This is kind of a departure for me. I am building an O scale depot for a friend. He owns the actual structure in Eagle Lake, Texas and has turned it into a museum. He found the blue prints at the ATSF archive in Temple, Texas.
Boy.....I know a guy who has the full colour ScaleCraft station sheets. We've talked about Kinkos...having them copied. Cut and glue onto cardstock and brace. But, on my workbench is two ScaleCraft passenger cars...well, a coach and a baggage. One end floor cut out for a power truck..so I fixed that, added proper SC trucks with new acrylic bolsters, have to make doors now. Coach had a broken step, but there. Made a brace, have to finish it. I have one coach done NYC (P&LE) to go with my SC Hudson, have six others in a box stripped, ready for paint, and I have full interiors for those. Make one helluva cast passenger train.
I think I will make a temporary attachment from the inside. That way if I ever want to finish out the interior I can remove it. At that point I would permanently install a floor.
A sheet of the red roof tile that I will be applying is on the table to the left. I believe I will attach the roof permanently and if an interior is ever need it can be attached to a floor. There is just too much detail under the eves that needs to be supported by both the roof and walls.
Still a lot of work to do. The ridge row tiles and one more chimney and then all the bracing below the eaves. Then the wrap around freight platform on the other end.
Yes, dry transfer. The prototype are cut out of 1/8 inch steel plate. I could not figure out how to simulate that so went with the dry transfer. Not quite the same lettering style but close enough.
The platform in the prototype photo is a relatively new structure built in the last five years by amateurs. (The guy who owns the depot and another friend of mine. Neither of whom have much carpentry experience.) Since they built it, the blue prints were located and this photo of the "as built" structure. So, this is how I am building it.
Been working on the eave bracing. It sure would be nice if Grandt Line made them in the style I need. As it is, I am having to make each one from scratch. 30 more to go to run under the length of each side.
Not really. I cut a bunch of pieces of strip styrene on a Northwest Shortline Chopper at all the correct angles. I glue them together then shape the curves freehand with a rotary bit in my moto too. My battery operated Dremil has a slow speed that does not melt the styrene.
Hard to believe a station of such magnitude only was equipped with a Swift train order signal. Those were mostly used on light traffic branch lines.
Well, the old "Cane Belt" part of the Gulf Colorado & Santa Fe (ATSF in Texas) was not exactly a main line. A brick depot was built in 1911 because of an Eagle Lake ordinance had been passed requiring masonry construction in the down town after most of it burned down in 1903. Passenger traffic lasted until after WWII and the freight agency lasted until 1970.
