Spotting Report, Willbridge 1 April 2016

Drove by this morning, and BNSF 3613, 2754, and 2812 were all out in the yard.  2812 was shiny in new BNSF paint.  I like it but miss the BN whiteface cascade green she wore last summer.  2754 and 3613 were idling awaiting crews.

Spotting report, Willbridge, 23 march 2016.

.I hadn't seen GN 3613 in a while, but when I drove by this afternoon at 5, she was out in Willbridge powered up.  The rotary beacon on the cab was a welcome sight.

One if the rebuilt GP-30s (GP-39m I believe) is currently working the yard in BNSF paint.  Another BNSF unit assisting. A GP-38 I think.

That's the current yard crew at Willbridge.

Clackamas industrial district

The UP continues the Southern Pacific's Clackamas Switcher.  South of Portland on the valley main, we have an extensive industrial area.

Industries I can see on the Google Maps overhead include

* a Safeway distribution center.  The overhead shows a lone covered hopper spotted here

* a warehouse for Pacific Food Distributors.

* Wymore Transfer, a warehouse and transload facility.

* Thermo Fluids.  Tank facility of some sort.

* Wilbur Ellis, some sort of feed manufacturer.

Wymore seems to be the biggest customer on the line.  This is another promising layout setting.  UPY geeps, and a graffiti bombed espee caboose to use as a shoving platform.

Peninsula Terminal Industries

Doing some "Virtual Railfanning" Via google maps, here's what I can see for industries along the PT

Along Suttle Rd, We saw

1. Supreme Perlite
2. Ecoservices (Listed as Rhodia on google maps)
3. Oil Re-Refining Co.
4. Kleen-Blast

On the East side of the BNSF Main, we see in the Google overhead

1. Graphic Packaging International.
2. Plastic Express, Portland Distribution Center
3. Tricor Braun (Plastic packaging and logistics)
4. PT Food Grade transload area
5. PT Ethanol transload area
6. PT Warehouse (in the GPI Building?)
7. PT Engine house and service facility

PT has extensive transload areas, and that's where most of their business seems to be at this time.

Trip to the Peninsula Terminal Co.

I had some time today, so off to the PT for some photos.

A brief note, please do not confuse the Peninsula Terminal Co. (Reporting marks PT) with either the Portland Terminal Railroad Company (Reporting marks PTRC) or Portland Traction (Formally the East Portland Traction Company, reporting marks EPTC).

The Red line is the PT and it's connection to both the BNSF and UP.  Here's a closer look.

A Brief History.  The PT was constructed to connect the stockyards with the SP&S line between Portland and Vancouver.  At some point the stockyards spun the railroad off.  Local class 1 roads were offered the PT, but the line ended up remaining independant.

Today, the core of PTs business seems to be their transload facility across the street from the Expo Center (To the east of the BNSF line).  They also offer contract locomotive servicing for other railroads.

Today, we go to the west side of the BNSF main.

The PT ducks under the BNSF main, crosses N. Portland Road and  runs alongside N. Suttle road.  There are five spurs to four customers along Suttle.  We'll work our way from the end of the road (At Port of Portland's gated access road) back towards Portland Rd.

First, is Supreme Perlite.  The switchstand for their spur bears the number "160" on it's target.

They have a truck loading or unloading structure built out of recycled shipping containers.  Very modelgenic.  No cars spotted here today, and in fact the rails look very rusty.  No idea how often they get traffic.

Here's the structure

And another shot from closer to the gate.  The track disappears to the left of the structure.

Our next spur is marked "161" on it's target.  It is one of two for our next customer, Ecoservices.

This spur had a couple of covered hoppers spotted deep inside the property, and it was difficult to get good photos from outside the fence on Suttle Rd.  I could make out PCN 1011 on this covered hopper.  There were another two or three spotted behind it inside the spur.

The next spur ( marked "162" on the target) is to the East of Ecoservices.  This is the busiest spot.

I count ten tanks, all with TILX or GATX reporting marks, in this spur.  Off-spot, the PT crew has left another six on the track next to Supreme Perlite.  Cars spotted along Suttle Road were TILX 100772, 100770, 100714, 100686 GATX 5620, 6460.  Just inside the fence on the east spur I could make out TILX 100710, GATX 6235, but none of the 8 other numbers.  These are all DOT 111 tanks, and they all are marked with some variation of "Leased to Rhodia"

Per Google maps, this industry was called Rhodia Inc.  Per the Eco services website, at http://www.eco-services.com/ there were several corporate owners before the current arrangement was achieved in 2014.

Further web research shows this plant to ship Alum for wastewater treatment, and is a terminal for sulphuric acid.

At this point, I ran out of room on my camera's memory card.  So, on to our next adventure for the day.

I did confirm that the next two spurs are used.  There is an oil reprocessor, and a sandblasting abrasive manufacturer. But not right now.

We'll go further East along Suttle Rd. Later.

Willbridge Switchers 1 MAR 2016

Spotted Tuesday, 1 March 2016 at BNSF Willbridge Yard

• BNSF 2674 in BNSF  colors
• BNSF 2078 in whiteface Cascade green and black.
• GN 3613 in BNSF colors

No photos, as I was driving at the time.

Kit railcars

One thing that seems to have changed, is the "shake the box" car kits seem to have gotten rare.

Here's a list of companies featuring easy car kits.

Scaletrains.com advertises their simple kit line.  As they have just started up, there's only one plug-door box. It looks OK for 1980s to last decade.  19.95 msrp.  I don't know if they will be doing limited runs or not.

A Basic plan

Following the track and layout plan outlined in Lance's post,Here's what I have for a Bill of materials.

1. an 8' by 1' pine board.
2. 8' of floor molding and some panel board (or finishing?) nails
3. Delta Ceramcoat “Mudstone” household paint
4. Micro Engineering track and turnouts.  Two RH turnouts, and about 12' of track.
5. Rustoleum Brown Camouflage paint
6. White Glue
7. Heki 1576 Pasture Green Wildgrass grass fiber
8.  Jefferson Street Radical flats from King Mill

Let's add in some other constraints.  Because, Constraints can focus one.

I. Modern era.  Let's define that as post-2010 at least.
II. Within about an hour of, oh, let's say Portland Union Station.  That limits the geography covered.  I'd like to be able to railfan the prototype without having to plan more than a day ahead.  Trying to model a prototype in San Diego would be less convenient for casual railfanning.

We'll see if there are others that seem reasonable.  Like "No Boxcars"  or something.

I am thinking of some prototype locomotives.  The BNSF yard locos I see in Willbridge Yard when I drive by are sometimes interesting.  A ex-GP-30 that's been upgraded to be a GP-39-2.  GN (Nee BNSF) 3613 still working sometimes.  The parade of PNWR geeps passing by.

Modern rolling stock will be harder to do, at first.  I only have older stuff, so I'd need to replace my IPD Boxes, or my 1950s stuff.  But that's not an obstacle.

I've done some virtual railfanning with google maps, and I don't see any industries that are EXACT matches.  But, The Portland Terminal has a transload facility that is quite similar.  I might proto-freelance a transload that is worked by BNSF.  Or not.  I don't know.

Prototype links

A couple of relevant links about the prototype.

1. BNSF Job 101 Job 101 is the switch job into the Lake industrial district.  I knew there was a reason that GN (Nee BNSF) 3613 was still at Willbridge yard.

http://railfan.com/photoline/photoline_jul2012.php

2.  Spindly Rails around Oregon  Local industrial switching.  A quick overview of places locally that still have active industrial switching going on.

First things first

First Post.

Just a place to jot some notes down.

From Lance Mindheim, a trio of blog posts.

1. A no-nonsense, no-excuses modern small switching layout.  This on is targeted right at modelers like me.  no-skills-no-problem

2. A second of Lance's posts.  A sketch of a tiny tuning fork.  And big-time switching. how-to-play-with-trains

3. A third of lance's posts.  Two hollow core doors, One switch.  Lots of operating potential.   a-one-turnout-layout

4. A fourth of Lance's posts.  How did he know ME so well?modeling-when-you-have-no-free-time

Some prototype thoughts.

A prototype to consider - look at their transload and shop site www.peninsulaterminal.com/

Another possibility is a container company.  Like this one, inland-container

Other modeling thoughts.

MRH - the web magazine. model-railroad-hobbyist.com