crandic railway – The Hills Line

McDonough Structures

August 14, 2022May 28, 2022 by James McNab, posted in Construction

Wrapping up the last building for the Maiden Lane portion of The Hills Line. McDonough Structures provides new construction and remodeling services for residential and commercial projects. Their warehouse sits between East Third Street and Highland Avenue south of the industrial spur. McDonough has had a variety of paint schemes over the years. During my … Continue reading McDonough Structures

Paw-sitive Progress

July 29, 2022July 20, 2022 by James McNab, posted in Construction

The sheer amount of structures on The Hills Line built from or including Rix Products components continues to climb. It's almost as if the zoning board of eastern Iowa thumbed through a Pikestuff catalog when laying out the industrial areas around the railroad. My latest project involved the immensely simple Veterinary Associates structure on East … Continue reading Paw-sitive Progress

Building The Backsides

July 13, 2022May 28, 2022 by James McNab, posted in Construction

If there's an advantage to modeling a prototype that only features two online industries, it's that the offline industries tend to be rather simple in execution. Generally that's due to having their backsides visible to the railroad, which lack any loading docks or rolling doors, since they aren't rail served. It becomes a rather straightforward … Continue reading Building The Backsides

Third Time’s The Charm

June 27, 2022June 26, 2022 by James McNab, posted in Announcements

After three years of documenting progress on this website, I'm starting to believe that this layout concept is going to work. On this anniversary, my sincere thanks to all of you who have joined me on the journey so far.