industry lumber mill and go from there. Maybe detail the locomotive facility: Man this is fun