Some new features at West Mill Yard

The West Mill Yard expansion created some opportunities for new structures.   Since the yard is now bigger and assumes a more important role on the layout, the old salvaged passenger car "office" formerly used by Floatmaster Cappy Foster no longer seemed adequate.  Cappy and his crew have just moved into this yard tower/office located on the spot of his original, more humble dwellings.

The new office was made from a couple of blocks of wood and various parts I had in my scrap box, including the last remnants of my paper brick sheets!

The original carfloat scene did not include an apron crane.  I remedied that by making one out of strip wood.  I'll admit to having to look up what these structures were called.  Now, instead of referring to them as "Those bridge-like things over the carfloat apron",  I can correctly identity them as carfloat apron cranes.   Mine follows no particular prototype but was inspired by a number of photos of cranes.  

Finally, the layout expansion provided space to create a barge loading scene connected to Empire Grain.   The original pre-expansion scene included some of the components but the loader just pointed off the edge of the layout with no river or barge to load.   In the new scene a conveyor leads from Empire Grain across the yard to this "imagineered" loader and barge.  I made good use of several inexpensive signal bridges I purchased years ago at a flea market to create the loader.  The barge is simply a piece of 1 X 4 pine with some details including actual cornmeal glued on a carved sponge to represent the grain. 

That's the quick look at some of the features that will likely appear in scenes of action at West Mill in the future!

Thanks for taking a look!