The Pacific Electric Freight Station…

I have been researching Pacific Electric freight operations way too much this year, and now it is an obsession. I decided about a month ago that my layout needed a freight depot, so if I keep the current switching layout or scrap it and started over, this project is going to be used.

I originally wanted to model the West Long Beach Freight Station, until I could only find one picture on the web. I kept searching and found about 10 different freight stations. I was finally able to find two pictures of the Santa Monica Freight Station, and Joe D’Amato was able to supply a third. These three photos were able to show all but the west wall. I am estimating that the building was 24 feet wide and 90 feet long.

 

While the Santa Monica Freight Station is the basis of my scratch built freight station, but I am not building a board by board copy. Due to the Grandt Line windows that I am using, I am have to make it taller to compensate. I have decided to build the loading dock as a separate, solid base.

There are six walls, and I have pictures of four of them. One wall is very short, at the end of the office. It is safe to say, in the four feet of this wall, that there is no window or door. Since the model is slightly smaller than the prototype (other than height), I removed one of windows of the office wall. I have placed all of the doors and the window on the longest wall, and the office end wall.

From research, it seems like the station was either a two tone gray, or a solid gray in 1953. The freight dock was a dark brown. The only thing that I have not been able to find, is a picture of the end of the freight section. Some Pacific Electric and Southern Pacific stations have windows, others have freight doors, and a few ends had no openings.

 

Will do...have to add 2 doors

 

Ok....long wall without the office junting out...1.1"x7.675"
Office end wall.....1.45"x1.55"
Office wall junting out.....0.90"x1.3"
Rest of the "long wall" past the office....1.1"x5.3"
Freight end wall....1.45"x1.35"

 

More work on the freight station...

 

Today, I made the base of the dock to extend four scale feet away from all walls, except for the office front wall. It is made out of 0.040" styrene, and will have some siding laminated to it. I also purchased some Evergreen 2.5mm corners for the corner trim, and I really like how it came out. My local non-railroad hobby shop had Evergreen N Scale stairs and handrails.....

I made a bad cut on the bottom of the office, good thing that I still have to add trim!

 

More work on the Freight Station

I have given up on finding out what the right shade of gray for Pacific Electric stations. I decided to go with Rustoleum Smoke Gray and OLD Floquil roof brown. This looks a little to shiny dor me, so as soon as the trim is added, the flat coat will go on…

 

I never mentioned what I used material wise, because most of it was scrap box pieces of styrene. The main building was some type of siding, most likely Evergreen boxcar siding, that is 0.030" thick. The dock was made out of a new sheet of 0.040" styrene with a real thin veneer of 0.010" or 0.020" siding. The corner trims are Evergreen 2.5mm corners, and HO 1x4 strips.

 

Thanks Yannis

 

What?

Let's just say that trim covers a lot of mistakes

And thank you Rick

 

That I do like. Thanks for the sharing of that picture.

After I finished, I found a color picture of a wooden passenger station, and the station was two toned like that. It was gray on the bottom and off white on the top...makes me want to remove the roof and paint the top half...