So, I'm back with some more screenshots of the Castle Peak! I've also changed my building process a little bit. Previously, I tended to jump around to different areas of the layout and work on whatever caught my interest at the time. Now, I've decided to try focusing on one area of the layout at a time, and working on only that section until I feel that it has reached a reasonable state of completion. I've chosen to work on Gothic first, and I already feel like the new method is paying off, as I feel like I've made more progress on the CP&P than I have in a while. So, be prepared to be seeing a lot of Gothic for the next little while as I work to get it to a mostly finished state!
That said, onto the pictures. This shot shows the oil refinery in Gothic, which I cobbled together using a set of tanks, a pair of smokestacks, a Standard Oil Company building, and a boiler house made by Pencil42. I also added some hoses and oil spills, along with a pair of tanker wagons. In reality, there were oil refineries in the 1880s - their main product was kerosene at the time - but they wouldn't have looked anything like this. If you want to know what they really would have looked like, do a search for the Pioneer Oil Refinery in California, a real 1880s oil refining facility. I would vastly prefer to build a facility modeled after that one on the layout, but there are no Trainz assets available that would allow me to do so. I do have a set of plans and several photographs (both the real thing and models), though, so I could make a model of it myself. Unless someone else takes up the task, however, that will have to wait until after I finish building the CP&P with the assets that are already available - while I am interested in creating several custom assets for the route, I want to wait to do so until after I have gotten the CP&P to a reasonable stage of completion.
Based on the information I have, most lime kilns had an on-site barrel making shop (also known as a cooper) where wood planks would be delivered, then shaped and assembled into barrels right there on-site, though that didn't mean that barrels were never shipped in. This was important, because lime had to be stored in watertight containers - if lime got wet, it initiated a chemical reaction that caused it to heat up tremendously, and that had a very nasty habit of lighting things around it on fire. So, I added an old west cooper shop to the facility, along with a large number of barrels waiting to be filled with lime. I also added a large door to the warehouse loading dock, along with several workmen and a new sign. In reality, the barrels used to hold lime would be more akin to the smaller barrels shown here in terms of size, but I needed a large number of barrels and the large barrel rows laid out on beams helped to fill in the scene quickly - if I get around to creating custom assets for the route (or can find some people who are willing to do so for me) I'll probably replace those large barrels with smaller ones that are more appropriately sized.
This cooper shop, located behind and between the brewery and dynamite factory, serves both the town residents and does some contract work for the brewery. I've added a number of barrels out front of the shop, along with a flatbed wagon loaded with barrels. I've also added a freight wagon to the back of the brewery, and on the left of the image you can see a little bit of the details that I've added to the loading dock on the dynamite factory.
This shot, taken from the other side of the brewery, shows more of the details added. A pair of workmen are chatting on their break next to some barrels and a tanker wagon. On the far right, the coal dealer goes over his inventory checklist, while his wagon waits next to the storage shed before heading out to make todays kerosene deliveries.
For quite a while, Gothic had a large empty space behind the coke ovens. This has now been filled with the street scene shown in this image. Known as Workman's Row, the houses on this street were built from logs and rough-cut timbers during the early days of the settlement. Nowadays, they house most of the poorer workmen in town, most of whom work the coke ovens and lime kilns.
This shot, taken from above Workman's Row, shows the ore wagons I added to the coke ovens facility. These sturdily-built wagons would help ease the process of moving large amounts of material around the yard and can also be used to make deliveries both local and along the toll roads. The rates aren't as cheap as the railroad can offer, but for some towns, it's the only option available.