Saturday 21 February 2015

Rock Crusher Relocation

This is the quarry scene with the rock crusher as it appeared on my earlier version of the Green Mountain Division

An Old Structure Moves To A New Location..by Don Janes

    A few years ago when I tore down my original Green Mountain Division I had a lot of structures left over.  At first I felt that I had to use them on the new layout because I had spent so much time and money to buy and build them but as I got into the construction of the new layout I was finding that most structures weren't going to fit as I had hoped. I struggled with selling them even though I knew I wouldn't have a spot for most of them. I finally sold the Bellows Falls freight house and an engine house to George as he was going to model Bellows Falls on his new layout expansion and I was not. After that it wasn't so hard and since then I have sold quite a few of the older structures with a few more to sell.  One structure I wanted to keep was a rock crusher I had scatchbuilt.  I like the idea of a stone quarry with a large crusher and sorting building to add some operation to the layout. As you can see from the above photo it only had a small rail car capacity but was a busy little scene.
A CNR 2-8-0 hauls a freight by the quarry

The new location has two tracks, one for loads and another for empty car storage.  The center track runs through a rock cut to the hidden staging behind Waterbury. The foreground track is the visible mainline through Waterbury
      When I discussed placing this structure on the new layout George thought it might look a little more like a W.Virginia or Pennsylvania coal loader than a New England rock crusher but I think with the right scenery and signage I can make it look at home in Vermont.  I added two tracks this time for a little more operation and more car capacity.  There will be a section beyond the crusher where the stone is being dug out as well as a conveyor representing another quarry further away.

A couple of more shots of the roughed in crusher and open quarry area
       So far I have located the rock crusher, roughed in the scenery and carved the rock. I will have to do a little backdrop painting then start adding ground cover, trees and details to the scene.  I think the scene will also need a couple of smaller building like an office and storage shed.  I hope to make this a busy location on the layout which will provide local switching and pick-ups and set outs for mainline trains.  I have a little Rutland 70 Tonner that will likely be the quarry switcher.  It has a Loksound decoder and will sound great shuffling hoppers around the quarry
Rutland #500, a 70 Tonner will be the Quarry switch once the scene is complete.

1 comment:

  1. Nice structure and relocation on your layout Mr. Janes. Hope to see more pics of your layout soon. Also thank you to Mr. Dutka for having posted them on his page.

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