Hi Guys
I’m thinking of adding a small scrapyard scene at the end of one of my dead end tracks. Nothing real special just a small yard office and some piles of scrap steel and maybe a crane with a magnet. I will just assume that the shredding is done “offline” other words, pretend.
Does anybody have any pictures of there scrapyards and what they use for there scrap piles?
Thanks for any help guys
Jeremy
I just love talkin’ trash!
I collected junk for several years (don’t we all) before starting. The junk piles and tires are castings I bought on sale or found at train shows. I found them to be too low and flat, so I elevated them on scraps of foam roadbed to raise them up. Each casting was sprayed flat black and then hand-painted to bring out the details. The cars are old plastic toy-like models that I beat up, cut up and drilled out.
I use a product called Instant Rust, available at craft stores, to get that “real rust” look. It’s an emulsion of very finely ground iron particles, which is painted on, and then is treated with an oxidizer to turn the iron to rust. It looks like real rust because it is real rust.
I scratch-built the office building from styrene sheet and some Tichy doors and windows. The wood plank fence is made from coffee stirrers I slit lengthwise with a utility knife and cut to size. I used Miniatronics lamps for the tall light poles, with cross-arms made from wood coffee stirrers and the poles from plastic stirrers.
This is my scrap yard that serves the Steel Mill on my layout. I just used the scrap left over from structure models and painted it rust color. You probably want to include an electromagnet crane to lift the scrap. I just use a Cat to scrape up and distribute the scrap. Click on photo t enlarge it. Then, click on the “Previous” and “Next” arrows to see other views of my layout. Bob Hahn
This is Reggie’s Junk Yard. … You can see structural steel being cut up with a torch in the back. Reggie salvages parts from junk cars and sells them at his auto parts store which he made from a junk box car. You can see him working on his stock car.
In this picture you can see Dawg, the junk yard dog. He’s mean; so keep away from him.
Here’s an old steamer switching the junk yard. The locomotive is close to being scrapped itself.
What “junky” model railroads!
While I do not have a scrap/junk yard, I visited many during my mis-spent youth. Most were filled with autos, but some had anything and everything metal. If I were to do one now, my first stop would be my parts/junk boxes and pull bridge parts, trucks/cars, rail truck frames, some wheel sets, and any thing made of metal (in the real world). Then, pick up some Testors “rust”, and flat black and with some thinner, do a wash on them.
Remember, they are junk/trash yards - neatness does NOT count!
an easily modeled but often overlooked detail of most scrap operations is a truck scale in the driveway right next to the office building.
charlie
Will you be placing your planned scrapyard against a backdrop? In that case, you could make some shallow depth mounds of scrap metal using foam, splatter painted brown/red/burnt orange etc and liberally sprinkled with small pieces of styrene bits and other items.
Mimics the hills of scrap found at larger scrapyards…
LION has a scrap yard UNDER the table.
ROARING
Not all scrap yards have shredders or compactors. Around here a mobile compactor comes through occasionally and will press old cars flat, so that a transport truck can carry quite a few of them. A small yard might just collect, then send a gondola load off to a larger facility.
Good luck,
Richard
WOW thanks guys for the pictures and tips. They will prove to be quite valuable when I get started.
I used odds and ends and a few commercial pieces. DJ.
Garry and Grampys, both of you show a crane on tracks. I have the same crane from an old I think LifeLike car, and would like to do something similar for my yard. Did your cranes come that way or did you bash them with tracks from something else, and if so, how?
Thanks, Duane
Duane, mine came with tracks. DJ.
Hey DJ…that scale and scale house…were they from a kit or did you scratch build them?
Dennis, they were part of the Walther’s kit. DJ.
My crane came with a Life-Like SceneMaster set of construction equipment with workers.