Tuesday, November 24, 2009

More on the Industrial TTrak Module

While I've been waiting for the wall panel parts to arrive, I have been checking out the structures using the paper templates. That's when I discovered that I may have miscounted the DPM sections. Oh, well, I guess the three story building on the left may have to be five stories tall. I can live with that :-).

As for the Walthers panels, there will be a few extras there as well. So, in all likelyhood, one or both of the right pair of buildings will get a smaller extra area on the roof.

The decision to make them separate buildings is final. I like the open end of the siding, rather than a dead end 'box canyon' appearance. So, a connector walkway was added between them.

The two glue bottles on the left front are stand-ins for some fuel oil or chemical storage tanks. Otherwise, the pictorial tour around the module should pretty well speak for itself.







































Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Module progress

The long-awaited Tomix 30º crossing came in today, so I "had" to play with it. The first picture shows the final arrangement of the tracks on a module for an industrial park. Overall, I did have to cut three pieces of track, the Kato 15º crossing, a piece of Kato straight track, and a short piece of Tomix. The cut Tomix piece is between the LH turnout and the 30º crossing.
Cutting both brands is very easy, takes about 5-10 minutes, start to finish.

The Kato adapter between the 15º crossing and the 30º crossing is stock length, but had to have a little of the roadbed 'wing' relieved to accommodate the Tomix crossing's other leg. I'm looking forward to seeing how this one finishes out. The sidings ought to be a bit of fun at shows, eh? One (maybe both?) sidings will enter warehouse type building(s).

















The other pictures show the current state of the middle-income apartment complex. Man, the apartment kits have been time consumers, for sure. Finally, today, I got the staircases assembled. Some black paper for a view block, the roofs, and figures will finish them out.

And, you should have a pretty good idea of where I'm going with the module. A two-lane street will be where the vehicles sit. There should be a bus lane about where the green semi sits. Some sidewalks, trees and grass will just about finish it off.

In the back is a Greenmax footbridge kit. It has two in there, but I will build them as a long single crossing the road and tracks to a linear park along the outside edge.












Yesterday I worked in 9th grade English. The kids were pretty good to me. Tomorrow, it's French class, and Friday it's World Geography. I guess I'm just a man of few talents, and master of none . . .

Later,

Joe