Yard Job Makes Set Out At The Building Supply

On the afternoon of August 1 last year (2010) I was on a photo outing for more documentation and happened upon the yard job returning back to Goulding from the Pensacola Port.  He had six cement hoppers in tow along with a lone boxcar.  Seeing the boxcar on the end of the cut I was wondering if he might make a drop at W.R. Taylor and sure enough he did.  I captured the action in a few photos.



Yard job coming north up Tarragona St. from the port. Today's power is a far cry from the humble MP15s of the era I am modeling.  Modeling note - the siding is completely buried in clean ballast, grass, and weeds.

 

Traffic is stopped on Garden St. just north of the turnout to the building supply.  There are a number of steel plates that need to be opened for the turnout to be lined for the siding and the ground throw is below grade between the rails.



The cut is then backed into the siding to spot the ex-SP boxcar.  The ballast was so high as seen in the first photo above that it crunched as the boxcar was pushed to its spot on the siding.



Once the crewman carefully guided the engineer to align the boxcar with the loading ramp he set the brakes, pulled the pin with the cut lever, and the cement hoppers were pulled off the siding.  The crewman rode the last car to the turnout and then dropped off.  The train continued to a stop clear of traffic just north of Garden St.  Once the crewman had the turnout re-aligned he had to wait on traffic before crossing Garden St. and hopping back on the train for the ride north back to Goulding yard.

Here is the car spotted on the siding.  Note the relative neatness of the area around the siding as well as the many stacks of brick and block adjacent to the track.



This view looks south.  Note the close clearance to the loading dock.  In the shadow you can make out the edge of the metal drop plate that will bridge between the ramp and the car for unloading with a forklift.  Also note the Pensacola News-Journal building in the background.  It is just in the next block and is no longer rail served ...but it was in the era I'm modeling so that will be included as you can see in the Tarragona Module on the track plans page.

Module Legs

It's been a while since I've posted an update ...life happens fast!  I have been thinking about module legs and what to do with the first module frames I built with the intent that they would be a yard or perhaps staging.  I originally built folding legs since these modules are 6' in length and could accept the long legs utilized for Free-moN rail head height standard of 50".  Since the legs overlapped when folded they needed to be offset from each other resulting in leg sets somewhat narrower than the already narrow 12" module width.  The height, narrow leg sets, and hinged mounting all contributed to make the modules less stable than I desired.  I realize stability increases once modules are set up but I still had concerns in case I wanted to use these modules as end point staging in a setup.  They would then only be connected on one end cutting back on the desired stability.

So I was trying to decide if I really wanted to use the modules.  Before scrapping them I decided to try a different leg attachment.  I proceeded to rebuild one of the module's legs sets as fixed (bolt or clamp on). The leg sets were broader and were attached much more firmly than with the plain hinges and folding braces as before.  As you would guess this did increase stability somewhat.  About that time I ran across a post on the Free-moN Yahoo Group that mentioned the use of conduit for legs.  So I proceeded to fabricate a set of conduit legs for the second module.

I purchased some 1/2" metal electrical conduit.  Adjustable feet, allowance for module deck thickness, roadbed, etc. will determine exact length but each leg needed to be somewhere north of 48".  Two 10' lengths were sufficient to make four legs and were only around a couple of dollars a piece.  A small pipe cutter made fairly quick work of cleanly cutting the legs to length.  I cut 45 degree corner braces out of some plywood scrap and attached a 10-24 x 5/16 T-nut centered on the back side of each.  I then mounted them into each corner of the module using four screws.

I used a 3/16" x 2" eye bolt as a set screw in the T-nut  to effectively secure each conduit leg into the corner of the module.

This view shows the legs attached at one end of the module.  The corner braces and end plate will be painted to match the module frame and seal the wood against moisture.

Here is a view of the module standing on its new legs.  Being in the corners of the frame the legs are effectively braced on two sides and seem to provide a significantly sturdier stance than the wooden leg sets I fabricated for the other module.  I plan to play with adjusting module height by adjusting the set of the legs in their respective "pockets".  If that is too finicky I plan to press fit a hex nut (as mentioned in the Yahoo Groups posting) into the bottom of each leg to accept an eye bolt for height adjustment.

 

Some advantages of the conduit legs are they are simple to fabricate, interchangeable, easy to transport, relatively inexpensive, and they don't require painting.  Now I just need to decide if I want to retrofit the other staging/yard module and ultimately the Tarragona Street and other modules for the Pensacola scene.