Hello from NE Oklahoma!


D

dalebaker

New Member
I just joined this forum. I have been back into the hobby for about 4 years after a 20 year lay-off.

a bit about myself, I am a few years away from that great graduation to senior living. The kids are grown and gone so I was able to commandeer a room and start a layout. I also do woodworking and spoiling grandchildren in my spare time.

My layout is based on the Tulsa Port of Catoosa and is a shelf switching layout. It is situated in a 12.5’ by 11.5’ room and is built around 3 walls, it also features a pennensula down the center of the room. We currently operate it with car cards and way bills during operations sessions. We are about to go live with visiting operators. The layout features the following industry “customers”:
Gavilon Grain- 2 elevators on opposite sides of the navigation channel
BKEP Petrolium Partners- Asphalts and petroleum products
Terra Nitrogen- Fertilizer production
Word Industries- Heavy Steel Fabrication
Harsco- oil field process and manufacturing
Hughes Lumber Wholesale- Forrest Products
Team Track- Facility to handle boxcar and tankcar unloading and trans loading
Transloading of rail to barge of bulk loads of gypsum, aggregates and such

The Port utilizes it’s own locomotive and will at times use lease motive power from GTMX. It is served by 2 railroads that interchange into the west side of the facility. The BNSF coming in from Catoosa Oklahoma and the SKOL, coming in from Owasso Oklahoma.Normal equipment from BNSF is Dash8-40BW, GP-60. Every once in a while a BNSF shoving platform is used. Normal equipment for SKOL is 2 SD 40-2s.

I currently have locomotives in BNSF livery, a POCR SW-1500 and have 2 SD’s in the paint shop.

Here are a couple of pictures
81B1AD89-B9E0-48DD-B27D-9EBFC062A2EE.jpeg35FCBCC8-1E27-4837-977F-EB8B3E7979DC.jpegA6B58F93-1BFC-4804-A235-CC106344091B.jpeg

I am am looking forward to seeing what everyone is working on and learning from others.

Thanks for reading!
DB
 
Great photos Dale, but being a BN modeller a little sad to see the caboose in rough shape. :p
Great job on the weathering, and the road in the background looks great!
Welcome aboard and also back to the hobby, looking forward to more pics...
 
Welcome.gif Welcome to the forum DB, glad to have you aboard.

Nice photos. Excellent weathering!. I also enjoy switching a lot. I have a bit more room, but have always enjoyed serving various industries around the layout.

Stop by the Coffee Shop and have a cup. That's where we BS about most anything but politics.
 
Welcome aboard. I grew up in Wichita, and my wife's family is from NE Oklahoma (Perkins specifically). We (the royal we - of her family) just sold the homestead that they acquired in the land rush. I was devastated as I wanted the children to have land that had come into the family from such a historical event. sigh. Anyway, so I am familiar with the general area/climate where you are. Now I am a bit (hour and a half) further to the west. My layout will be set around Pueblo Colorado, so maybe I can float stuff down the Arkansas River to your layout! That will account for the time difference since I plan on modeling the 1950s.

I really like the paint scheme of your equipment. Simple and symbolic at the same time. With all those industries how close does the layout get to downtown Tusla?
 
Hi Guys,

Thanks for the warm welcome. I’ll try to answer your questions.

The BN caboose is pretty close to the shape the one I see down at the BNSF interchange tracks at the port every once in a while. I had a picture of it, I’ll see if I can find it. The BNSF runs into the port from Tiger Switch at Catoosa Oklahoma which is about 3 miles south and 1 mile east of the port. The track runs about 3 miles and crosses Bird Creek which runs into the Arkansas River just south of the port.

The Tulsa Port of Catoosa is situated about 15 miles east and a bit north of downtown Tulsa. It is served by BNSF and SKOL (South Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad). It is the furthest point on the McClellan-Kerr Navigation System and ties into the gulf. The port is quite busy most of the time.

Most of the rail traffic I see coming into the port is Steel in either coils or flat plate, some tank cars and boat loads of grain traffic. We do see some box cars as well and other odd cars. From time to time I also see older well cars bringing in some large crates. Usually 3 cars worth at a time.

There are several wyes at the port so I have 1 I use for turning locomotives and cars when I need to.

The Port runs 2 SW-1500 switchers, numbered 001 and 555. Number 001 is painted in the scheme I have above. The model I have is a BLI SW that I custom painted and had custom decals made for it. All the BNSF locos are Atlas and Fox Valley models I bought in the BNSF scheme. All my locos for the port are DCC/Sound units.

i have a friend that is currently painting 2 Athearn SD 40-2s in the black and yellow SKOL colors. I hope to have them back soon.

POCR started life in my garage and was an L shaped layout. I was running out of room and started having dirt problems with it when Mother Nature intervened on March 30, 2016. We were substantially remodeled by the tornado that came through north Tulsa and eastward. Once we rebuilt, I moved the layout into the house and started on it in late 2016.

For DCC we use the Bachmann Dynamis system with 2 hand-held IR cabs. We have 4 IR receivers spread around the layout.

Thats enough for now I will get some pictures and post them soon.

thanks again for the welcome!
DB
 
Sorry Iron Horseman, afraid not. But there is a Daylight Donuts and a couple of other places down by the main entrance.
 
A couple of photos of the Gavilon Grain east complex. IRL, the elevator sits on the east bank of the barge basin. I utilized a Walthers Grain Elevator, conveyer kit and a wet/dry storage bin. The elevators are Rix products.
C908DD0F-DA07-4090-A2E8-FEF756131124.jpeg172D5100-9E3E-458E-AE5F-2F59D6E4F68D.jpeg
Thanks for looking.
DB
 
B5DE299A-DEA3-4302-A7C3-0B781B0FD5AD.jpeg
A friend of mine is painting the SKOL SD40-2 locomotives for me. I got a picture of the first unit done the other night.
it has turned out quite well!

i appreciate all the compliments and encouraging words from you all!

Again, thank you very much!
 
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