It's Alive!

I have started a small series on youtube that I am going to call Model Railroad Quick Clips.  Essentially they are just raw clips that I feel like shooting while I am downstairs working on the layout.  They might be small thoughts or updates.  Or like these first two, a shot of trains running.

Progress!

I have been sick for the past couple of days which means I have had time to lay here and dream up my railroad! I have continued looking into the Port Siding area and I still feel that it will be a much more exciting area for me to model.  I was able to come up with a track plan that includes three industries that I want to model:

I was also able to find more aerial imagery thanks to Bing Maps...such a great tool for at home RR research!

Starting with what I am going to call Kurtz Bros. Gravel (for now, until I figure out what it really was) you can see the empty hoppers that I think were loaded by front loader.

It looks like OHCR stores random cars on these support tracks too.  I would guess that these came from Magnum and Heartland up the way.

Here again you can see a randomly placed boxcar.

Moving to Magnum Drywall you can see where they unload the hoppers and load finished products on to centerbeam flatcars.  I have yet to see a car spotted on the southern track so I am assuming that it is just used for switching purposes within Magnum.

Finally, here are a couple shots of Hearland Petroleum including one from when it was under construction, pretty neat!

A Possible Diverging Route...

Hi everyone!

I have decided or think I have decided on a NEW modeling location...I know this might be somewhat surprising to some of you but let me explain:

What I had been trying to model before was nothing more than a series of EXTREME compromises and artistic interpretation of what I thought would make a cool model railroad, but really it was causing frustration.  I could not find any of the information that I needed to fully model CCF because it no longer exists. I hadnt even the slightest clue as to what it might have looked like or what they shipped in/out.  The information was just not there.  The double track main that runs through the 2AIL is mostly laden with massive trains, that I would never have the space to model in my present situation.  Also, I would have never been able to model Clark Grave Vault to any sort of realistic representation.  The factory is over a 1000 feet long in real life...All of this was leading to the eventual downfall of my plan.

Enter Ohio Central and OC's Port Siding!

I happened to stumble upon this while at work the other day and I had no idea what I had been missing out on. Before this, I had never heard of this small Class II branch that is literally 10 minutes from my house and, for the most part, it all still exists today! This may be one of the most diverse 2.5 mile stretches of track that I have found in Columbus:

Starting just N of I-670 W of Port Siding we have the dismantled Pennsylvania Railroad St. Clair Ave. enginehouse and 20th St. Shops, which is the NS/CSX/OC interchange that will be serving Port Siding industrial district.

Heading E from there we encounter Alum Creek and OC Alum Creek bridge and the abandoned Nelson road water treatment plant:

Continuing down the line we encounter Columbus Window Co. and Midwest Express Co. both of which are railserved!

Going even further we come to some even more interesting stuff!  First is some sort of gravel/cement company.  Unfortunately, this is gone today but according to aerial imagery it was there in 2010, so I think I will model it.  It seemed to have some rail service! 

Continuing E we come upon Magnum drywall products, which is definetely rail served and has some very neat structures for unloading hoppers.

And finally rounding out the industries is Heartland Petroleum!  A very very cool industry with amazing potential for modeling.  This will be the last industry on my layout and the last that I will build because it is going to require a lot of skill that I have not developed yet.  I will definetely have to pick the brains of some of the modelers that I have seen do refinery type structures.

So that's it... I am very excited about this new breakthrough I have had and even more excited that I have found it so close to my home! Visiting and snapping photos wont be too hard. Let me know what you all think and if you have any information about this location please feel free to share it. More updates to come as I narrow down what I will model and how! 

In other news...track work continues into the yard: