Track planning a P:48 Micro (part 2) The Scrapyard

As I have already bought a locomotive suitable for being a private scrap yard loco. How should I deal with the scrap yard section of the concept? This is where the inspiration boards really come into their own. There’s so many images out there that inspire. Images that I find inspiring, you might find dull, and vice versa. This first inspiration sheet is a handful of images I found in about 15 minutes. There’s a couple of images on the first sheet that really grabbed my attention. The wheels, and the half cut up box car. The Wheels because there’s always piles and piles of wheels in a railroad scrapping yard. Once removed form the scrapped cars, they get sent away to be re-tired and can then be re-used. The cut up box car would make a great scenic view block to hide an exit offstage, a micro layout design trick to make the layout appear bigger. With some panels and doors removed it would obstruct the view of whatever passes behind it on the tracks. In this case, the scrapyard would become a sort of “ghost industry”. That’s an industry that is not on the layout but receives traffic. Cars would be pushed off scene pretty quickly with little indication of what’s going on. A fail on the “telling a story” angle. There’s a part of me that feels that wouldn’t be right and I need to see more of the scrapyard than a cut up box car and a pile of wheels,

This second sheet is some of the research pictures from Northern Metal recycling in St. Cloud, MN images that I used in my Seven Day Model Railroad project back in 2009. The layout caught the attention of quite a lot of people. Even to the extent that employees of the company who came to the Granite City Train Show in St. Cloud one year recognized the structures on the layout, and still talk to me about the layout several years later. I guess that means the layout was a success in the “distilling the essence of the location”. These employees quite happily discussed their work and shared details that helped the model develop. For instance, did you know that different weight/sized wheels were painted different colors on the axle ends to distinguish them? Orange and White are the colours in the pictures. Paint axle ends orange and white on your model scrap wheels to distinguish them.

I look at these pictures some thirteen years later and they still fascinate and interest me. Just look at those boxcar ends being used to hold back a pile of scrap metal. I would never have thought to model something like that if I hadn’t seen it myself. I learned so much from Wingett’s Recycling. It was a very successful layout. I miss it. 

I enjoyed it so much. Perhaps it begs another question. Should I recreate it in P:48? That’s a subject for another post.