My First Effort to Scratch Build Palm Springs Station. It's Completed!

John,

As a structure builder, I'm looking forward to seeing your finished model.

MELGAR

Thank you MELGAR,

Sadly, as with most things I grew up with here in California, the Palm Springs station was torn down. This is my little tribute to days gone by. On with the new!

All of the Movie and TV stars that we remember from our childhood had homes on the various golf communities dotted along the Palm Springs valley area in those days. Walt Disney at Smoketree, Lucy and Desi at Thunderbird,  Red Skelton, all of them. And I would say a good percentage of them used that little station for their comings and goings.

My parents were regular Palm Springs vacationeers. I remember seeing Hopalong Cassidy on Indian Canyon Blvd...(not in western garb) I was speechless for weeks! So much popular cultural history in that area. I still live very close by, and we visit many times a year for art shows and museums.

John

I’d say you have some real nice talent John!! Looking forward to seeing the progress. 

Hello All,

I've been fighting a spring cold this week but I felt like going to town on this little station. Today was windows, doors, and start the tile roofing day! Anybody ever haul tile up on a roof, especially in Palm Springs knows what a real job that is. The folks that do it are true artists and earn every penny!

Today I wanted to glaze the openings and used an old sheet protector that was the exact color I wanted. Many buildings in the desert areas use colorful and deep tints in their architecture. I basically traced the outline of the openings on the plastic with a pen and used a white paint pen to suggest panes and casings and such. Next time I may consider using architectural striping tape for a slightly cleaner finish, but I actually like the more "rustic" motif.

With all Main Station openings addressed, it was time to tackle the heavy job of roofing the Station. High 80's today in Temecula and just getting over a cold I was not looking forward to it..The under roofing supports the tile to keep it from sagging and helps give the station some structural rigidity ( you know we ARE in an eartquake zone...right?)I found some very cool O scale tile sheets on line and they are very easy to use. Be sure to eyeball and use scissors to straighten up the tile runs on the sheets ( they are not cut perfectly square) first! Ask me how I found out!  Measure 3 times! Cut once!

Roofers always like to get creative on high end jobs and I wanted to add a feature that I had seen elsewhere on other structures. This tile is fun to work with no matter if it was 103 in Palm Springs today!

Well that's all for today. I hope you all had as much fun as I did. Any comments or suggestions are always appreciated. 

Next Up...finish the roof. Station platform, planting Palm Trees and more...

John

Looking good John!!

Bigtruckpete and BobbyD, thank you! And thanks to the other folks for the likes and encouragement.

You wouldn't believe how many years this project has been on the back burner. I am having a huge amount of satisfaction working on it. Also learning how to document the project with pictures and words has been alot of fun as well. I just dug in and followed the posting directions on the Forum. Who would have thought? The Forum software makes it super easy to do. 

Thanks again!

John

Hello All, Lot's going on this weekend so I wanted to update progress to date on the Palm Springs station project.I measured and set up for the roofing tile and installed.I measured and trimed and painted the facsia boards (out of styrene strips), and installed them.... And measured and trimed and painted the sills. Still more to go, but getting close to starting to let passengers use the station! Stay tuned. As always I welcome your comments and suggestions

John

John that is stunning scratchbuild work.

Thank you Coach Joe! It's been alot of fun. Still need to design the platform and signage and landscape. I'll get back to it next week, take care.

John

Yup! It's completed! Today was the perfect Southern California day! So the station sign crew and the landscapers came out and worked their magic.You'll notice the addition of planter boxes to accomodate the Palm trees.I made up some terra cotta pots for Hibiscus to give a more finished look...Like I said, the day was perfect and the sun was out so I took these outside shots on our balcony.I know that the original Palm Springs Station was never used by the Santa Fe, so this is for sure a fantasy project. It's ready for business welcoming happy tourists to this desert oasis!

Thank you all for your interest in this project.

John

I can easily tell that you had an immense amount of pure FUN with this project!!

A wonderful testimony to the pleasures of this hobby!!!

Well done, John!!  

KD 

High praise indeed, Mr. KD! Thank you. It was fun and I noticed that when I work on a project that is creative and artistic etc...I lose all track of time. It's great. 

John

Looks great!!!

Thank you Joe! Did you know that the name Sages is quite famous in Southern California? The family started a huge chain of very innovative and upscale super markets that lasted from the 40's up until the early 70's.

John

Nice job, John. 

John,

nice work!  There is nothing quite like having a custom piece on your layout that you built.

it looks great.

That turned out really great, love the tile roof.

Thank you Pat, Rich and Jimmy!

It was a fun project. My next project is going to be a fantasy version of the Date Growers Cooperative Packing House in Indio California from the same era(late 40's, early 50's).

I have been working on a method of building Palm Trees that gives a very realistic result. I will share a "how-to" with pictures and text on the tree and Packing House project when that gets rolling probably towards the middle of June or so.

One thing is, I am a volunteer Fire Lookout doing shifts up in our local Cleveland National Forest up in a Fire Tower. So sometimes duty gets in the way of trains....

Thanks again to all who shared their input on my thread, it means alot to me.

John

John great job and talent you have! Thanks for sharing.

Joe Gozzo

John,

Terrific work! It definitely evokes the time and place. I am looking forward to seeing how you make palm trees.

John,

That looks great very nice work, like you I am find a lot of satisfaction building my own structure. There was a day if a building looked good I would buy it for the layout. About two years ago that changed and has opened up a new side of the hobby that is very satifying. Keep up the good work.

John,

Very nice job on the structure.

Alan

Great job.

Excellent workmanship John, you should be proud! 

Whoa!! Those outdoor pictures made me look long and hard to make sure it was still the model I was looking at! Great work!!

Very, very nice.  I second the positive comment on the tile roof.