Yulan Valley Railroad. A Steel Mill in 1/48 Scale

Neville

Western Thunderer
Hi everyone.
I have not posted here for a long time I hope this time I can hang around a bit longer.
I want to find a Forum that is about Railway modelling and nothing else looking at the threads this one seems to be the the place.
My Railroad is 1/48 USA I have posted threads here before.
There have been lots of changes over the last four years including a name change. The railroad is now called the "Yulan Valley Railroad (YVR).
The YVR is actually a Shortline run with leased Erie lackawanna locomotives and is complete with passenger service mainly for Steel Mill workers the main Railroad action centres around the Steel Mill called Republic Steel all this exists only in the owners mind I have not based the layout on anywhere in particular except to say it is in North of America somewhere near Youngstown Ohio. Even though I have used the name "Republic Steel" of which the real Republic Steel had huge steel mills in America I have only used the name because to me it just sounds American!
I hope to post photos of my progress starting from this thread some of you would have seen threads of the Steel mill on other forums they have stopped I have never liked posting the same photos on other forums so any photos posted here in the future will only be for Western Thunder.
Hopefully I can provide some entertainment for the members in the future.
I still travel to the UK most years and did visit this year around June to early for Telford.
Next message I hope to have some photos.
Regards Neville.
 

Neville

Western Thunderer
I went around the layout today and snapped a few photos. These are completely new photos never shown anywhere else.
Let me know if I'm doing anything wrong as far as posting the photos. thanks.
The layout is fully operational the scenery is not finished I'm a one man band and do everything myself except the electrical which is all DC not digital I'm a dinosaur with not enough time! Neville.


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Neville

Western Thunderer
My latest project is filling in one of the aisles where there is no controls I still need to get into the area in case of derailments so it is portable, one module lifts out the rest just slide along runners I am still working on this section I am going to build a electrical sub station where that light brown building is (next to the VW).
That large structure in the background is my idea of a Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) Hot Iron from the blast furnace goes in along with scrap metal this is where the steel is finally made and ingots of Steel go out to the Blooming Mill to be made into basic slabs the slabs are then taken around on scratch built cars to the rolling mill for the final finish my Rolling mill makes coils of Steel they are then moved in special Coil cars see the last three photos showing the various styles of coil Cars.DSC01086.JPG DSC01087.JPG DSC01088.JPG DSC01089.JPG DSC01090.JPG
 

Jordan

Mid-Western Thunderer
Neville

Those are some monster buildings, how did you make them ?

All very impressive

Richard
Agreed. We need a few photos with a person stood in the aisles to really grasp the size of this layout. ;)
I like your custom lettered coil cars. :thumbs:
 

Neville

Western Thunderer
Thank you all, nice to hear from you again Arun.
The buildings themselves are not hard to make remember this is O scale so they are larger than normal.
I use 3mm MDF once I used 3mm plasticard or styrene as I like to call it but that got to expensive so I now stick with MDF it's very cheap!
Now here is where I cheat I use Wills Corrugated Asbestos to clad the MDF or the styrene.
It's probably expensive for large buildings but I look at it this way you only build a 1/48 scale Steel mill once in your lifetime.
I will post some photos soon. Neville
 

Neville

Western Thunderer
Thought this might be interesting to compare, both photos were taken in the same spot.
One is before the Steel Mill the other is after the Steel mill was built, in real life it's the other way round.
The tracks at the front and the baseboard have not changed everything else has! Neville.
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Neville

Western Thunderer
Thanks Bob.
Not much happening here at the moment doing small jobs around the layout still running trains every Friday everyone welcome even blokes from over the East! Ha, Ha.
When I left the other place I went to the wrong forum by mistake I meant to come here great bunch of blokes.
Have a good Christmas it's going to be hot so I will be in the pool on the day with all the kids, trying to control them!
Nev.
 

Neville

Western Thunderer
Thanks Rob and.... Colin it's been ages since I have heard from you mate.
The boards I have been making to fill in one of the aisles are complete less the scenery which has been started. During operation sessions like today I remove the first board from the layout this enables the other boards to slide along for access if needed see the photos for a better idea of what I am talking about! I can't wait to finish the boards so I can take a "panorama" photo across the layout. The high tension towers are glued solidly to the boards of course because they move it's difficult to wire the towers even using that stretch "Ezi-Wire". Nev.


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