Rooming house completed

I have now completed the rooming house mode,  both interior and exterior (unless I decide to add something else).  For me nothing is ever totally complete as I decide from time to time to make additions or changes.

As you can see I added a few more details including signs and a trash can.

And now I will try to show the interior details installed though it is difficult to show them in these overhead photos - much easier to see when looking in person and since the model will be inches from the edge of the layout, viewing the interior with the roof removed will be fairly easy.

There are two bedrooms upstairs along with the hall and shared bathroom at the back.

The bedrooms are fairly sparse with a bed, a dresser, a water heater and a table in each plus a few additional details.

On the dresser at the top you can see a gray hat.  The dresser at he bottom has a book standing on end.

The left bedroom has a pair of boots beside the trunk though hard to see.  There are clothes hanging on the walls inside each bedroom door.  I

I enjoy making these interior details, most of which are scratch built.

Now that this model is complete I need to decide what to build next.  I am working on an SS Ltd truck kit and a PRR well flat kit so I am not without things to occupy my time.  With the New Year approaching I will be doing some celebrating with my wife and family.

Rooming house interior details

Here are some of the interior details I will be installing in the rooming house upper floor.  The two beds have SSLtd cast metal ends but the rest of the beds are made from a slab of wood covered with a facial tissue sheet and pillow made from rolled up facial tissue.  In the rear you can see the cast metal SSLtd bed and pillow that I did not use.

In the rear at right is a cast meat toilet bowl with an elevated water tank made from wood.  My grand mother had one of those in her summer cottage.  At the front left is a clawfoot style bathtub I made from card stock and wood.  There are two commercial trunks and a commercial sink laying on it's side.  There are two chairs, the left one is cast metal and the right one is made from small pieces of wood.  I will be making some more details such as carpets and clothes hanging on a hook on the wall - all will be made from facial tissue.  I use facial tissue for many things including revised clothing for figures, laundry and rags hanging, simulated canvas and much more.

Next I will start installing these things in the building but I thought it would be easier to see them like this rather than after they are installed.

An article on the gas station I built a while back has now been published in the January issue of the NMRA magazine.

Rooming house exterior complete

I have completed the exterior of the rooming house.  The next step is to detail the interior of the upstairs.  The roof lifts off.

The stairs are part plastic, part wood.  Doing the railings was tedious with my shaky hands.  The bench on the front porch is an SS Ltd kit.  

The roof is card stock with wood bracing, and covered with strips of paper painted black then dusted with gray chalk dust.

Rooming house model progress

The rooming house now has four mostly complete outer walls.  The model is approximately 25 x 25 scale feet.  It has two rooms on each floor plus an office on the ground floor and a shared bathroom on the upper floor,  I have decided to do interior detail on the upper floor and make the roof removable.

There will be a short foundation under the building as well as a front porch and an upper porch over the front porch.  On the left side is an upper door and will have stairs leading up to that door.  The right hand door on the bottom is for the office.

This slightly higher view shows the start of some interior partitions.  There is a short hall inside the outside door with the bathroom at the end of the hall on the back and two rooms in the front area.   I still have a supply of SS Ltd interior details such as beds, sinks, etc which I will use to detail these rooms.  I will also scratch build some details.

Rooming houses unlike boarding houses had no food service nor cooking facilities though some tenants brought in rudimentary cooking equipment when allowed.  My tenants will have to avail themselves of the diner next door.

Track work vintage 1908 plus next project

Below are two photos of section crews with motor cars vintage 1908. The first photo shows a motor car with trailer on the Chicago & Alton railway.  These motor cars replaced a greater quantity of hand cars and apparently saved almost two hours time per man.

The crew has moved the motor car and trailer off of the rails to work on the track.  I always find it fascinating that workers such as these wore hats with brims while working.

The next photo shows a motor car and trailer on the Union Pacific railroad in the process of distributing ties.

The car is hauling 20 ties and 12 workers - somewhat crowded but effective.

Next project

My next construction project is a rooming house to house some of the workers in the surrounding industrial area.  So far I have mostly completed the front of the building,  at this point 26 feet wide and one foot deep.

This rooming house will be located on the street at the edge of the layout between the second hand goods store and the diner.  That will complete the structures on the street.

Bucket elevator equipment 1939 era

In the early years of industrial development the variety of machines was vast and interesting.  That is one reason I choose the 1939 era for my model railroad.  The inclined spaced bucket elevator below delivers coal from a below ground storage pile to a scraper conveyor.  A scraper conveyor uses scraper sections to move material (such as coal) onto an elevated conveyor and moves it to something such as a power plant.

It appears the installation above has some wooden safety barriers being constructed on each side of the pit.

Bucket elevators were also manufactured as mobile loaders and unloaders.  The machine above was provided powered by either an electric motor or gasoline engine.  The discharge chute swiveled in order to distribute to distribute the material evenly.

I have decided on my next model and am doing a rough design - more later.

Railroad storage shed model completed

I have completed the railroad storage shed.  The hardest part was the tedious task of building the roof and applying shingles.  The shed is all wood.  The shingles are the vintage Campbell shingles.  As previously stated I reduced the number of compartments to three.  The door on the right end is a double door as the other doors slide to the right inside the units and the right unit yes not have room for that.  I did that since it appears the right units on the prototype have no slide area.

The roof was first coated with india ink and alcohol, then with my alcohol and grey acrylic paint stain.

The above view is the aspect in the prototype photo.

Now I need to install it on the layout and complete my scenery.  Then I need to decide what to build next.

Railroad storage shed model

The next model I am building is this storage shed I photographed some years ago on a railfan trip in Pennsylvania.  I think this shed was somewhere near Lancaster though I did not make any notation on the back of the photo.  My model will be a shortened version of the prototype having only three compartments to avoid overwhelming the location on the layout where it will be placed.

This shed has obviously seen some wear and is somewhat in disrepair.  The roof appears to be covered in some loose roofing material with a few boards showing.  It seems to be facing a siding as the track and ties are well worn.  Perhaps the loco in the back is on the mainline.  My model will be mostly wood and somewhat distressed also.

I will leave one of the doors open and place some details inside - not sure yet what they will be.

Acid tank truck for glue factory

I built a small tank truck for the acid tank at my glue factory.  The starting point was a plastic army style tank trailer which I modified and added a front end.

As a close-up it looks a little crude but sitting on the layout it looks decent.  The cab and front end were made from card stock.  The headlights were pieces on plastic sprue rounded ends.  The front bumper is a strip of metal.

The spigot on the back of the tank is the end of a train line hose.   Below is a photo of the tank trailer that I started with.

I cut off the squared fenders and made new ones from card stock.  It was a simple and fun project.

I have decided on my next structure to build.  I am using a photo I took on one of my railman trips to Pennsylvania.

Glue factory acid tank plus updates

The glue factory acid tank is a little dude - about 7 1/2 scale feet high (about one inch).  Acid was used in the glue preparation process to dissolve the hide or bone components to create the glue solution.  The tank was built using a short piece of wood dowel with a strip of card stock glued around the base to give the the off-set with a wider base than the top.  I then glued strips of wood around the dowel giving them a slight sanding at the top so the boards would remain parallel.

I added small pieces of wood to support the metal support cables (thread) and keep them away from the tank containing the acid as did the prototype.  Unlike the prototype photo I used as my guide,  I made a flat wood top with a tank access hatch in the center.  The ladder was built from wood strips.  This tank will be located outside and in front of the boiler house.

Above is a photo of a prototype wood acid tank vintage 1944.  It actually shows two tanks but my facility is small so I only need one tank.

This completes my glue factory.  I will finish with some additional signs and scenery.

Update information

Below are some additional prototype acid tank photos.

Above are some acid storage tanks  vintage 1937 made from Haveg, a phenol formaldehyde type resin reinforced by outside wooden strips.  These tanks are apparently 10 foot high and 10 feet in diameter.

The above photo shows two Mills-Packard tanks for the manufacture of sulphuric acid.  Here you can see even these large tanks use wood separators to keep the metal bands away from the sides of the tanks.  The exterior of these tanks are water cooled by a curtain of water from the top.

I am considering my next industry/model to build.  I am working with a few ideas.

Glue factory water tank

This is a wood water tank to supply water to the boiler house for both the boiler and the glue prep tanks.  The water tank was constructed around a small cardboard tube.  The tank structure is about 32 feet high and is constructed mostly of wood strips and card stock.  The ladder is a commercial plastic part.

The tank bands were made with coarse thread, tack glued to the tank, then when all bands were on I sprayed the tank with clear flat to adhere the bands.  

The photo above shows the tank structure temporarily in place next to the boiler house awaiting scenery.  

Next I will build the acid tank for the glue making process.  When that is complete I will scenic the entire factory area.

Glue factory storage and shipping building

This structure took longer than I expected that it would.  This is the last of the glue factory buildings - next I will build a water tower and some chemical tanks, and then scenic the entire factory area.  This is a wood structure with a masonry (hydrocal) foundation.

The shipping dock is on the near end of the structure.  It will not have a rail siding.  There are a number of details on the roof,  seen in this view is a pallet, and a tarp covered stack of barrels.  The barrels under the tarp are simple dowel sections and the tarp is made from facial tissue.  

In the above view you can see the dock on the left side of the building for moving materials into the storage building.  The barrels of finished glue products are moved from the dry house via the upper balcony onto the roof of the storage building, and then lowered by a vertical conveyor inside the building.  The worker on the balcony is moving a barrel by rolling it with his feet - very inappropriate.  He is a plastic figure and I added a hat to his head and an apron to his front. 

I still plan to add more details to this structure but most of it is complete.  The finished building has a much different look from my initial sketches.  I also made changes as construction progressed - that is usually the way I build things.  It sometimes presents problems in the construction process.  

A busy lumber yard 1939

These photos show a busy lumber yard in 1939.  Those are really high stacks of lumber.  In the first photo you can see the stack of the steam sawmill in the back of the lumber piles on the left.  I thought I had some decent lumber piles at my layout sawmill but they are nothing like these.

There are two car loads of lumber in this scene.  They have just come from the mill and will be off-loaded for drying.  You can see that there are separator boards between the layers of lumber to allow drying.

This photo shows another area of the lumber yard with a two-wheeled wagon heavily loaded with lumber.  That dirt road through the yard is heavily rutted from the heavy loads traversing it.

The above photo shows a modern load of poles.  I took the photo in 1990 near Washington Grove, Maryland.  I found the means of securing the poles to be interesting.

Glue factory dry house

The dry house for a glue factory functioned differently depending on the type of glue being manufactured.  In no case did it make the glue solution totally dry, but rather it removed most of the moisture created when the glue stock was boiled in the boiler house.  The resulting "dried" glue ranged from a thick liquid to glue gelatin and many solutions in between.   Modern glue manufacturing is somewhat different but my factory operates in 1939 and uses processes developed years earlier.

Above is my version of a glue dry house which is located to the right of the coal storage and supply facility.  The base is a hydrocal masonry stone style floor which contains the furnace that supplies heat the the floors above to support the drying process. The primary drying process occurs on the second floor and the resulting product is moved along the outside balcony to the storage and shipping facility which will be located to the right of this structure.  The third floor contains the control machinery for the interior barrel hoist for moving the glue from the basement where it enters the building after leaving the boiler house.  It also houses office space for the glue factory.

Above is a 1927 photo showing a wire frame glue drying device.   In this case they were creating glue gelatin.

I may later add more details to this structure.

Today I used a lawn sweeper to remove leaves from my lawn.  This is basically a large wheeled bag with a wide rotating brush that sweeps grass, leaves or whatever from the lawn into a bag and is pulled by my lawn tractor.  It sure beats raking leaves but it filled up with leaves quickly requiring frequent dumping.  I have just short of 2 acres surrounded by trees, and with trees also in the yard.  That is a lot of leaves.

Railroad auto car 1920s

This is a far cry from what we see today, or mostly don't see as the auto cars today are mostly sealed off to prevent the vandals from damaging them.  This photo appears to be from the 1920s judging from the automobiles.

There are two automobiles on each flat car - not very efficient but they probably did not ship that many automobiles by rail in those days.  This may be somewhere in New York as there is a New York Central reefer in the background.

I am in the process of building the glue factory drying house at the moment.  Should be finished by the end of the week.  I am also trying to recover from a cold that is hanging on and making my life miserable.

Glue factory coal delivery system

The glue factory coal delivery system is now complete.  It was a difficult build both from the design and construction aspect.  None of the photos or drawings in my books gave very clear information on how the bucket system worked so I did my best to make it look reasonable.  The construction was also difficult as it was spindly and the cables (wires) were difficult to attach without damaging the cable structure - also my hands these days tend to shake when I work on fragile model work.  This was not my favorite part of the project but I think I turned out OK.

This is a front view.  The small structure next to the coal dump pit is the control shack for the bucket deliver system.  There is an old gray horse to the left of the shack - I filed a sag in his back and added a saggy belly with putty.  This is a little more humor.

The frame for the bucket system was built with wood uprights and a styrene I beam that the bucket travels on.  The cable pulleys were made from wood and card stock.

I placed a few pallets along the side of the boiler house as well as a wheelbarrow made using a plastic barrow shell, a plastic spoked wheel and small wood strips.  The scenery is partially complete with ample coal spills.

Still more scenery work to do.  The next part of the industry will be the glue drying house.

Well flat car

I have a Funaro & Camerlengo PRR Well Hole Flat car kit I bought some years ago.  I have not yet built this but it should should be easy as it has a one piece body.  I came across some old photos of similar cars which got me interested in finally building the kit.

The photo below shows a perhaps 1930s era version of a well flat lettered for the P&R.  What I find interesting is the railing around the well, presumably for the safety of the railroad workers.  I will modify my kit to include such a railing.

I am not sure how common that railing was on well cars.

The above photo shows a well car being used to transport a 48 foot length of 14 inch pipe formed into an expansion bend.  The wood support framing includes a wood version of a well railing.  I am guessing they were not transporting it anywhere where it had to go though a tunnel or under a low bridge.  An interesting model of this could be made with a lower pipe bend.  

Glue factory progress

Here is my progress on the glue factory.  It has been slow due to personal obligations.  I added some signs to the boiler house including a name for the glue factory.  I named it the Dobbin Glue Factory - a little humor.  I also built the coal storage structure next to the boiler house and added some weathering.  In front of the coal storage structure is the coal dump pit which will have the track siding over it.

The transfer line carrying the bucket will go from over the pit to the opening in the opening in the coal storage structure.  I spent a lot of time figuring out how this will work and finally arrived at a reasonable solution which I will display at a later time.

Above is a photo of the bucket I built using card stock and wood strips.  The bucket and mechanism is about 8 feet high.  This is not a good photo but you get the idea.  I just changed my photo application from iPhoto to Photos (I am a Mac user) and am still getting used to it.

Above is a detail photo of the pit.  The near section will have the track siding over it and the far end will be for bucket loading.   

Another car to truck conversion

Over the years I accumulated lots of vehicle kits, most of which I have assembled but I still have a fair amount left to build.  I have lots of automobiles on my layout so what I need now are more trucks.  This plastic auto kit was a simple, not too detailed Ford coupe kit by Williams Brothers.  I merely sawed off the back section with a fine model saw and replaced that section with a pickup truck type bed made from card stock.  

I weathered the truck heavily as it is used for dirty work and added some details in the back (boards, a wagon wheel and a wood barrel).

The boards are small pieces from my scrap box I use to provide layout scenery.  The box is about 3" x 4" and is filled will very small wood pieces left over from modeling jobs.  In addition to using them for scrap piles on the layout, I find them useful for jobs like this.

The kit looked like the photo below before modification.

I am still working on laying the track and switches for the sidings to the paper box factory and the glue factory.  While that does not sound like much work, the switches are switch kits and use individual wood ties.  These days I find track work to be tedious so I find lots of ways to defer working on it including projects such as this truck.

Glue factory coal handling

The coal handling facility for the glue factory will consist of a below-track dump pit, a bucket hoist, an operators shed, and an elevated cable run  which carries the self-dumoing bucket to the coal storage bin adjacent to the boiler house.  A device located in the boiler house carries the coal to the boiler via a conveyor.

Above is the diagram of the dumping and hoisting process.

The above image shows the car being dumped, the operators shed the pit, the elevated cable-way, and the bucket already hoisted and ready to be transported to the coal storage shed in the distance. My cable-way will be much shorter. 

Above is a photo of the self dumping bucket.  

I have been working on installing some track and switches so have not yet started on the coal handling machinery.