Railway Engineering Agency Horseshoe Meadows Depot Build

Interesting station.  And what you often have to do.....extrapolate an HO station to O.  I have had problems getting plans from HO kit builders, too, so l could build a 1/4" version.

I finished the mock-up and finally got to mapping out doors and windows. The hardboard with the vertical lines is going to be a board and batten foundation. The HO scale version used horizontal scribed wood for the building and vertical scribed wood for the foundation.

I started cutting scribed wood for the building. Note - when cutting the end roof angles don't discard the cut offs. They are used later for the smaller office.

Next up is laying out and cutting spaces for doors and windows then bracing.

Joe,

I will be very interested to see your work on this model, and also to know how many hours you spend building it.

MELGAR

MELGAR

I have to build some tanks for a customer in a time crunch for a display so will be putting this project aside for a few days.
It is a little difficult to estimate time since I tend to build 2-3 jobs at one time leaving one job at an appropriate time like allowing paint or glue to dry and working on another. In this case I am building 6 building fronts along side this build.

The build will basically consist of three parts:
1. Build the HO scale kit to see how things fit together - done - figured about 4-6 hours. Would have been much longer if I could have gotten away with cutting out the spaces for windows and doors. I would have then completed the structure along side the O scale structure and hopefully sell it.

2. Build the O scale mock-up - done - I spent part time over three days doing this - figure about 9 hours total including measuring for windows and re-cutting some end walls to make things look proper.

3. Build the O scale version - in process - cutting out the wood only took about 3 hours. Most of the time was centered around setting up the table saw to make the angle cuts with precision. I could have simply used the hardboard walls as templates, trace the lines and use an Exacto blade but I like the precision the table gives me plus I did make mistakes on the mock-up I needed to fix while cutting out the scribe wood panels.

Joe

Joe,

I will be following this build. It's nice to watch the process from a craftsman such as yourself. Thanks for posting.

Dave

Spent time cutting out the spaces for the doors and windows. Once that was done using a steel brush, I brushed the scribe wood in the direction of the scribe to roughen it up a little. It is hard to see but the effect does work out nicely after paint.

Next up was bracing. This took a little time because I needed to determine positions especially where walls meet.

Once all the walls were braced I glued up the sub-assemblies. I am trying out a new glue for me. It is called Deluxe Materials Laser Cut kit glue. It comes out white but dries clear. It acts like super glue.

After gluing the sub-assemblies together I glued them to their appropriate walls and glued the building together.

As shown below the bracing extends past the bottom of the structure so I have glue surface for board and batten strips which will be added later.

I am on hold until I talk to the customer about colors.

That depot is looking great! JohnA

Nicely done!

Peter

Thanks John and Peter

I am discussing colors with the customer. He did some research on this depot and came up with a light green / dark green color scheme. I have been trying to get as close as possible to the light green but it is proving difficult mostly because the shelves on the stores I have tried (ACE, Home depot, Lowes etc) are pretty much empty. Apparently paint companies are having issues getting raw material.

The picture is what the customer is looking for. The color panel on the bottom is Rusto Green Apple. The lid was a nice light green but the paint came out too dark. The color panel in the middle is some brand I picked up at Hobby Lobby called Ironlak. The top of the spray can looked like light green but as you can see the color came out more yellow. The color panel at the top was sprayed with a matte clear over coat. I then brush painted it with FolkArt Basil Greene (acrylic). The clear coat was sprayed to block the acrylic from warping the wood)

The colors have been agreed to. I built a small ramp and started on the main platform. Note when gluing wood together I use a combination of wood glue and super glue (I have pretty much standardized on DAP Rapid Fuse). The CA acts like a clamp while the wood glue dries.

I needed to fit the platform in the available area specified by the custom. He supplied the hand drawn template for me. Once I got the correct orientation of the building on the template from him I started on the platform. I had to cut one end at 45 degrees to make things fit.
I will add more cross beams to support the scribe wood to be glued to the top of the platform.

According to the photos of the kit the platform sits on solid wood. I made this out of 3/8 sq. stock. The photos also show the 'steps' as solid pieces of wood. The customer has the choice of the 3/16 sq stock or me building a stairway.

Joe, will the whole depot and the ramp sit atop the platform?

Yes sir

Joe - the photos below will show what is going on.

I have finished the framework for the platform. My plan is to glue scribe wood to the top to form the platform.

I actually like your colors better than the illustration. Is that Basswood or Balsa? Nice work!

Randy - I only use basswood. I don't much like balsa wood mostly because it absorbs moisture much more than basswood so is more prone to warping after painting.

I agree basswood is fantastic to work with and far superior. I thought it was basswood but for some reasons it was hard to tell for sure in some of the images.

The platform has been laminated with scribe wood. I had to add more support to the frame under the seams where the scribe wood pieces met. I also glued wood to the edges of the frame to hide end grain on some of the corners. I finished up today by building two sets of steps onto the platform. I am going to stat the sub roof tomorrow.

The ?stringers/ledgers? come from a Rail Scale Models stairway kit.

I use only bass or clear pine  for that reason

Joe,

Thank you for sharing this.  It’s very interesting and your pictures are great!  Looking forward to seeing your progress.

The board and batten skirting plus trim were painted with Krylon satin hunter green.

The base paint for the main building was Krylon avocado.

After the green paint dried I wiped the surface with 0000 steel wool to knock off some of the residual rough stuff then  I dusted the building with the yellow Ironlak paint. When dry I glued on the board and batten skirt around the building using DAP Rapid Fusion.

I ended up having to reinforce the skirting in several locations.

The platform was painted first with dark gray, followed by a light dusting of Rusto dark taupe then Rusto camouflage sand. I wanted some of the gray and darker tan to show through.

Tomorrow I will add the trim and hopefully apply the roofing shingles.

I started applying the cedar shingles. Went through 8 packs and still have to apply shingles to the other sides of the main roof and the two smaller roofs on the left side. I have 10 more packs on order.

The shingles I am using are BTS Master Creations #11000

I decided to use scribe wood for the roof panels. All are heavily braced on the bottom side. The scribe lines in the wood make it pretty easy to line up the rows of shingles.

Also don't toss out the perimeter of the shingles sheet. I am using the solid borders as roof caps

Joe,

That is really a neat building, and I hope it will be prominently displayed on your layout.

Jan

PS. It is Railway Express Agency.

I have been aware of that station's prototype since (probably) seeing plans in some ancient MR or RMC.  With steep roofs it looks as though built for deep snow areas, and exists (ed?)(no chance prototype survives?  Would be worth a detour to visit) in mountains in NW vs. Rockies.)  Even colors sound to be unique. Good thing no O kit exists, as l don't need another station.  Will want to see your completed model's photos posted.

Excellent!!!

I don't know that I will ever scratch build roof shingles but f I do you just made it a lot easier.  I would never think of scribed sheeting for the roof to line up the shingles, nor the cap shingles.

@colorado hirailer posted:

I have been aware of that station's prototype since (probably) seeing plans in some ancient MR or RMC.  With steep roofs it looks as though built for deep snow areas, and exists (ed?)(no chance prototype survives?  Would be worth a detour to visit) in mountains in NW vs. Rockies.)  Even colors sound to be unique. Good thing no O kit exists, as l don't need another station.  Will want to see your completed model's photos posted.

Unfortunately the kit the customer sent contained no paperwork so I have no historical information on the depot. I tried contacting the company that sells these kits - Wiseman Model Services - for a copy of the instructions but never received a reply.

Hey, out there! Somebody on here has to be familiar with details on the HO kit or the magazine? source l once saw, and  help Joe Faulty possibly build an even better model, and educate the rest of us.  And, hopefully, has prototype photos l have seen somewhere.  I don't model that road so ..can offer nothing but vague memory. Dunno if was on NP, Milw.,..???

Uhh ...sorry....! There is a ton of info on HO sites about the HO kit, HO model railroads that use the kit, and "a" real Horseshoe Meadows on the east side of California Sierra, but mention only of a planned, not built, ski area there, and no RR.  H.  M. Hotshots (forest fire fighters), much in news now, are stationed there. Article l saw in old magazine must have been about somebody's scratchbuild or an early model from a kit, that one HO poster said had been around for a while. This from internet.  I still think this kit was based on some prototype in the Pacific Northwest?, that l once saw pictured....somewhere.

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Great work Joe

For now the project is on hold till more cedar shingles come in. I got as far as I could with windows, doors and trim. The rest will have to wait.