After completing the substation I started in on the actual power plant. For this project I am using the Northern Light & Power from Walther’s. The structure itself is pretty basic, base plate, four walls and a roof. The large windows scream for a detailed interior or so I thought, more on this later. I also got the interior detail kit for the power station. This is pretty basic also, two steam turbines, two generators and walls for the boiler section.

I started by assembling the four walls and then masked off the raised lip that the windows mount to as I wanted a clean surface to glue the windows to. I then masked the whole exterior to protect it from overspray and then sprayed it with a rattle can, in a light industrial gray.

After removing the masking tape I set the building onto it’s base but could not get it to sit flat. After carefully looking at it I found that there was a production error in the tooling. The cutout and “stoop” for the service door is on the right side of the base while the actual door is on the left side. While not a major problem it is a little annoying. I made a cutout on the left side for the door and removed the stoop from the right side ( and later removed the stoop for the roll up door as well ) and the building dropped right into place. I’m sure Walther’s felt it wasn’t worth the expense of retooling the molds for such a minor thing but you would expect some kind off additional mention that the problem would have to be addressed while assembling the kit.

Next up was to fill in the mortar lines in between the bricks. I have never had very good luck using the usual methods – some variation of flowing a diluted paint into the mortar lines and then wiping off the excess – and started just painting on a concrete color and then dragging the edge of a razor blade across the face of the bricks to remove the paint. I have found the trick to this is letting the paint just set up ( just about dry to the touch ) and the removing it. The added benefit is it roughens up the brick face and tones down the plastic sheen.

When I had completed a side doing this I would celebrate by painting all of the concrete surfaces ( base, window sills and architectural details ) until the whole structure was done.

Before:

After:

After the exterior was done I turned my attention to the interior. After pulling up several pictures on the internet, I decided on steam lines, conduits for electrical wiring, some catwalks, control boxes and other miscellaneous details. As I said, with the big windows you needed a lot of detail. After gluing the Walther’s detail set in place ( painted it first ), I set the wall section back in place and taped a couple of the windows in place to get a feel for placement of the afore mentioned details. That’s when I noticed that the window mullions block about 50% of the interior. Even lit, you don’t need anywhere near the amount of detail as you think you would. Unless of course you into that kind of thing and need to be totally accurate.

So I settled on adding just the steam lines to the turbines and a catwalk over the turbines to access the steam valves. I will also add some figures and 55 gallon drums of lubricant. I don’t think that you would notice much more, especially at the angle that the power plant will seen at.

A side note, the heavy doors between the boiler section and the power plant are molded as wooden sliding doors. I painted them as steel doors, as I believe that they are meant as fire doors and would not be made out of wood.

Once that was done I applied the decals. This is another thing that bugs me about the newer Walther’s kits. On the older kits the used a thin decal that if you were not careful on long / large decal they would break and you would have to carefully line them up. The plus side was, with a little Solva Set, you could get them to snug around details like the brick work. They fixed the problem of the decals breaking by going to a very thick decal that no matter how much decal setting solution you use, you are not going to get them to settle into the detail work.

I also added a spacer plate to the substation to fill in between the substation and the power plant. Right now you can see the seam, but after ground cover is applied it will disappear. I did start to play with weathering to see if I could tone down the decal lettering and will finish the weathering before installing on the layout. Additionally the fencing and wiring of the substation will happen after it installed on the layout.

Well I think that is all for now. Until next time…

Happy railroading.

First up is the build of the Walther’s Power plant and power substation (walthers.com) that I received for Christmas. I know that I said that I would do a ” review ” of the kits, but this is more of how I did it and my impression of the kits and problems/faults of the kits.

I started with the substation. The kit is pretty straight forward in its build. For as simple as it is, it does have a tremendous visual impact. I started by identifying how it would go together and need to be painted. The only real problem in painting it is that the transformer could not be painted as a whole, I like to assemble things as much as possible. This makes glueing and seam clean up a lot easier, which then results in a better finished product. Most of it can be put together and then painted, but the cooling fins on the transformer ( at least what I assume are cooling fins, I probably didn’t do enough research on transformers to know for sure ) are to closely spaced to attach before painting. So I assembled them as sub-assemblies. I then mounted them to painting sticks, which are nothing more then a couple of 1X3’s and 1X4’s with double sided foam mounting tape grouped by color.

I first primed all of the pieces and then let them dry for as least 24 hours to let the paint completely dry and harden. I then painted the different parts in their respective colors. For small detail parts such as the insulators, I brushed painted after the base color had dried.

The base was spray painted a flat tan color, so that when I put ground cover on it, if there were any thin spots it would just look like dirt. Ah yes the base, this is my first “problem” with the kit. One has to decide how the substation will be used. The box art shows the substation sitting along side the power plant and I assumed that it could be used this way. Turns out there are two different types of substations. Probably an over simplification. There is an up converting substation and a down converting substation. The kit as a whole is a down converting substation, the type you would find in a residential or light industrial setting. Power is sent through power lines at around 300,000 volts. A little high for your home. Electricity comes in off from the high tension lines and is dropped to something a little more friendly for your house.

An up converting substation would be part off the power plant and would do the opposite. You only use about 2/3 off the base ( there is a cut line on the back side of the base where to cut it ).The instructions say that you can use it for this purpose with “some added detail”, but there is nothing noted as to what that detail is. I looked online, but as of yet to find a good explanation or picture of such an installation. I possibly have not used the right key words, but it has been a pain in the you know where.

My second problem with the instructions is that they don’t show how it would be wired up. There is some hint as to how it is done, but they are incomplete. Meaning that they show some of the wiring but not all of it. Plus the instructions kind off look like a copy of a copy of a copy. There are a few substations within driving distance and I will have to head out to get a few photos of one so that I know what I’m doing. But I picture myself out there with my camera with a telephoto lens ( as you can’t get really close to one ) and have Homeland Security show up wondering why the sudden interest in the local power infrastructure.

Anyway, I got everything painted and assembled but did not permanently mounted it to the base. Also I did not put the fence in place as this will all be done when I put the piece in place and get the ground cover on first.

Below is a picture of the “completed” substation.

Next the power station.

Until then, Happy Railroading.

I have got some work done on the layout and will post some pictures in the next few days.

Meanwhile found some construction pictures of the ore boat and a dairy complex that never had a home.

No new construction on the layout to report and it’s been awhile since I posted. I have been finishing up other projects around the house and should be able to get back in the basement soon.

I took this time to finish up a several structures for the layout in my spare time and thought I would again work on my close-up photography. I was shooting with my Cannon XTi with a 50mm macro lens with a light ring mounted on the lens for filler light. I apologize as I’m still working on depth of field.

First up is the grain elevator for the town of Jackson, Minnesota. It is a Walther’s kit that I assembled with no modifications. It is the first time that I have used Pan Pastels for weathering. In the past I usually used weathering chalks for the main weathering. The Pan Pastels took a little more to get used to for weathing then chalks. With the chalk weathering you can gradually work up to what you want, with the Pan Pastels it goes on a little heavier. Thus care has to be used so as not to over do it. I am happy with the results and look forward to using them in the future.

Next up is the pier terminal. I have shown this before in a previous post but wanted to talk a little about it. What I quickly discovered with the upper deck is that everything is at eye level ( duh ) and thus interiors are going to be very important for this level. I Had to build a complete interior for the warehouse portion. This included all the buildings support structure, lighting and upstairs offices. The office in the upper corner is complete with desks, paperwork, a dock supervisor and secretary. It is also lit. I weathered this building with chalks.

Next is the switch tower. Again it will be on the upper level and thus needed an interior. Since I was only lighting the upper floor that’s where I concentrated the detail. I added the switch levers and a desk area. For now I lightly weathered the building.

Last for now is the standard small town depot. Not much to say about it. Straight out of the box build. I will be replacing the train order boards with working ones from Tomar.

Since they’ve shown up in previous posts I thought I talk about the ship models and structures for the harbor scene.

I scratch built both ships, the ore boat initially from the photo on the Sylvan website. Drawing it out was rather simple as the picture was from the front with the plimsoll marks visible on the bow. From there I made a ruler and could measure the rest of the ship. Using various images for deck structures I came up with a generic steam powered ore boat. I then drew it out full size and basically made a kit from .040 sheet styrene. The deck fittings are from Sea Port Models.

For the freighter, I Googled “Lakes Freighters” and found a Great Lakes museum website with photos of a wide variety of different ships. Working from general dimensions, I again drew plans and cut a kit. Again working with .040 styrene and Sea Port fittings I built the ship. The pulley blocks came from an old Revell sailing ship kit. Looking at the ship in the scene I think it sits high and will probably cut the hull down it get it riding a little lower in the water

The warehouse is a Walther’s kit (Walthers.com) from their Water Front series. I opened the dock doors and built an interior for the warehouse. I also added an office to the upper corner complete with a dock Foreman and assistant. The warehouse is also lit. I felt it was important as these structures are at eye level.

The Hullett unloader is also from Walthers. I am in the process of shortening it as it a little wide for the scene. Once that is done I will try and do it justice by weathering it. Once the scenery is finished and all the models are installed I have a variety of deck hands and dock workers that will complete the scenes.

I am still working on more backround buildings for the scene, but since I have not finalized the track plan for this area I am unsure as to what I’ll need.