Large Scale Central

East Broad Top Pgh. Build Challenge 2016

The MIK - Annual Build Challenge
#1

With the main line put into Mine #1 in Robertsdale, railroad president Robert Seibert payed a visit to the newly accessed mine to plan the next phases of development. He declared that a wye would be needed with an internal track for a freight house. The EBT Pgh’s freight house will ofcourse be an exact replica of the original. Seiberts sketch appears below:

The original Fright house was built very early judging from the construction. There are no known photos of it pre 1900. It lasted until the end of operations but by all accounts did not last much longer. The main source of my information and plans on this structure comes from the Timber Transfer Vol.14 No.4

For some reason Seibert will not allow construction to begin until Jan 14th. Although after the 14th he has an aggressive schedule to complete the structure by Feb 15th. Some feel he may be playing some sort of game with the company books and funds. Until the 14th the men are on stand by and getting their saw blades sharpened and the holes in their jeans patched. Tick Tock, Tick Tock…

#2

I like that building. Something elegant in a good old basic freight shed.

#3

Nice building and hopefully will use all the tin.

I’d like to make one suggestion and have your doors open inwards. They can fold against the front wall. That way you won’t sweep anybody off the top steps.

Welcome into our madness.

John

#4

Actually, not that anybody asked me, I think a platform in front of the doors would be the safer idea…you don’t want your personnel perched precariously on that top step trying to open the door. You could even wrap the platform from the front around the corners to include the doors; that would be really cool.

I agree about the elegance of a clean, functioning freight house. Looking forward to this build a lot.

#5

Were we supposed to be asked? Oh my!

I thought about that porch, but I’ve also seen many steps like pictured so I let it go along with a railing and a walkway and…

Actually I wanted to keep my input minimal and flipping the doors did it.

‘I jest figgered the blueprint had a typo!’

Muey loco me.

#6

Thanks for the input gentlemen. And I do agree with your design philosophies. If I were building my own station real or model I would probably follow your advises, BUT alas I am bound to prototype fidelity. This is the way the real station was, doors that swung out not even over a platform but steps! The EBT was great in many ways but as on many narrow gauge lines safety sometimes took a back seat. I’m trying to decide now just how detailed to get, model the full interior (which isn’t much) or not…

#7

I’d say, if the doors opened, and the windows were a lot larger, then model the interior… However, as it looks, with non-functioning doors and small windows, I wouldn’t worry much about modeling the interior…

What would actually be in a freight shed??? A desk to throw paperwork on, and maybe one file cabinet… (so they have a place to throw the paperwork when the pile gets too high, and starts sliding off the desk??)

#8

Randy, if that’s the prototype, then that’s it! (The building inspectors must have been on “vacation.”)

I have another suggestion: as part of your model include a worker, having just opened the door and missed the first step, tumbling head-over-heels down the stairs!

#9

Randy a few crates on the floor, a few ceiling lights, and painted interior walls, would probably complete the detailing of the interior, at least enough for most viewers.

#10

Maybe a hand truck and some wooden barrels. All kinds of stuff came in barrels back in the day.

#11

Yea, like pickles, oil, grease, nails, monkeys, all sorts of things.

#12

Please splain to this partially senile EBT fan what in the heck Pgh. means (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)

#13

Wow, that took off. Here I was ready to think Andy was on the right track, then I had to read through all those wonderful suggestions and I really do think I would love to model it with the doors open. But then I have to think about what i can get done in the allotted time. And people… I really do think there should be one or two, But would they be in the budget? Might be time to try figure sculpting. I would think at minimum a table and chair, add a filing cabinet and I’d think you would be at the max for furniture. The rest would just be barrels of monkeys and crates of greybacks.

John P, I was actually thinking about doing just that! It would certainly add a bit of humor.

Daktah, It’s the Pittsburgh division of the EBT. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

#14

People, well Gee Randy. Depending on what you are looking for, I just might have something that you could use. Maybe with a bit of surgery.

#15

Aluminum foil, sculpy clay, and a paint brush. Not much money and a whole heck of a bunch of fun. check out the MLS masters class on it. Last years MIK challenge, not the best looking guy but he was fun

give it a shot its fun

#16

Well, watching the once barren landscape of Challenge Township start to come alive with infrastructure and buildings has finally lit a fire under the project foreman to get things done. Goods will be arriving for all these businesses, and there won’t be a place to unload them.

Loyet Lumber Co. has delivered some fine red oak framing members and the crew has been steadily nailing er… gluing them in place. There was a big concern that the small 3/8" pilings the building rests on would quickly rot away if they were made of wood, so the crew elected to use some PVC in stead. There was also an abundance of expanded PVC sheet around the shop so that has been utilized for all the exterior walls and floor. Safely tucked on the dry inside the red oak will do it’s framing duties and should live a long happy life.

Freight house 1

I would now like to blame Andy for not being convincing enough in his suggestion to just model the exterior. If he had done a better job dissuading me then I might be very close to done now. As it stands I have a lot of work to do yet and this clock keeps ticking in the back ground…

#17

Coming along great Randy, and I see where you’re going…really nice.

And, by the way, your profile picture is just about the best one I’ve ever seen!!

#18

IF (that’s a big if) I model the rafters on my shelter that is probably how I will do them - glue them to a scribed PVC sheet that will substitute for the roof planks. I don’t have Eric’s patience to to real roof framing.

Looking good so far!

#19

Thanks John P. Thanks also for the profile pic comment. AMC is another passion of mine. That was my buddy’s 76 CJ5 we built in my garage. I wired the engine compartment of it. I have a 79 CJ5 and a 1980 J10 short bed pickup.

Daktah, yep that was the only way I could see things holding up in the weather. I’m just using PVC/ABS/CPVC cement on everything. It seems to hold the wood on quite well. Time will tell… Eric has a bit of an advantage doing frame work. Since he is 7/8ths, his members (go ahead Roster) are somewhat bigger than ours are in 1:20.3. I couldn’t imagine using a pin nailer in the scale 2x4’s I’ve ripped.

As for my progress, I got the two end walls framed and all the nail holes poked in to the floor. It still looked a bit wonky but wow, when I added the first coat of paint things really started to look better. I’ll have to do a wash of some kind of black something over the floor to highlight the scribing. I also need to give the walls a light spray of black to grunge them up a bit, but I’m more optimistic now. Really learned a lesson about painting walls before assembly. I had a tough time getting in to all the corners of the framing. Glad I left at least one wall off! Counting the paper tank house I made a while back, this is only the second building I’ve ever modeled in any scale, so it’s a real experiment.

First paint

First paint

Already started on the last wall and it should be framed and painted by night’s end. Then it’s on to the dreaded roof framing…

#20

thats great looking