Newport Railroad Update 12/30/2023

Sounds like a plan. Keep us in the loop.

Will do. 

A few suggestions / comments; first, attach an electronic version of your trackplan for those of us who might have the same software so we can provide you with examples of modification suggestions.  Second, provide a detailed description of the area where you plan to build, including  dimensions, windows, doors, interfering infrastructure (poles, utility locations, etc.), and anything else that might limit your use of the existing space.  Third, I noticed you have built in only one reversing loop on the right hand side; one on the left side would be operationally better.  Fourth, plan for access to your lower level now because 7% grades are way too much; try to limit yourself to 4% (and a 2% limit would be even better).  Fifth, switches under mountains are a recipe for maintenance disaster unless you build removable hatches into the mountain tops and have easy access to those hatches.  Sixth. your yard area near the mills ends up with tracks way too close to each other; not the way you might expect.  And finally (I feel like I'm writing my own novel in response), what about engine facilities which always add a lot of operational fun as well as storage space for your future acquisitions?

Recommendation:  Use the largest curves you can fit in your space and still meet your operation objectives.  All of your equipment will look better on those curves.

Chuck

Well depending how detailed you want to get,  you might want to track down one of the books on steel mill modeling.

I worked in the steel industry for 18 years, but in a support role as an Industrial Engineering, so I have very high level view of the flow and operations of the various elements you describe,

As mentioned, dimensions might help.   A Blast Furnace is a big thing, so do  you have space for 2 or would one done well be a better idea.    John Armstrong recommended rather than do 2 or 3 small versions of something, do one and do it right.    That said, the blast furnace does NOT use coal, it uses coke.    Many mills had their own coke oven complex.   Armco where I worked had Sumit Solvay next door providing coke at Both Ashland and Middletown works.    The coal hoppers would go to the coke plant, and then the same hoppers or large ones would move the coke to the blast furnace.    The track behind where the yellow pits are would not work that most likely.   And it would be most likely be two tracks.    Hoppers with limestone, ore (or ore cars) and coke would come in on that track and dump to bins I believe.    those tracks would be elevated and most plants called them the "High Line".   A skip car (I think it is called that) would run along a track below the bins and load up the materials then run to the skip hoist pit and dump them into the skip bucket.    This was big electrical powered bin type car that ran back and forth.    The tracks were 2-3 times wider than RR tracks.     Most plants stored Ore on the ground because not much shipped when the great lakes froze if the ore was coming from US sources along the Great Lakes.    PRR mostly shipped ore in regular hoppers but they were only about 1/3 filled because of the weight of iron ore.   

The casting floor of the blast fce might be about the level of the High Line and was floored with sand.   If  you are  using Bottle cars then  you would not cast pigs on the casting floor.    The fce would be tapped with the molten iron going into the bottle cars.    The bottle cars would then be moved to the open hearth in your era and dumped into the open hearths as a charge.   You might have a string of 2-4 bottle cars per shift depending on size.   They probably did not use as much scrap in those days in Open hearths.   Scrap charges tend be more common with electric melt facilities.     

The Open heart would make the steel  using the iron and the heating and other additives.   Not sure about coke here.    I have never seen an open hearth fired from fuel from tank cars.    Ours were using natural gas, or gas from the coke ovens.     But it might have happened someplace.    As far as I know the J&L mills I worked in during college did not get fuel for open hearths in tank cars either.     The open hearths take about 16 hours to make the steel, so  you need a bank of them to get a tap about every 1-2 hours.    All the ones I have seen tapped into ladles.    The ladles were then moved by overhead crane to a teeming aisle where the steel was poured into ingot molds sitting on ingot buggies.    Ingot buggies are short 4 wheel very heavy duty cars that hold about 2-3 molds apiece.    These are running on regular RR tracks.   

The Ingot buggies would be moved, allowing time for the outsides to cool a little to a stripper shed.    Here a crane would pick up the mold and move off the car.   Then a large ram would push the cast ingot out of the mold.    the bottoms of the molds were platforms not attached to the mold.    There would be ingots stacked around.    As the ingots were needed, they would picked up and put in soaking pits.    These were gas fired ovens sunk in the ground.   These would be filled with ingots and again fired for many hours to get the ingots to a uniform temperature for rolling.     The ingots would be taken out of the pits and transferred to the slab mill.    Myabe again using the buggies, but more likely very hearvy duty flatcars.     The slab mill was usually a big reversing mill - it would tall but not many stands.    The ingot would be put on the rollers into the mill and rolled back and forth and formed into a slab of uniform thickness.     The slabs might be 8-10 feet wide I guess and maybe end  up being 40 feet long and 6-8 inches thick.         These then would be moved on the heavy duty flats to the Hot strip mill.   they might sit on the ground awhile but better right away so they don't have to be reheated.     The hot strip mill would roll the slab into a sheet 1/2 inch or less thick in most cases.   The hot strip mill would be continuous rolling, not reversing so it would be longer with many more stands that slab mill.    

The Hot Rolled is a finished product for some mills for some uses.     The rest of the hot rolled is moved to the cold mill where is rolled into a finer finish much thinner product for sale.    cold mills is what produce the product for auto body parts for example, or refrigerator wrappers.     This is the very good product with tight controlled specs for metallurgy, and thickness.   

In each step output might be inventoried, with the exception of the hot metal in bottle cars.    In your era there no, or very few continuous casters with steel going directly to slabs.    Also, there were few Basic Oxygen Furnaces (BOFs) to replace the Open Hearths.

Some plants produced blooms (large squares) instead of slabs and they went to different types of products such as pipe or structurals such as I beams.    Also some mills used the slabs to produce plate for fabricating structurals ship building

The mill complex is a railroad job in and of itself.

Think about including some "staging" where you send trains of loaded cars and where you might originate coal trains or coke trains.       You would also have trains of incoming empty gons and such for the mill.

I agree,hidden switches will be first ones to malfunction - murphy's law.

@PRR1950 I appreciate the novel! I'm looking for discussion. I could add a reversing loop to the left side. What's the advantage that I'm overlooking? Just being able to reverse back onto either line?

The 7% grade is if I ONLY go put the grade on a straight section. A curved grade would allow me to move closer to that 2% mark.

Tunnel switches were going to have little access holes next to them. Maybe I'm underestimating the real estate I need to get in there for maintenance? 

I was definitely struggling with how close I can lay tracks together for straight yards. I probably have more than I need in there right now and dividing the width of a track between a few sidings will hopefully get me the room I need. 

Engine facilities are likely to find their way onto the lower level. They do present some solid opportunity for modeling and convenient engine storage. 

@prrjim I have the Model Railroader's Guide to Steel Mills. It helped a lot. 

One blast furnace would open up real estate for other mill facilities. I planned to model a blast furnace with a dust collector and 3 ovens. A cast house comes out of the blast furnace. This plus a skip hoist fits on the table as shown. It's a little cramped but that's how things were built here. 

Did older blast furnaces use only coke? I know the stone ones didn't always but this isn't that obviously. Maybe I could swap out the mine for a coke oven or have the coke oven off-layout. Do you have a ballpark height on a high line? It would be awesome to work that in and would probably make it easier for me to slide my skip hoist in under the tracks. 

The tip on 1/3 fill for ore hoppers is handy for being more realistic. I wouldn't have thought of that. I planned on 3 bottle cars and 3 slag cars for a tap. I haven't figure out what my bottle cars would actually hold so I'll have to see if that works on the time table. I know what ours held at the foundry and mine are similar to those. 

I thought oil and natural gas was used for heating open hearths but maybe I got it wrong. Were the open hearths always on two levels? or did they tap into ladle pits? A 16 hour cycle explains why they had a miles worth of these things. I didn't realize that was the timeline on those. 

I wouldn't even want to begin trying to model a continuous caster and BOF buildings are enormous from what I've seen. I think we still have one in Youngstown and it's....dang haha

I'm inclined to agree that I need staging based on what you pointed out about coke ovens. I might be able to sneak it behind some shelves I have nearby. I'm really liking the thought of having a forge/rolling mill but I think the coke ovens are going to be important. A coke oven backdrop still requires staging for coke cars. 

Thanks for the help guys! I literally thought this was 99% done but I'm glad I asked. I hadn't thought of a number of these things. I'm also jealous of your experience @prrjim. I don't see myself seeing that stuff in person ever. I think Russia has the last running open hearth. 

Re: another reversing loop

If you start a train around your oval clockwise, you can, with one reversing loop, change its direction to counter-clockwise.  Now, however, the only way to change that same train's direction back to clockwise would be to back it through the same reverse loop.  Reversing an entire train through a reverse loop can be done, but not without occasional headaches like derailments (why I worried about the hidden switches).  It doesn't look like it would be too hard to arrange a second (opposite side) reverse loop through some of your mill trackage.  Then you can have your train(s) running in opposite directions after a couple of rotations almost automatically.

Re: grades

So, start your grade in the loop, but don't start it out at a hard 3%.  Use a vertical easement for smoother and safer operation (e.g. start with 1%, then 2%, then 3% with finally a little bit of 4% before gently scaling back down to 0).

Re: coke ovens

Why not model them as photo dropbacks on your north wall instead of some of the other industries you were considering?

Finally, search on the forum for Steel Mill modeling and look for posts by a fellow going by Roo; his photos and posts provide wonderful steel mill modeling tips.  I think his real name is Neville Rossiter, and I believe he now mostly posts on a steel mill modeler's Facebook page.

Chuck

@PRR1950 ah, the reverse loop thing makes sense now. I see what you mean. That would suck so I'll find a way to add one. 

I will transition slower for the grade. I'm not opposed to genuinely needing helper locomotives to get up the grade. I feel like it would present an interesting operation. There's a guy on YouTube with an HO layout and he has this exact setup. They can do it with a 3 diesel lashup but it works better if they add a helper to the back. I thought it was cool. 

I was talking to a buddy last night and I actually think I'm going to model abandoned beehive ovens at the coal mine. I'll base them off the beehives we have near me in Lisbon. Then I think I will use a back drop where the three industries were and use that siding for loading/staging. 

I will look him up! Thanks! 

I never heard of a blast furnace in the 20th century using anything other than coke.    

NO matter how much space we have, we can never fit everything in.   For that reason I would not model the coal mine.    I would include the coke ovens and bring the coal in from staging.    That way, you have a move to bring coal hoppers into the coke plant.    Then you load the coke into hoppers and move it to the blast fce.    Now many RRs had coke hoppers with extended higher sides because coke is lighter than coal.    So you might have captive cars in two strings that move back and forth between the coke plant and the Blast fce.    The coal hoppers would than go back to staging empty, so you need two strings of those too, if you want to run that way.

I am thinking the "High Line" would be about 1 1/2 car heights above the track where the bottle cars are spotted.    That is above the level of the casting floor, which is a level above the bottle cars.    So you could place it at height to get your skip underneath.   This makes sense since the skip would feed from stuff that comes in that line.    Yes there are a few photos around of Ore in coal hoppers and it is just a little on the bottom of the car.    PRR did not get into Ore jennies until late - I think maybe the 60s.    Other RRs  probably followed different patterns.   The P&LE (NYC sub) was a big player in the area you are interested in.  

The bottle cars capacity gets bigger and bigger as you move through the 20th century.   I think they got up to 250 ton capacity.    However, even the smaller models look big.    you can use them with your furnace and few people will look twice.    Another thought consider 4 bottle cars.    2 at the Blast fce and 2 at the Open Hearth.    When you tap the blast fce, you move the two loaded ones to the Open Hearth and bring the 2 empties back to the blast fce. 

By the way, I got into this at the end of the open hearth era.    Armco was phasing them down as they got better and better with using casters and BOFs.    This was in the 70s and 80s.   I did a lot of projects on caster operations to study multiple casts without resetting the caster, which took about an hour at Middletown.    We could cast a heat in about an hour too, so if we had to reset the caster we lost an hour production.   But if we could piggy back heats one after another, we could produce a lot faster.    To do that we had a 10 minute window when the ladles could be switched while the cast ran with the material in the tundish.    If we could not make the window we had to send the heat to the teaming aisle and use it in the Open Hearths.    That 16 hour cycle was a number I remember from our middletown plant.    Other plants may have been more or less, but in the ball park I think.    With the BOF, our tap to tap time was 44 minutes!     That number is etched in my old mind!

Yes all the open hearth firing I have heard about was gas or oil.     There is gas produced as a by product of the coke operation which is why they want it close.    However, I think it was much lower BTU content than natural gas so had to be supplemented.    They also used the gas from the coke overs to heat the hot blast air for the Blast fce.

All the Open Hearths I am familar with, just a few, tapped into a ladle and as you say probably held in a pit, but probably never let off the crane.    The tap does not take long relatively.

This info will save me hours of reading at the archives. Thank you so much! 

I kind of like the idea of having the coke oven where the mine is. Then enforce that lower layer. Put the mine at one end and the town at the other. It would give some distance to cover if I enforced one lap around the loop between all locations. Do you guys think that would give a feeling of distance? The coal train would head out from the mine in the lower level, make a lap on the lower level, then catch the grade up to the coke plant, drop off coal hoppers and pick up empties. Then a lap on the top level before heading down to the mine. Same thing at the coke plant. Leave with coke, make a lap, then drop off at the mill. Pick up empties, make a lap, and go to the coke plant. 

Here's a link to the type of ladle pit I'm describing: http://www.stahlseite.de/eec10.htm

Bill, I don't know anything about steel mills, career was in electronics with power and telecom utilities, but being from Butler County, Pennsylvania they were all around.

I had trouble with the grades on my under construction layout.  I thought I had provided enough vertical easement to my 4% grades (yes it's a small layout).  All my cars are 40-foot boxcars, 2-bay hoppers, and short tank cars.  My engines aren't very long since I have 054 curves, but some would negotiate the tops and bottoms of the grades, and some not.  I had to rework them and they seem okay now except the pilot on one 2-8-0 bottoms out at the base of one grade.  That still needs some work.

I'm glad you now see the need for the second reversing loop.  If you have one, you need two.

I will look forward to seeing how your plan and build progresses.  You mentioned Mercer Junction.  Are you still in the Youngstown area?  I live in Butler which is southeast of Mercer.

@Mark Boyce posted:

... had to rework them and they seem okay now except the pilot on one 2-8-0 bottoms out at the base of one grade.  That still needs some work.

I'm glad you now see the need for the second reversing loop.  If you have one, you need two.

I will look forward to seeing how your plan and build progresses.  You mentioned Mercer Junction.  Are you still in the Youngstown area?  I live in Butler which is southeast of Mercer.

That's a good call. I read that in another post when I as searching for info grades but forgot it. I'll rework my track plan to include this because I definitely went zero to incline. No easing. 

I am! I'm pretty much an ambassador of the area. People say it's terrible but we have come a LONG way in the last 20 years since I was a kid. I chose to stay after college and have no intention of leaving haha I've been to Butler a few times. I ate at the Chop Shop. I work about 20-30 minutes southwest of Mercer in Pulaski so I make a side trip once in a while after work when I need something. I'll be headed there to pick up a DCS system on the next paycheck. Can't wait!

I'm looking at my lower level now. Is DSC/TMCC/Legacy interference between levels a problem? I was imagining about a 20-24 inch separation between levels. 

EDIT: I widdled the grade down to 3.7%. I think that should get it done. 

Bill, My daughters and their husbands like the Chop Shop.  Most of the food is a bit strong for my old stomach, but they must be good.   They do a good business.  Yes I am familiar with Pulaski.  Also, I am aware Youngstown is doing a lot better.  You will like DCS.  Like anything, It does take a little getting used to, but help is always at your fingertips on this Forum.

@Mark Boyce I'll get a hold of you to run some trains when the railroad is built haha I'm mostly excited to get DCS because my MTH Triplex won't run in conventional. It runs in DCS though. Not sure what to make of that but we'll go with it. 

I'm working on my track plan for the coke plant where the coke plant is a back drop. I feel like scratch building a coke plant could take a while based on what I'm seeing in the real world. I'm currently flying around on Google maps over Warren, OH and Neville Island looking at the coke plants and I'm not seeing anything obvious where the coke is loaded for shipping. I know there's a car that catches the coke when it gets pushed but how does it get into the hoppers? Is it just a tipple? I currently just have a long siding where a train could be loaded and I'm not sure if that's enough. 

@BillYo414 posted:

@Mark Boyce I'll get a hold of you to run some trains when the railroad is built haha I'm mostly excited to get DCS because my MTH Triplex won't run in conventional. It runs in DCS though. Not sure what to make of that but we'll go with it. 

I'm working on my track plan for the coke plant where the coke plant is a back drop. I feel like scratch building a coke plant could take a while based on what I'm seeing in the real world. I'm currently flying around on Google maps over Warren, OH and Neville Island looking at the coke plants and I'm not seeing anything obvious where the coke is loaded for shipping. I know there's a car that catches the coke when it gets pushed but how does it get into the hoppers? Is it just a tipple? I currently just have a long siding where a train could be loaded and I'm not sure if that's enough. 

Bill, That sounds like a good plan.  Thank you!!

Here is a link to the coke plant at Clairton, Pa. https://www.ussteel.com/locati...works-clairton-plant My uncle worked at the Edgar Thomson plant an engineer in the 50's and 60's that is part of this complex on the Monongahela River.  Maybe that location can give you some ideas.

Thanks Mark! I'll take a look. 

You asked a question about control system signal interference when multiple levels are used.  I'm no expert on that subject (in fact, probably not an expert on any subject except federal income taxes), but I believe multiple levels only generate problems for TMCC.  The usual recommendation is to wire a ground plane under each level's track (some use aluminum screening, some just string plain wire) so that it's not visible but close enough to be useful.

I also noted that you will space the levels between 20" and 24" apart.  To do that, your upper level will have to be higher than where most like to work and/or view, or the lower level will have to be lower than most prefer, reducing under layout access and storage.  Also, try not to put anything other than scenery in the middle of your lower level because if you have to reach in too far for maintenance matters, even a 24" separation will feel tight for your head and body to occupy.

Chuck

Interesting. So it's possible but you need to ground each operating plane? I can work with that. I just don't want to set myself up for problems that can't be resolved. 

I was planning to have the upper level at about 45". I setup a test layout at 48" and feel like it's pretty good. I especially like it because it elimates the aerial view feeling. Obviously I'll have that feeling on the lower level but I'm not as worried. I have chairs and stools that will make 20-24" a good level for viewing. I'm most worried about needing to work on the underside of the top level for anything. I don't think 24" allows enough room for a topside creeper and myself. That's going to be tricky business. But I'm confident. More complicated problems have been solved. 

UPDATE 9/6/2020

I attached the updated track plan. I decided Ross Custom Switches were worth a look after using that handy "search" function on the forum. Man am I glad I looked! They have such an awesome selection of special tracks to give you more efficiency in your yards and whatnot. Unfortunately, I had already started collecting bits and pieces of Atlas track so I'm just going to combine the two. 

One concern I'm having is track clearance. Someone brought it up before but I was convinced I had enough space. Now I have some real tight spots. The cross over on the southern reverse loop has a track sneaking by it and that's probably the worst case. I might shimmy the cross over up to make space or scrap the extra little track there. It's on there so the switching engine can get access to the rest of the mill from that side of the layout without having to go through the dividing mountain. I planned to have a backdrop extend from the mountain to totally split the layout in an effort to make it seem bigger. It's tricky knowing how much clearance you need without having everything on the table in front of you. I want to make the tracks close because I know the yards at Youngstown Sheet and Tube were crammed tight. 

Beyond that, I was able to add an ingot stripper building (17) and extra sidings at the coal mine for storage thanks to changing what switches I use. I decided to keep the coal mine, coke oven, and mill all on one level. I was doing some research on coke plants.....they're huge! With jaw dropping intricacy. I'm going to leave that as a back drop. The loading will come out of the wall because I think it should be simpler than all the supporting equipment that goes with a coke battery. The mill is complicated enough. I did find myself relying on flex track pretty often to make up for minor misalignment. 

On a less related note, I found out Lisbon, OH (near me) has old school beehive coke ovens that you can visit. I think it would be an awesome modelling opportunity to model some abandoned beehives in the mountains near the coal mine. Likewise, the Hopewell blast furnace is here in Poland/Struthers, OH. It, and another stone blast furnace in Youngstown are accessible. Allegedly, the Montgomery furnace is in Struthers but I haven't found it yet. These stone blast furnaces stood here while the modern mills cranked out steel for nearly a century. I want to model them as well in the hills. So I'll be headed out here with a tape measure to get some real life dimensions before winter comes along. 

I still haven't even started thinking about the lower level. I got the walls scraped and washed this weekend. I went to pick up paint today. Carpeting will be the next step after painting. The ceiling will follow and then bench work!

It is good you are preparing the room before the benchwork.  You have a lot in the Youngstown area to keep you busy investigating as well!

@Mark Boyce posted:

... You have a lot in the Youngstown area to keep you busy investigating as well!

This is one of my favorite things to do. It's a bummer the covid stuff has made museums a bit more complicated to access (reduced hours, limited access, etc). But the outdoor stuff will be a very good time. I'm extremely excited for that. 

UPDATE 9/8/2020

The attachments include initial track plans for the bottom level of the layout. I was hesitant on the two level design because of storage reasons but I was disappointed that the yards on the upper level were dedicated to industries. No yard for making and breaking general freight trains. Plus there are a number of structures I have for a town that carry sentimental value for me and I would like to include them. So it's looking like a city at the top end, yard in the middle, and then possibly an engine servicing facility to be added later. That's one scenario. 

The other scenario is to move the coal mine to the bottom level under the steel mill so that emptied coal can be sent down to the coal mine directly for reloading. I'm very much entertaining this because a small conveyor system from the mill to the coal mine would be 40' long and possibly pricey. A pipe could be camouflaged in plain site to the coal mine and would great simplify coal loading. 

That just leaves the elevation question. A discussion in another thread on banked curves got me thinking of getting rid of the elevated track that goes up 24" at a ~3.8% grade. I'm not considering just using a single track elevator on the left side of the layout behind a backdrop. I think it could be 100% hidden. We'll see. I'm on lunch at work now. Maybe I'll find some to tinker with the design tonight. 

This is becoming a heck of a project haha

Bill, While my two grades of ~4% to gain 6 1/2" in elevation do work for my short trains (6 cars), some engines do tend to throw traction tires going upgrade.  Others do not with the same load.  I just built these grades this past winter.  I'm hoping new traction tires will solve the issue on 10 to 15 year old engines, but it is too soon for me to tell.

@Mark Boyce posted:

Bill, While my two grades of ~4% to gain 6 1/2" in elevation do work for my short trains (6 cars), some engines do tend to throw traction tires going upgrade.  Others do not with the same load.  I just built these grades this past winter.  I'm hoping new traction tires will solve the issue on 10 to 15 year old engines, but it is too soon for me to tell.

Well that's reassuring. I feel like I either get exciting operation requiring skill to operate if I go with the grade, or really slick operation with the hidden lift table. The entrances and exits with the lift would both be in a mountain where they can't be seen and that will totally add to the concept of distance if I set that lift to move slowly. So I think I'm going to be happy with either solution.

6 cars is reasonable and prototypically, trains were split to get up Salida grade so it's not like it's THAT unrealistic. It's more an appearance issue I think. 

I have an 0-8-0 that throws traction tires like a toddler rejects vegetables. I ended up cutting them off for the time being but that sure can be irritating. The engine weighs enough to pull empty cars with ease without traction tires but I wanted it to pull switching duty at the mill and those cars will be heavy. 

You got any pictures of your grade Mark?

Here you go, Bill.  You can only do so much with an 11x11 room with two doors and two windows.

I made the inside loop on trestles so I could see through to the town and outside tracks.

In the upper right you can see the near track going down to the right and the rear track going up to the right.

Another view of the trestle.

The caboose is near the top of the rear grade.

Here it is before I started putting in the trestle.

Still a good looking layout @Mark Boyce. I feel like the grade looks fine. I was imagining much steeper looking! Thanks for grabbing the pic. I needed some reference Mercer Junction doesn't have a significant grade for me to reference. I'm tinkering with the elevator idea now. Someone recommended a helix but I had an engine shed in the spot the round house would need to go in so I really don't want to give up the real estate if I don't have to. 

Bill, Thank you.   The grade doesn’t look bad at all to me either.  The prototype Blackwater Canyon ruling grade Is around 3.7%, and they used about one H9 Consolidation per ten loaded cars.  A helix takes a lot of room for sure.  It is all about compromises

I'll have to do some learning about the Blackwater Canyon Line. Is that near us in PA?

Well after a long night on Anyrail, I think the elevator system is going to work in terms of track. Now I just need to come up with a way to lift the track so I can see how much space that will take. I'm basically trying to stay under 5" wide. We'll see. 

Meanwhile, the basement wall remains unpainted haha

Bill,

The Blackwater Canyon is the Black Fork River in Northern West Virginia.  The Western Maryland Railway had a line from Elkins, WV to Cumberland Maryland.  You can find the Blackwater Canyon on a map with Thomas WV at the top of the grade and Parsons WV at the bottom.  It is now a bicycle trail.  Blackwater Falls State Park is at the top also.  

Gotcha. I didn't know all that. Sounds like it isn't too terribly far away!

No it is not.  Thomas, WV is 160 miles from me here in Butler and 200 miles from Youngstown to give you a better idea.

It's not an exciting update but it is pretty important. I found an empty bottle of automotive body filler in the basement and I'm 99% sure that's what the previous home owner put on the walls. It's either that, or he painted the basement walls about 30 times because there's a layer or something on the walls that isn't quite a quarter inch thick. 

Regardless! I have finally finished removing all the loose chips/paint/filler/who knows and wiped down the walls to remove the dust. That means the two towers of sealer and paint are up next. 

You can see the two cement block areas that stick out from the wall to support the beam that spans the house. I wish I could get rid of the but I'll pass on that. I'm planning to use that area to install a lift track behind the backdrop and scenery to get between the two levels I'm dreaming of. The temporary test table is behind me. 

Like I said, it's not a particularly exciting milestone for spectators but I'm excited to get to this point. There was a big wooden shelf in that far corner that was a bunch of nail held together and it was a rough demolition job to say the least. So! Hopefully some painting is in my near future. 

I hope what you removed from the walls wasn't WATERPROOFING?  In my case, what I started to pull off was something peeling called hydraulic cement, previously painted an ugly blue.  Fortunately, after I saw the damage removal was causing to my concrete brick basement/foundation walls, I stopped removal without doing too much damage.

Chuck

I don't think so (meaning, I hope not!). It didn't work worth a crap if it was waterproofing. The basement was very damp until I fixed a downspout. Plus the paint was flaking off. The sealer/primer I got is supposed to be waterproof and I used a latex paint to help ensure that. At least I think that's what will happen. I never claimed to be a painter haha there was just loose chunks. I used a wire brush and putty knife to get all the loose bits off. 

I'm going to go ice my shoulder now! 

Bill, you might consider purchasing a dehumidifier for the area. If you have a sump pump or a floor drain you can run a hose so you don’t have to be concerned with emptying the unit.

I actually got one recently but the paint damage has been done. The house was unoccupied and shut for two years. The yard sits low and I put in french drains last summer. That made an enormous difference on its own. 

I think the humidity down there is starting to level off. It's been sitting at 50% for about three weeks now. It read 70% when I first plugged in the dehumidifier. So I think I'm headed in the right direction. I do wonder if I'll need to get a second dehumidifier to keep under the layout.

Because of issues we had a problem with mold and it was costly. It’s good that you are on top of the situation. 

The first coat of sealer primer is on. I suspect I'll need a second coat but it needs to dry before I can tell. Painting should move faster now. Covering bare concrete spots and everything always takes so long because the paint is just absorbed. Now I can move much faster since I'll be going over a smooth sealed surface. 

In other news, I got me an MTH hopper and DCS System from Mercer Junction. Command control is awesome!! I never thought I would enjoy a loop of test track so much. The hopper has opening bay doors under it and I'm definitely suddenly interested in getting a fleet of those instead of doing the rotary dumper I had originally thought I would have to do. I'm just trying to find out if all Premier fish belly hoppers had these doors or not. It isn't called out in the features and I hate to assume. We'll see what's up. Maybe I'll have to buy another and find out haha

Bill, the paint job looks great!

Some of my Premier fishbelly hoppers have opening doors, and some don't.  I actually wasn't sure, until I checked them all just now.  Come to think of it, I ordered the 6-pack of Western MAryland hoppers from the final MTH catalog but it doesn't say if the doors open.  Without an actuator to open them, you would have to do it by hand anyway, which isn't objectionable anyway.