Terminal Yard Upgrades! Part 1

Greetings All,

With the work at Bedford Park and BP Yard winding down it's time for me to turn my attention to Terminal Yard. When I started building the N.Y.C.T.L. Terminal Yard was built to be a staging or fiddle yard. It's in a separate room that houses the vast majority of my trains and was basically designed as a place for me to take trains out of their boxes and put them on the layout and take trains off the layout and put them away. I never envisioned adding scenery here and was quite happy with the painted plywood and train boxes.

Fast forward several years and Terminal Yard has become a focal point of N.Y.C.T.L. operations. Operations that did not exist at the time it was built. This all changed when I met my friend Ralph or PC Ralph as we call him and we started the virtual ops AKA the Penn Central Car Movements. Then 1:1 Engineer Ed started coming over for actual ops and Terminal Yard was again part of the action that I never really envisioned for it. Add 1:1 Sir Neal's A.P.R.R. into the virtual ops mix and it was really time for me to get Terminal Yard more virtual ops and actual ops worthy.  

Recently Ralph showcased some of his facade industries on his K.P.D. blog and another train buddy, John Bruce of the L.F.N.W., showcased his facade layout on his blog. Using both of their work as inspiration I entered into the 'facade world'. 

Awhile back my buddy Engineer Ed gave me an Evans Designs software package that allows me to make my own backdrop or facade buildings using my computer and printer. So I put it to use again. 

This is the Terminal Yard entrance at it's recent best in P.C.C.M. 39. Evans Designs printed building are in the upper right corner. Some cardboard and hard board are blocking the train boxes behind the trains. The yard was tough to find decent photo ops when participating in the virtual ops.

Enter the new Facades. I've designed and printed out some more building flats and actually attached them to the walls. The large retaining wall at the bottom left is shelf liner paper over some scrap wood. The smoke stacks are cardboard tubes with construction paper used for the black and the orange.

Some shrubbery and grass have been added at the base of the wall. As the glue dries I'm pondering my next move.  

The Power & Light Company is back in place. Not bad so far!

Some ballast has been added to the rear of the tracks and some billboards have been added to the buildings

The Terminal Yard Switchers roll into TY and already this scene looks so much better to me.

 The tunnel to the rest of the layout doesn't look so bad right now.

I used black 20" x 30" foam core board that I bought at a local dollar store for the facades. I cut them at 15'' in height and the remaining 5'' are glued to the front of that piece to make the wall that is covered with the shelf liner paper. Five feet of facades are now in place. They attach to the shelf work with Velcro for easy removal and access to my passenger trains. This is only a start but I like the way it's going so far

Still a lot of scenic work to be done but the overall effect is so much better.

Another 30'' of Terminal Yard has scenery and track ballast added. 

 The view from the room's entrance.

So far I've only glued one turnout closed and I really like the way the area is looking. Some more scenic details like signs and some weathering to the buildings and retaining wall are in the plans. I'll follow up with that in part 2.

I want to thank all of my train pals for their inspiration, support, positive comments and camaraderie. There is no way I would have ever undertaken this without that. I am so looking forward to posting some shots of trains entering and leaving the Yard now! Thanks for all your support. 

Thanks for reading!

PS I unglued the turnout!