Switch stands for the yards

Researching switch stands fot the yards and main line turnouts was a difficult task and one I found to be frustrating. There appeared to be  ,more than just a few different styles that were employed along the length and breadth of the Virginian Railway. I narrowed down the target style in my chosen area of the VGN in and around the New River which includes the old absorbed Deepwater sections of the Virginian lines. These had a circular target and and horizontal arrow.

The target colours are red for the circular and yellow orange for the arrows...

 Also evident in certain yards were the small switch stands with the four aspect lamps with coloured targets. I used a small block of timber with four washers glued around the outside.

The small 10BA washers were dished out using a centre punch into some plastic!

Components included a small piece of tube and other cut pieces of styrene.

The basic switch stand completed without throw lever.

A cluster of switch stands if that's what you might call them...

These were then coated in Dullcote and are now ready for installing on the layout at a later time.

The handcar shed and store room...

Also available from laserkit.com is their Cullen Handcar shed kit. This will compliment the Depot building. Just not decided on where it will be placed in the station yard yet but that will be decided when the scenery is under way on the layout.

 Just to make the standard style building a little different from the others, I added an extra store room on the end from the leftover wall parts in the kit.

Completed with the timber tacks in front to rail side.

Weathered with powders and with the original white doors.

A Depot for the station area...

The station down at the wharf needed to be small and the laserkit.com kit No.180 of Cullen was just what was needed. A nice kit to put together. I pre-painted the ribbed walls with orange acrylic paint before assembly.

I chose to use the earlier Virginian Railway orange and white paint scheme as opposed to the later grey paint scheme as it looks so much nicer. I know strictly speaking it should be grey for 1959 but my excuse is this station wasn't updated when most of the rest of the VGN system was done.

the basic building assembled.

Completed before weathering.

The waiting area shelter has nice detail.

Weathering with powders and little dry brushing.

The freight room door should be white too but I didn't paint that to give the impression it was probably replaced at some stage in its life and not painted. The splintered timbers on the timber platform sides come like that and is nice touch to give some age.

Coal loads for VGN and N&W Hoppers

We recently got stuck into make the coal loads for our hoppers. We want to be able to load them in at the tipple loaders, run the trains to the Port and unload them there. This will hopefully give a better life like operation on our railroad. We gathered all the hoppers together, and over a few evenings we made them all production line style. We started with the load made from balsawood. We chose to use the carved balsawood method as its easy, reasonably quick and gives the desired look we want.

As there were four different sizes of hopper to make loads for we had to count out each size and make them to fit. We have a mix of Accurail, Atlas, Athearn, and Bachmann hoppers. Each had to be customised for correct depth using blocks glued at each end to support the load to allow it sit level.

We will be making a magnetic wand to allow the operator to remove and place the loads into the hoppers. We tried a small button sized rare earth magnet and this appeared to be good for the lifting of the load. We screwed in a small countersunk screw in the centre of the balsawood load for the magnet to search for...

Testing the magnet.

The loads were carved into two or three profiles, some flat topped, some with multiple heaps and some rounded. The loads needed to appear above the top of the hopper sides as they appeared in historic photos.

A load sitting in an Accurail hopper.

The loads for my hoppers were then sprayed from a cheap Matt Black pressure pack, making sure the black covered the sides and ends as well as the tops.

PVA wood glue was applied
to the dried black load.

The glue was spread out as
evenly as possible - but not
on the sides or ends.

We crushed up real coal and sieved the pieces into three usable grades that we though would look right. A fine grade called "pea", a mid sized grade called "egg" and a larger size called "lump". These sizes are three of the five grades that were to come from tipples in the Appalachians that I had found during my research. The other two were "slack" and "nut" grades.

Seen here with mid sized "egg" grade. The coal was
just sprinkled on from above, the side and ends to cover
as much of the black surface as possible.

Some close up shots of the completed loads......

Coal loads with "pea" sized grade and on a multi heaped load base.

Coal loads with "egg" sized grade.

Coal loads with "lump" sized grade.

To finalise the loads for handling, we will be coating the underneath of the balsawood loads with paint or sealant to stop them fraying. Nothing worse than seeing bits of brightly coloured balsawood sitting on the hopper edges or the layout.