Inspiration

[Gary S]

Reinhard, great use of the space, and what a terrific office! Clean lines, good use of space, and seemingly very comfortable.

[faraway]

How far can I stretch the time period of my layout?

How about the transition period (e.g. 1952)?

1. Did the "box building" as put on my layout already exist at the time?
2. Did industry parks already exist at that time?

An example how that might look. Does it look right or is it simply strange?


Some thoughts
ad 1. I think box buildings have been build at least since WW2. However it is a question of the material used. Photos of Cary show show that even today some wall are made of bricks. No the red bricks but still bricks.

ad2. Early industry was usually "attached" to the town and fitted into the street and block system (like Kurt's layout from downtown Miami). New industry starts in totally undeveloped areas and has it's own system. When did that start?

[tetters]

There is an article in the latest issue of MRR which covers a club in Sweden that runs an American RR. They could not decide on the specific time frame or era so they made a decision to not use structures that looked like they were built past 1970. When switching eras, they also change the vehicles on the layout which helps make the switch in eras plausible. They cycle the eras every month to keep the system fair.

That said, its your layout. I think the scenario you propose is certainly plausible. Do what you find interesting and do what makes it all the more enjoyable to you.

[tomustang]

How far can I stretch the time period of my layout?

How about the transition period (e.g. 1952)?

1. Did the "box building" as put on my layout already exist at the time?
2. Did industry parks already exist at that time?

It's hard to specify the timeline, but must industrial places I've worked at got build in the 60-70's and they were all "box buildings", square concrete block foundation a few feet off the ground/sheet metal sidings. Size ranged from small and large buildings

The others, were brick factories and the time ranged from 1890's to 1950's


I know that corrugated metal buildings from top to bottom started around the 1890's I believe

Your 'box building' however looks like concrete wall all around and they were around more recently.




Now this wouldn't be a direct answer but it should give some clues

[MasonJar]

Tilt-up construction (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-up_construction">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-up_construction</a><!-- m -->) is one method of building the type of structure seen on your layout. It started early in the 20th century as concrete evolved as a construction material. According to the wikipedia entry, some believe that the Ancient Romans could have done it, given their knowledge of engineering and concrete (knowledge that was subsequently lost for 1500+ years...!).

If you decide to finish the building with stucco, it could be either a concrete tilt-up, or a "cinder-block" construction. No one would ever know, and both are suitable for operation with steam.

Andrew

[Russ Bellinis]

I can't give you an authoritative answer about time periods for concrete "tilt up" construction, but in exploring the Los Angeles Junction Rwy, I've noticed that in the city of Vernon, which is the older of the two cities the LAJ operates in, that any tilt up buildings are recent construction where an older building was demolished and replaced with a tilt up. The City of Commerce is a post ww2 city that was formerly agricultural, and the most common buildings there are tilt ups. Vernon is mostly brick (all sorts of colors), concrete cinder block, or sheet metal buildings. Many of the brick buildings have decorative art deco details in concrete on the fronts facing the street.

[nachoman]

I think it is a stretch to have such a building before about 1960. My neighborhood is early 1950s, and the shopping center up the street is mid-late 1950s. The shopping center is stucco-covered cinder block, which seemed to be the preferred construction method where I live until the 1970s. I'm not saying there weren't large buildings made out of cast concrete walls prior to then, but I think they were uncommon. One thing in your photo that I know would not have been common in the early 1950s is that rooftop air conditioning unit. Even here in Arizona, A/C would have been rare in the early 1950s. My 1950 house was built without it, but the house across the street, built in the late 1950s had central a/c. Shopping centers and movie theaters were the first to see A/C around here, and I would doubt many warehouses would have been built with it prior to 1950 unless they handled perishable items. And, if they had A/C, I strongly doubt it would have been rooftop units. Instead, they would have big noisy chillers next to the main building.

[Gary S]

I agree with Kevin's thoughts. Also, the ladder on the building most likely wouldn't have a safety cage. To me, the scene just doesn't look right with the steam loco.

[faraway]

Thank you all for the very welcome advise.
I will keep the steam in the vitrine at the wall for this layout. No problem at all. I had no immediate plans to do that jump backward in history. Just wanted to know if I have that option.
The other things mentioned like exchange of engines, cars, vehicles etc. is already used to switch between Florida 2000+ (CSX, FCEN) and California 1980+ (AT&SF).
Thanks again

[Russ Bellinis]

If you want to back date to run steam and early diesel in the transition era, you could make your tilt ups removeable and make some brick or cinder block buildings to fit the same foot print. Then just change out the buildings along with vehicles, etc to change the era.

[faraway]

I did decide to change the theme of the layout to 1930 - 1935 somewhere at the country side on an IC line in the Illinois-Iowa area with an option up to about 1950 (to run early diesel). The tracks will not be changed except if absolutely required to place a new building.

Automobiles have been changes already. The engines are IC 2-8-0 with 34' and 40' wood box cars. The time has been chosen to support the 2-8-0 with the old round and high sand boxes. IC did rebuild them later with more flat sand boxes.
Another scenario would be 1950 with early Diesel and 40' steel box cars. That conversion would temporary within one hour based on the 1930 base.

Various building (grain elevators etc.) have been put on order some minutes ago. The conversion will be done with a long transition period with old and new building intermixed. Operation has not to be interrupted!

Do not wonder. I did that with the former layout too. I like it to work on the nice parts of a layout without woodwork, laying tracks, doing overhead wiring and other ugly things. Building the modern shoe box building from card board was a great experience and I enjoyed it very much. It's now time for brick buildings again.
However. I will stay with the light gray ballast and the light colored ground cover. The buildings will not be placed very dense. I will try to be as open as possible on the limited space.

I will open a new thread when first results can be shown.