Finally... the oil facility is complete.

Happy New Year!

After a little pause from Model Railroading (which is never surprising nowadays), I acme back to complete the oil facility. All major components were completed a few months back, the only thing pending were the pontoon rafts to separate the ship from the port quay wall, and then completing the mooring to tie the ship to the dock.

So here are the little pontoon rafts - nothing special really. dimensions are 30 X 25 X 8 in millimeters, plus the tires. Made of styrene, and bitts are my customary toothpicks. I think I am getting the hang of the air brush thingy!

Once these are built, the only thing remaining was to tie them up with a chain and sandwich them between the ship and the port wall. My wife donated me with one of her cheap chains, so I painted it and used them to tie these up to the bitts. Once done, I completed the mooring of the ship with 4 lines which I think is sufficient for a ship of this size.

So here are the final photographs:

Here is a helicopter view of the facility that clearly shows the placement of the pontoon rafts and the whole facility.

Now, here I would like to take the opportunity to thank my dear friend John Milford for his invaluable guidance on everything related to ships, ports and all the nitty-gritty of how to model a realistic port scene. It started with this very model - Sirius, the Oil Tanker, and then it continued throughout the other aspects of this project for lat 8 years- thank you John!