Rieck-McJunkin Milk Condenser Plant

Looks great!

Wow Roger, that's impressive! I remember not long ago you were inquiring about ideas for a operating smokestack. What you did looks pretty neat. You must have added some sort of red light at the top of the chimney to get that burning effect, right?? Nice work on the factory windows too.

Though you did miss out on all the fun of ceaselessly badgering some company to manufacture this building for you, instead of making it yourself. Of course, I'm kidding. To me, these sorts of projects are the essence of the hobby: Either scratch building or kitbashing. In particular, I like seeing the creative and neat ideas some folks come up with for the very common Plasticville buildings. Or there was a series of articles in OGR some years ago where someone took very common train cars and kitbashed them into a Union Pacific work train.

And even if folks viewing your display are not serious train fans, they will certainly take notice of a large building like that, which you made yourself and depicts a piece of your area's local history.

Again, nice work!

I put a red LED at the top of the stack, to accent the fog, but also to act a little like a warning light for very, very low flying planes...
I will eventually add two more pieces of plastic conduit to get the three smoke stacks, I might need to add a second vaporizer- but @$11 each, that's not a big deal.

https://www.amazon.com/AGPTEK%...s=24+volt+ultrasonic

Folks still remember this building and the milk plant operations. In the 50's it was converted over to a Fertilizer Plant. It's fun though to hear the old timers talk about watching the milk train and running through the building as kids. Imagine running through a factory now as an 8 year old...

Roger,

I always like seeing what you are doing with the Trains in the Town Hall.  The Milk Company building looks great!  You are so right that the model is worth more than a thousand word picture!  That is great that folks remember these buildings, and it brings back a lot of memories for them.

Please send me an e-mail at the address in my profile.  I saw your comment in another post.  If there is interest, I think we can work something out.  Barney Google tells me on his map that I live only about 1 3/4 hours from North Bloomfield.

Hi Mark-

We'll catch up. I need to put together a posting on the 2017 layout, but just haven't had a chance. Here is a short video from a friend of mine, he filmed it on opening day prior to us opening to the public. We did have a few early birds sneak in...

https://vimeo.com/245620700

The video is great!  Looks like a number of folks took in the layout the first day!  Something for young and old!!  The Rieck-McJunkin building looks great on the layout!

I'm going to make it easier Roger for folks to see the video.

That's a nice balance of modeling, whimsy, nostalgia with some of your local history thrown in. There's something in that display for nearly anyone. I liked how you used both tubular track (nostalgia: "look, that's what we had") and then FasTrack also, because that's what comes in sets today. The only thing missing is maybe some animated cars, like the chase gondola, the bobbing type box cars, the aquarium car, etc. Those always attract attention from youngsters.

I've seen some nice displays with very high end trains on them. Outside of impressing people with all the realism and technology, I don't think they do as much to grow/expand the hobby as having some starter set kinds of items on display. Because that's how most folks - should they get into the hobby - are going to start.

Again, nice balance on display here Roger.

Thanks Brian-
We have an I-Spy sheet for the kids, which seems to be a highlight as well as the opportunity to run the Lionel hand held remotes. We hand the remotes to kids. They love it.
We don't have any high end engines or super detailed scenery. It's too hard, considering this in not a permanent layout and its not modular. We 100% set up in October & November & 100% tear down in January. One fella was miffed that we had a Wabash engine pulling PRR boxcars. Well, it's what we had. Not a single complaint from the kids, they don't care- they love finding the hidden things and seeing the trains run. I would love to have a string of Giraffe Cars, but again- we don't charge admission, so making big purchases like that won't happen.

It's just a hometown display for hometown folks, giving them a no cost option to get their families out for some Christmas Activities. We have fun, and as long as I can coordinate the set up, as long as people keep donating cookies and as long as folks come out, we will continue this tradition- 5 years running now.

Roger, I have seen the I Spy sheets used before, and the kids really get into it when they have them!!  Saturday, I visited another temporary setup in Indiana, Pennsylvania that Forum member Mark Strittmatter takes a large role in.  He told me of some of the setup on the fly issues they had. 

Great job, Roger!!