Panel 3 is Walton, one of the busy ends of the Cheverie Mountain layout. Driving into Walton on the 215 one passes the wilderness road that leads to the now abandoned barite open pit and shaft mine. I will be bringing this facility back to life with lots of animation. A bridge crosses the tidal Walton River where the 215 swings left and then off the layout to East Walton in the NE. There are two barite silos full of processed barite from the old mill that used to operate here - the silos are all that is left. A new mill will be built on the layout but not here. I am friends with the owner of the silos and have full access to the interior of the silos so I can model them. The owner has also allowed me to collect barite from inside for my layout (she helped me collect it herself).
A small road leads up to a lighthouse (museum) that overlooks Minas Basin from the top of impressive shale cliffs slowly eroding from the Bay of Fundy tides. This is where I have to pick a moment in the tidal cycle to model because the tides are extreme. I'll choose low tide so I can make lots of mud! All structures will be built on bedrock made from real shale slabs gathered from this very location.
The Walton Woods Road heading SE is where the rail action begins, so the next panel will lie on the SE edge of this one.
Panel 4 lies SE of Walton (Panel 3 shown as well). To the NE is a wind farm. There is currently one new wind turbine in the real area, but more are likely to follow so I'll model three or four of them. Dresser Minerals Road is the way into the Walton open pit and shaft mines. A track crosses this road and will be used as one of several staging areas for ore hopper cars. Part of the open pit, with elevation contours, is shown. The rest of the mining area, including the structures and more rail, will be on another panel SE of Panel 4.
Another field trip to Cheverie this morning. It was sunny, warm and low tide - perfect. Took lots of photos of shale cliffs. In this picture the shale thicknesses extend all the way down to HO scale. I'll be able to make my own real shale cliffs and rock cuts for roads and tracks.
There are some excellent fossils in the Cheverie shale cliffs so I'll also include a paleontology team and a fossil dig along the layout shoreline.
Doing a little research on building real rock cuts at scale based on my collection of shale plates and photos.
After three days of reorganizing the basement storage areas (a lot of 'stuff' has got to go this spring) I am almost ready to resume the layout planning. Given the limited financial resources available for this project, I have made a DC/DCC decision that will impact the layout design - it will require more complex thinking on my part.
I am going to have two independent tracks, one DC and one DCC. I have been buying up DC locomotives at great prices (good used and never used), but have limited my spending on DCC diesels. The DCC will provide all the great sounds around the yards and down the mainlines, but the DC cars will all be high end products (savings by not going 100% DCC). For example, I have my order in for all twelve road numbers of the Rapido grey CN-noodle 3800 cu. ft. cylindrical hoppers instead of two more expensive DCC locomotives.
So, will be back soon with more layout panels.
Have a bit more space in the basement now. Here is a 12 ft by 29 inch layout section consisting of five panels - the fifth just added. This temporary layout area will make it easier to plan the tracks. So far the layout is 2-D but eventually there will be hills, valleys and cliffs.
It's also nice to work with the real HO hoppers that I'll be using in this area of the layout. Live loads in these cars include gypsum, barite, shale, and coal.
Field trip to Cheverie to search for rarer minerals. Specifically, more rare than gypsum [CaSO4 2H2O], barite (BaSO4) and pyrite (FeS2). Found manganese oxide dendrites so we can add this to the list of samples to find for the layout.
Also found siderite (iron carbonate FeCO3).
The first time I have ever seen this mineral. It appears to be pyrophyllite [Al2Si4O10(OH)2], in other words, aluminum silicate. All of these minerals will help determine the number of processing/research facilities/structures at the ficticious Cheverie Mountain Mineral Production and Research Facility, the largest rail service complex in the entire layout. One rolling stock car I will require based on these finds, is a sulphuric acid tanker, plus an unloading bay.
fender777This is like a course in geology which I love' Cant wait to see it come alive. Thanks for showing all the rocks.
I'll be posting my next panel later today after I visit the Museum of Natural History in Halifax. Need to get a bit of Nova Scotia mastodon history for this panel.
Mastodon bones have been found in several Nova Scotia locations since about 1833. In 1989 tusks and other pieces of bone were found near the gypsum quarry close to Windsor, which is an important railway and gypsum location in my layout. In 1991, however, lots of bones from a mastodon that had fallen into a gypsum sinkhole filled with clay made big news. This site was at the currently operating National Gypsum Canada quarry in Milford, not far from my real layout area.
Two gypsum quarries operated in Kempt Shore, Nova Scotia in the past and I am bringing them back into operation in the layout on Panel 5. One of the quarries is flooded today and used by the community as a recreational park with warning signs about sinkholes. This is where I will have a mastodon dig by a team of paleontologists.
There is an old church in Kempt Shore that I will model as well. The rail lines from Walton, Cambridge, Cheverie, and Cheverie Mountain will turn south along the Avon River on/near this panel.
The length of my layout from the Walton lighthouse to the Kempt Shore church is now 14 ft 2 in. This is perfect for my basement because it leaves me about four feet to walk around this section which is at the top of my basement area that I posted earlier in this thread - the dimension is 15 ft in the diagram.
Off to play my acoustic solo set at a great Halifax waterfront pub and grill tonight. Have a nice evening everyone.
When will you get down to benchwork and tracklaying and wiring and such?
The geology is fine, but this forum section is about layouts - building them and the problems that arise. I'm a rock collector too - and appreciate the draw, but I do believe this thread would be better received if you talked of building an actual layout.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
mobilman44 When will you get down to benchwork and tracklaying and wiring and such? The geology is fine, but this forum section is about layouts - building them and the problems that arise. I'm a rock collector too - and appreciate the draw, but I do believe this thread would be better received if you talked of building an actual layout.
you are seeing it built in real time. Flat foam panels on tables - very simple with no bench work. Above this foam layer will be all rock and minerals - no plaster, no cork, no plastic (except trains, tracks, vehicles and figures). All mountains, hills, cliffs, roads, valleys, mines, quarries are real rock and minerals from my real layout area.
All wood is driftwood from West Jeddore no wood from hobby shops. All loads are real rock and minerals from the layout area. Tracks are being placed right now, and trains will run on them as they expand.
If the interest level is low it's because no one has built a live layout before as far as I can tell from my growing collection of modelling literature.
all wiring will lay between the foam layer you see and the live ground cover.
Alright, for the skeptics I will take a brief detour from my geographical layout to illustrate a few novel techniques required in my live layout. I am going to take this rock and clay from the beach in Cheverie, build an HO rock face, and pass electricity right through it to run an electromechanical system for animation. I'll be back when it's complete.
OldSchoolScratchbuilder If the interest level is low it's because no one has built a live layout before as far as I can tell from my growing collection of modelling literature. all wiring will lay between the foam layer you see and the live ground cover.
OldSchoolScratchbuilder Alright, for the skeptics I will take a brief detour from my geographical layout to illustrate a few novel techniques required in my live layout. I am going to take this rock and clay from the beach in Cheverie, build an HO rock face, and pass electricity right through it to run an electromechanical system for animation. I'll be back when it's complete.
So far, this is mostly about rock collecting expeditions and little else about actually building a model railroad layout. In one of your earlier threads, you made reference to "lifetime testing" and when I asked what that meant, I never got a response from you.
Now, you make a statement like "build an HO rock face, and pass electricity right through it to run an electromechanical system for animation". What does this mean?
You suggest that interest may be low because no one has built a live layout before. What does that mean? What is a live layout?
My only point is that the all of this could be more meaningful to other modelers if we had a better sense of what all of this means and how you plan to operate this layout.
Rich
Alton Junction
As far as benchwork goes, my entire layout sits on folding tables from Costco. That's it! The 3/4" foam (about 5.5' HO - people height) that sits on the folding tables is only available at Home Depot in Nova Scotia, and not all of their stores carry it. Everytime I see it on the shelf, I buy it up. I'll continue to do this until I have enough for my entire basement layout area plus spares. You can see a small piece of this foam in the picture.
The top surface of the foam is nominally sea level for my entire layout. The rock and two track sections will be installed on this electrical wiring demonstrator.
All of my surface objects and structures of significance will sit on bedrock of some kind from my real layout area. All bedrock will be sunk into the foam, including all track beds. I use a heat knife to easily carve up the foam.
It's important to know my geology if I am going to do clever things on my layout, including wiring. This rock was selected for a reason. It is shale and has planar cleavage lines (i.e., is laminated by natural processes). This means I can pry it apart into nice smooth layers. I can now embed electronics between the layers, or even inside the shale which is soft enough to hollow out.
Instead of cork, I will use Cheverie clay under all track beds. Cork has a unique Poisson's ratio of 0 which makes it a good vibration damper - the clay will do almost as well. I used cork from time to time during my career designing high power naval sonars to detect quiet submarines (active anti-submarine warfare). So, I don't need to buy any cork.
Finally, and this is the artistic fun, I applied the clay and will allow it to dry overnight. I'll be back tomorrow on this aspect of the layout.
richhotrain OldSchoolScratchbuilder If the interest level is low it's because no one has built a live layout before as far as I can tell from my growing collection of modelling literature. all wiring will lay between the foam layer you see and the live ground cover. OldSchoolScratchbuilder Alright, for the skeptics I will take a brief detour from my geographical layout to illustrate a few novel techniques required in my live layout. I am going to take this rock and clay from the beach in Cheverie, build an HO rock face, and pass electricity right through it to run an electromechanical system for animation. I'll be back when it's complete. I'm not so sure that "skeptics" is the right word. It may be more a sense of bewilderment about what you are trying to accomplish and how you are going about it. Your threads have plenty of views but very few replies - - - the "curiosity factor", as I call it. Other forum members are checking in to see where this is all heading. So far, this is mostly about rock collecting expeditions and little else about actually building a model railroad layout. In one of your earlier threads, you made reference to "lifetime testing" and when I asked what that meant, I never got a response from you. Now, you make a statement like "build an HO rock face, and pass electricity right through it to run an electromechanical system for animation". What does this mean? You suggest that interest may be low because no one has built a live layout before. What does that mean? What is a live layout? My only point is that the all of this could be more meaningful to other modelers if we had a better sense of what all of this means and how you plan to operate this layout. Rich
I'm not so sure that "skeptics" is the right word. It may be more a sense of bewilderment about what you are trying to accomplish and how you are going about it. Your threads have plenty of views but very few replies - - - the "curiosity factor", as I call it. Other forum members are checking in to see where this is all heading.
You lack patience grasshopper. :)
While the clay hardens overnight, I am preparing the rock. For the train to communicate with the rock, I needed to carefully cut through it. Shale is fragile so only loosening a handful of layer pieces was a success and will be trivial to reassemble (just like a jigsaw puzzle).