I have this kit but have not yet begun to assemble it preferring to lay the track first. I can't tell from the picture if the unloading platforms are at ground level. In other words, do the tracks need to be at ground level so the bottom of the stock car doors line up with the unloading platform, or is road bed required in order to bring the stock cars doors up to the unloading platform level. Hope this makes sense.
If anyone is using this kit I sure would appreciate some edification on this.
Thanks.
Bear "It's all about having fun."
This is during early construction:
There is a piece of 3/16 white foamboard under the stockyard, which brings it up to the same level as the WS foarm roadbed. So, it guess the answer is that the stockyard is intended to be mounted at the same height as the track. If you're using roadbed, you'll need to raise it up.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Thanks for the response Mister B. In fact, if this is the case, then I am not going to use roadbed. I am going to drop from the mainline down to the ground surface with the spur that will serve the stock pens.
Hi!
The kit as I built it has two fixed loading platforms that take the cattle up to railcar level. There are also two "portable" ramps that are for taking the cattle down from trucks and into the pens.
As an aside........ when I finished the structure and painted/weathered, I applied a thin coat of elmers glue/water to the base, and then sprinkled on various kinds of dark, fine, ground foam.
I've seen a few of these, and they are dirty, very smelly, but sooo cool to model.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
The good thing about modelling the pens, is that you don't have to model the smell.
I picked up a couple of kits for Mather stock cars from Walthers. These are double-decked kits, so I went with hogs as my livestock to justify double-deck cars.
I built up only one of the pens, because I've got a very small space for the whole yard. That's one of the nice things about this kit - it's pretty easy to model a different configuration.
At first, I went with a straw base, but that looked wrong and I went with mud instead. I know it sounds silly, but it really looked better once I "weathered" my pigs.
I am going to use cattle scars, not double decked ones. Which leads me to another question. It looks like you have built up the pens and the packing plant by 3/16 inches. Did you build up the entire area. Because, it strikes me that if I did use road bed, then I would probably have to lay down some of the WS foam sheets to raise the pens, the packing plant (I am using Walthers champion packing), and scenic with the parking lot the road out of the plant and over the taacks. On this track plan ignore the blue circle.
This is not an up-to-date plan since the spur on the right comes off the main about 15 inches farther north. The rectangle is the packing plant and it will be located frather north, almost to the middle of those four turnouts, with the stock pens immediately to the south. The main is on the far left and the middle track serves as a pasing siding. Based on your initial response to my question, I was going to drop the passing siding to ground level since there is more track lenght to make the transition a little more gentle than dropping the spur serving the stock pens. If I use roadbed, which may make life easier when using the passing siding, then I think I would have to raise the entire area by 3/16 inches north of the packing plant and south of the packing palnt between the spur on the right and the switchback on the left. The parking lot will be north of the packing plant with a road leading directly north eventually crossing over a curved main just beyond that turnout at the very top of the plan.
I put in the yard tracks where the packing plant stands long before I decided what I wanted there. I put all the tracks up on roadbed, which was a mistake, because yards aren't typically built that way. I ended up filling in the spaces between the roadbed sections an then using very little ballast.
So, I did raise the area beneath the pens to bring them up to track level. If I were to do it again, I'd just make the whole thing flat. However, if you are spotting cars using the Kadee "delayed uncoupling" option, then you want to keep the whole thing relatively flat so the cars don't run away because the siding is sligthly downhill.
That 3/16 foam board is cheap and easy to work with.
That settles it Mr. B. I am going to drop the passing siding 3/16 inches to ground level. Thanks for your comments.
It really depends on your rail size(code) and whether or hot you have the kit base on top or blended into the surrounded scenery. I am using code 100 and N scale roadbed and it looks ok. I have done this kit as part of a kitbashing project. With cattle, there is a ramp used anyway--not included in the kit. They didn't want the hooves to get caught between the car and platform and cattle don't like walking over gaps(like cattle guards). I think the kit looks better when blended into the scenery vs just placed on top.
Richard
I am using Code 83 and I am going to blend the base into the scenery. And, I think I will have to do some bashing on the kit as well. May need to do a little bit of something, not sure what yet, to make sure that the off loading platform is even with the bottom of the stock car door.
The stock pen and the track should be on bases of similar levels, although you may be able to alter the height of the high end of the ramp.I scratchbuilt my stockpens, so this one, located on the mainline which is on cork, has a higher ramp than usual:
This one is on a siding, quite a bit lower than the adjacent main line, so both the pens and the track are directly atop the plywood layout base:
Wayne
Nice work DrW