Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Florida rr Punta Gorda and Mulberry

I've added several new structures in Punta Gorda since the last post. I scratch built a car ferry dock lift largely because the one I had from Locust Grove didn't fit. I used a few parts but that was all. I also scratch built two car ferry's and finished the warehouses against the backdrop. Finally I added the pilings along the seawalls.





I really overdid it in Lakeland. I had bought a couple of modern engine house kits I wanted to make the Phosphate plants from. After I built them I thought they looked kind of lonely so....
I went to Walthers looking for some tanks that might fit. Wow! they had lots so I bought one of each:)
I also had a piping kit so I thought why not connect the billions of tanks I bought to the plants. I painted the pipes red (flammable), Yellow (toxic) and White (nontoxic) do far so good. Installing the pipes turned out to be a nightmare. There are little feet the pipes go on top of and fittings for joining pipes together and valves for regulating flow. I turned relative simple plant construction project into a month of work









 As you can see lots still to do, ballast, fascia, ground cover, some dozen small craftsman kits to be scattered about and I still need a crew as the first two I must have scared off. AND of course the critical mine hasn't been started either or the freighter sitting unpainted or the scratch built Punta Gorda Station. (I photographed the ACL depot in Punta Gorda and will attempt to replicate a condensed version.) Well.. this virus thing looks like it will drag on and on and on so maybe I will have time this year to complete some of that stuff.

Florida RR DCC, Lakeland, Arcadia

My dead rail experiment failed. Batteries charging cables were hard to find and one or more batteries seemed to go dead all the time. So..... I tried to use my 25 year old MRC unit. It came with a walk-around that I never could get to work. So.... I bought a new Zephyr from Digitrax and I love it.
I have a screen that is capable of displaying multiple lines of data and there is a quick programming button that calls up several cv values and allow the user to change any and all at once then displays the new vales.


Lakeland waybilled structures are completed. That's my word and I use it to designate structures that reside next to spurs that accept deliveries by rail. These next shots are Lakeland.






 Not much has happened in Arcadia since the last post but the yard is now



populated with cars to be delivered. Another post follows showing work completed at Punta Gorda and Mulberry.