Would love to post a pic but camera is on the fritz. I have a 5 in. diameter sewer pipe that i have built my layout around in my basement (hope it never leaks). The pipe goes down through my layout at one end of my yard close to my engine shop but also close to the sanding and refueling station. Been racking my brain trying to devise a way to disguise it, but in a manner that it doesn’t look way out of bounds. Obviously i cant build a mountain or hill around it cause it’s right in the yard. The only idea i can come up with is this. By it being round, i’m thinking i’ll buy some sort of tank kit, build it around the pipe and leave the roof off . But what sort of tank that big (scale wise) would be found in a train yard ? They don’t have fuel tanks that big above ground do they? I realize that my options may be limited. So please anyone with any ideas feel free to enlighten me. And yes i know the best idea is to not build a layout around a sewer pipe. Please help. THANKS
A tank sounds good to me. i don’t know if I would worry about what kind of tank (what it holds). The point is to hide the pipe. If there is room, you could put two more tanks of the same size close to it, thus giving the impression of a tank farm. Visitors won’t care what the tanks are for. Other operators might, but everyone is going to know its for hiding the pipe.
I also wouldn’t try and buy a kit for it. Less chance of getting something that would fit right. You might be able to get a piece of PVC pipe, split it and put it around the pipe. Otherwise, just wrap it with styrene sheet. Scribing some seams or panel lines on the styrene first would help. You might even be able to paint it before wrapping it around the pipe. However, once you glue it together, you will have to paint the seam. You could also build a berm around it to contain spills.
About the seam. I would use a splice strip. Put it on the inside. Glue it on one end first, then wrap the styrene around the pipe and trim the other end to match the joint.
This is a gas tank:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/490-618
It’s just about the size of your pipe in HO scale. You could paint your pipe to resemble the tank, and surround it with the catwalks. Then, set the kit tank next to it, free standing without the catwalks.
What’s this pipe made of? Is it against the wall, more or less, or is it way out in the middle of the room? If it’s a couple of feet from the wall, and made of PVC, it wouldn’t be too much work to cut it and add a couple of diagonal sections to re-route it to the wall above the layout, then down through the very edge of the layout, and finally back out again beneath the layout.
What era are you modeling? Before natural gas was piped all over creation, there used to be some moderately humongous circular gasometers for storing coal gas in almost every city in the Northeast. The modeling might be a little tricky, but it would definitely be unique.
Actually, a big city gasometer might be too big. I recall them being over a hundred feet in diameter. OTOH, some of them have lasted into the 1990s, at least. Flattening one in the New York area was the subject of one of the Master Blasters documentaries on the Discovery Channel.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
You could also use the old theater trick of painting it black.
Nick
Already painted it black to take the focus off of it but it still is a big black pipe. Kinda hard to miss. Like i said my optins are probably limited.
I am modeling 1980’s to present.
The tank you pictured would work well. I kinda figured that some form of tank would be the only practical option. The pipe is either galvanized or cast iron. Not sure which. In any case rerouting is out of the question. I had that idea before building my layout. It’s not in the center of the layout and it’s not close to a wall either. Closest wall is about 6 feet away.
Put building walls around it, maybe two or three stories, and stick cotton painted smoke black on the pipe to take away the roundness and you have yourself a good old structure fire. you could even hide flickering red lights in the cotton for flames.[:O]
Brent
I guess your probably right. The main point is hiding the pipe, not what the pipe is used for. Thats just me trying to be as prototypical as possible.(sometimes overly). Guess it might be hard to be prototypical when you have a SEWER PIPE STICKING OUT OF YOUR LAYOUT !!! LOL
I seem to recall a similar situation being discussed in an old Model Trains magazine, about the mid 50s. Seems the person built a quickie multi story factory type building around the pipe, a couple pieces of copper tubing from the top roof for smokestacks, and some loose cotton to represent smoke.
What kind of factory is it? Whatever you want it to be.
It’s a long shot, but you could consider putting in car ferry service - the fuel tank could hold diesel fuel for the ferries. The Ann Arbor Railroad had some big tanks at the end of their yard in Elberta, MI on Lake Michigan.
I once saw where aguy hid a lolly colum as a water tower up on a mountain top looked pretty convincing. If you have room to box it in they sell these kits in the home centers that clip around columns so you can build a box around them and make them a little more pleasing to look at when u finish your basement.
You may be able to apply the same principal to your pipe. Imagine a square piece of wood with a hole cut in the center of it the diameter of the pipe. Then cut the square in half leaving you with two pie shaped pieces with half circles. put them around the pipe and reattach them together. I would suggest making at least tow of them depending on how tall the pipe is. Now you have a square surface to attach either plywood or styrene etc. making a building right in place. If you have enough clearance around it it can possibly be some sort of maintenance support structure like a back shop or a machine shop. If this idea doesn’t work for you something like a sewer pipe is or building structure is an acceptable obstruction in my book. We in model railroading are limited in a few ways in our quest for realism Our physical surroundings being one of the toughest challenges…
I think disguising it as a smokestack would work well. I have a similar pole in my basement that I intend to place a powerplant next to. Wrap the pole in some brick pattern and top with dyed cotton balls for smoke/steam. How “tall” is this structure compared to other buildings on the layout? A typical HO smokestack could be 3 feet tall, a little overpowering for the other scenery but prototypically correct in height. In a yard it could be a plant for steam heat left over from steam days or heating other buildings.
You could disguise it as the Space Shuttle, but then you’d have to explain what the Space Shuttle was doing sitting there at the end of your yard.
Same problem with an Atlas rocket
You could paint it brown, and cover the top part with green foam and call it a tree…
Or paint the whole thing green and call it a ‘beanstalk’… [(-D]
You could put sides around it and make it into a building- perhaps a railroad hotel or your railroad’s headquarters building. Paint the portion above the bldg the same as your backdrop, presumably a sky color.
Attach track to it, ballast it and run trains on it-- yeah, I know the grade’s a bit steep but a shay could probably do it !!! [:D]
Put sides on it a few inches up and paint or fixup what’s underneath to look like legs or supports and turn it into a fancy yard tower / switch tower.
Brag about your railroad having the world’s largest grain storage elevator. So big you only need one…
It could be a direct pipeline to congress…
Maybe you could build a really tiny helix around it ?
Turn it into an oil or fuel storage facility (suggestion’s already been made in previous posts)
Maybe turn it into a modern, fancy cable bridge support with two spans (one on each side) and then paint or fix it up to look like a concrete support tower
I think that’s a good idea.
For the storage tank, use a piece of cardstock. Print the design on it (like Shell or Gulf, or whatever) and wrap it around the pipe. If it’s iron, you’re not going to have a nice smooth surface to work with, but just making a cover for it will work fine. Make the tank 5 or 6 inches tall, and do the sky color for everything above that.
Hey at least the sewer pipe isn’t clear glass.
Depending on how far along the rest of the layout is, seems to me there is a good chance that the pipe is more visually distracting on an unscenicked or partly scenicked layout than it will prove when the whole scene is complete and there is more to look at. If so I’d be a bit cautious about constructing a massive structure around it at too early a stage. You might end up doing more to attract attention to it than anything else.
One thought would be a sort of view block where thin wood or veneer would surround the pipe and then meet at edges well away from it, sort of like a wing, so the curves would be subtle.
I have a support column (metal pipe) smack dab in the middle of my layout. I housed it in a close fitting box of pine 1x6s from floor to ceiling and painted it white (to match the walls) rather than sky blue like my backdrop, or “theater black.” Initially it bugged the heck out of me but now I hardly notice it. At some point I may even put my fast clock(s) on all four faces near the ceiling for operators to see since it is so central.
Dave Nelson
If it was mine, I would box it so that it looks like part of the room and then hang train pictures, or a blackboard with a train schedule on it. It would be a great place to hang a monitor if you ever put a camera on your train.
But then I am not the one who has to live with it, so the decision should be based on YOUR desires.
In an earlier era you could detail it as a shot tower, but that wouldn’t work now. Spraying droplets of molten lead into a tall structure, then allowing them to fall into the water at the bottom, was one of the earliest entries on the EPA’s, “Don’t do this,” list.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Why do we feel the need to apologize for our suggestions or actions and restate the obvious that, in the final analysis, it is the owner’s layout to do with as he likes?
Mark