Large Scale Central

Mik 2017 Daktah John - McCown Freight Forwarding

The MIK - Annual Build Challenge
#1

I wasn’t going to participate this year as I have a boatload of projects for winter, but those blocks are just too cool, so I came up with an idea that fits into my To Do list. I’ve been expanding my indoor layout to accommodate a reasonable indoor operating session; about 1/2 hour per train. As I was building I got to thinking I would do some backgrounds a few feet above track level to enhance any photography I might want to do. When I saw Dave’s blocks it inspired an idea for a flat.

I have a very long straight siding against the wall and have already designated 5 car spots as doors on a freight. I plan to space the doors so that cars must be uncoupled to spot them centered on the appropriate door. 5 doors will make for a long freight house, so the block will serve as the foundation only and some other material on-hand will serve as siding. I have a bunch of man doors and windows that I got from Bruce a few years back that I’d like to incorporate, but the freight doors themselves will be scratch built. I might model one or two open with a photo to represent the interior. There will be an overhang roof above car height to give the flat some dimension.

I plan on using some Gatorplast scraps I have on-hand as the base to build upon, Cedar planks I bought at ECLSTS 4 years ago may serve as the siding and Cedar wood scraps can be milled for anything else I need. I will probably use some of that crown molding I bought for Mik 2016 to support the overhang and might even use some left over tin to roof the overhang. My goal is $0 investment.

The name I quickly penned on New Years when creating my drawing will be changed to The McCown Freight Forwarding Co. This drawing is just the basic idea, the final design will be 5 doors and perhaps 10 feet long. Here’s my paper towel drawing. My scanner lost all of the towel texture, but you can see a little of the print on the back showing through

#2

That looks good John. It will be right at home on the indoor layout.

#3

Nice idea. I will follow with interest for future builds for my future indoor.

#4

Suckup! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

#5

Will be a good size freight house when you get it done. Looks good.

Chris

#6

Oooh. Neat idea. If I hadn’t already spent too much money on my next project, I think I’d do something like that for my Brunt Interchange replacement. Oh well…

#7

oh no this picture is copyrighted, I was going to look at it but if I did and used it on my RR I wouldn’t want to get into a lawsuit with CVSR… Nice looking idea John.

#8

Pete, the picture may be copyrighted, but if you built something similar, who is to say that you didn’t create your own design? All you need is plausible deniability. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-undecided.gif)

#9

Pete Lassen said:

oh no this picture is copyrighted, I was going to look at it but if I did and used it on my RR I wouldn’t want to get into a lawsuit with CVSR… Nice looking idea John.

Licenses are cheap - don’t take chances :smiley:

#10

Been busy with the tracks that will serve McCown’s, but to keep up with the Joneses I guess I should post something. I did a little research looking for freight door styles and came up with these from the web…

And this last one doesn’t show the doors, but I like the color and signage…

Round top doors seem to be abundant, but I’m too lazy to figure out how to model that. The rectangular doors with the lites above are more my style (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

#11

At first glance I thought that first photo was from downtown, Opelika, Alabama. After looking a little closer the bridge abutments are different, so its not but there is a warehouse here that looked almost identical 30 years ago, Today, all the doors have been bricked up and the siding rails are gone. I’ll have to see if i can find a historical photo to compare.

#12

Here is the current view as shown from Google Earth’s Street View. But 30 years ago, it looked very similar to the first photo shown above.

#13

The old Terminal Way buildings have these kind of doors.

Most are now fixed in place, with man doors cut into them, since the building has been repurposed into offices.

#14

True that, just not sure how I would create the radius.

#15

Find a plate, or bowl, with a large radius that looks about right when imposed on the door opening, and draw a template from that.

#16

Drawing a radius is easy. Cutting it from .125 Cedar and keeping it consistent for 4 or 5 doors and openings is what baffles me. If I only had a scroll saw :frowning:

#17

Yea, cutting consistent arches by hand is impossible. Even with a template.

As you can see with the ones I hand cut in 1/16th basswood…

#18

If you can keep your blade perpendicular the you could stack several layers and cut them all at the same time…

Or do it in foam and use your pencil to define the blocks, see Ray D for inspiration.

John

#19

My blocks arrived today. Kudos to the Taylor Granite Mine for another fine product - exactly 1 foot by two foot in 1:20.32 scale. Took me a half hour to sort them all out and count each type. Glad Marilyn has been hoarding Italian Ice cups; they are perfect for sorting/storing the blocks.

Now I need to get serious with a plan.

#20

Well, over on my indoor expansion thread, Randy accused me of procrastinating. I put forward the excuse that the track work needed to be finished first so I could build the building to fit, and he bought it!

I finally got around to doing the as-built survey of the area and began working on a scale drawing. I was really unhappy with the proportions because I used a local prototype with a 7’ tall by 6’ wide freight door. Those small doors made the 115’ wide building look odd. I putzed around with it a bit last night, but was having a hard time concentrating on the task and finally gave up. Tonight I went searching out prototype plans looking for door sizes and found the Central of New Jersey’s Bronx Freight house. It used 10’ by 10’ doors. I enlarged my doors and that did the trick. So here are the basic proportions as drawn in Visio…

For the benefit of newcomers I’ll explain my use of metric measurement. A long while back Kevin Strong put forth the fact that in 1:20.3 Scale, 45mm track is 3 foot gauge. Knowing that, it is easy to measure scale using a metric ruler by using 15mm to the foot. So, for example, I wanted my overhang to be 6 feet out from the building, so 6 x 15mm = 90mm.

Not sure when I will get to actual construction - I hope to have some time this weekend. Just like what I do for work, more time is spent figuring out what I am going to do, then in actually doing it, or in other words, a detailed plan will come before any material is cut.