Stockyard Upgrades
by John Carty
photos by Richard Schumacher |
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I model the East St. Louis region in the mid 1950's. The
town of National City occupies a portion of this area with
the National Stockyards along with several meatpacking
plants. Although I lack the space to model the stockyards in
its entirety, much less the adjacent packing plants, I
wanted to include National City on my layout. To this end I
built two meatpacking plants along with two low-relief
meatpacking plants (perhaps they specialize in lean meat).
 In order to supply the packers with material, I needed a
place to receive animals. Walther's Stock Yard kit fit the
bill nicely, but required a little dressing up.
I started by assembly the kit according to the directions.
Since I intended to include sheep and pigs
along with the requisite cattle, I included shelters over
two of the pens in the kit for hogs. This
provided two sheltered pens and four pens open to the
elements. Before completing assembly by installing
the gates and roof, I sprayed the pens and ground as well as
the gates with inexpensive walnut pigmented
gloss enamel. I followed this with a misting of flat black
to deaden the shine of the gloss and give the
wooden parts the appearance of creosote. After the paint
dried, I finished assembling the kit.
Since the soil in the yard would not be black, I mixed brown
and tan acrylic craft paint, thinning the
concoction with rubbing alcohol. I did not mix the paint
thoroughly. I covered the ground in the
pens and chutes with this wash and allowed it to dry. I then
weathered the entire stockyard with acrylic
paints dry brushed and washes.
 Next, I assembled water troughs for each pen from strip
styrene. Each trough stands about two feet tall.
The troughs for the larger pens measure about a scale two
feet by ten feet, while the smaller pens
received troughs measuring one and one half by seven scale
feet. The exact dimensions are not as important
as the presence of a watering container in each pen. I
sprayed the troughs with gray primer and washed
them with a mixture of tan and gray. I then bent fill pipes
for each trough and sprayed them flat black to
simulate black iron pipes. I glued the troughs into each
pen. I then drilled a hole in the base at one end
of each trough and inserted the pipe, which I glued from the
bottom. This job would have been much easier
if I had done it before attaching the roofs.
Ground cover presented a quandary. I attempted to cut twine
and apply that as straw, but the results left
much to be desired. I put the question on the back burner
for a few days. While cleaning out the pencil
sharpener at work I realized that the pencil shavings might
just provide the texture I sought. I bagged
the contents of the sharpener and took them home. After
sitting a day or two, I spread white glued thinned
with an equal amount of water in each pen and chute and
sprinkled shavings over the glue. The time the
shavings sat allowed me to apply just shavings and little
graphite. After the glue had dried for a day I
turned the stockyard over a wastebasket to remove excess
shavings.
 Now was the time to add animals. I painted three sets of
Walther's cattle. Two coats of antique white
acrylic craft paint provided a base color. I then painted
about half the cattle brown, both solid and
spotted. About half of the rest received tan paint, while
the balance received black. I purchased a
set of Atlas sheep and found them much too white. To rectify
this, I applied a coat of antique white to
the sheep as well. I also purchased several sets of white
pigs with black spots produced by Boley. Since
the spots were glossy, I sprayed the hogs with Testor's Dull
Cote.
After removing the sheep from their bases, I glued a dozen
in one pen. Next, I glued the pigs in the two
pens with cover. The cattle then occupied the remaining
three pens. For the most part, I tried to put an
odd number of animals in each pen, since this tends to make
the exact number less obvious.
Preiser figures were then added to complete the scene.
Altogether, I was quite pleased with this simple
sprucing up of the Walther's Stock Yard. Although I may yet
add a shack for the workers, at least the
stock cars and the cattle in them have a destination on my layout.
Materials Required
Atlas: Sheep #150-779
Acrylic Craft Paint: Tan, Brown, Gray
Boley: White pigs with black spots
Spray Enamel: Walnut, Flat Black, Gray Primer
Walthers: Cornerstone Stock Yard kit #933-3047
Various Manufacturers: Cattle
Cornerstone Beef Cattle #933-3143
Atlas Cows & Horse #150-778
Preiser Cows #590-14155
Preiser Cow Herd #150-14409
Selley Cows #675-161
Woodland Scenics Hereford Cows #785-1843
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