Mirrored Palmetto

[Catt]

Nice to see other modelers making their buildings big enough to be believable.Love that warehouse. :mrgreen:

[jonte]

Nice to see other modelers making their buildings big enough to be believable.Love that warehouse. :mrgreen:

Gosh; that's rather a sweeping statement, Johnathan.

Would you care to enlighten us with an example of a building that could be considered 'not big enough' so, as a newbie, I don't fall into the trap of building something that's not, well, 'big enough' ?

What about mine, Johnathan, is that 'big enough' ?

I'd value your opinion.

jonte

[faraway]

I think catt refers to buildings like the small one in the center. There are lots of building kits on the market you could be easy flooded with only one 50' boxcar. That is one reason why this small building on my layout is not rail served. The small green delivery truck is more approbate in relationship to the storage capacity of the building.

[jonte]

Thanks, Reinhard.

However, I'd still like Johnathan to elaborate on his last post as it might be something worth sharing.

Regards,

jonte

[Catt]

Many building kits (and kit bashes ) are way to small in size to look like they would have enough product (coming or going) to need or if you will deserve rail service rail service.TYCO/POLA had a trucking company that was just about 50 scale feet long.Walthers was guilty of this too but their buildings are more realistically sized now.

The joy of Pikestuff and Micro Engineering kits is the ability to build larger/ logical size buildings.Evergreen Plastics is a great source for scratchbuilding large buildings too.The pic below will show you what I mean by larger buildings.This layout is my show layout and is 32" wide by 48" long.The track on the left goes down to my 14" wide by 42" long yard module.

[newhaven48]

In reality, most all building that are on model layouts are very small. Most real life size buildings would not fit on a layout and in some cases would not even fit in the layout room. Before I retired and was working as an inbound traffic coordinator, I worked for a dry goods grocery warehouse. The building was roughly 8 1/2 X 6 1/3 feet in HO size. The building had 2 tracks that ran inside the building and held 8 cars on each track plus 5 or 6 doors on the back wall that faced another track that ran along side of the back of the building. That building was just one of two warehouses the company had and the other was bigger. I add this comment to say that we as modelers have to use a lot of compression and as we see on many layouts, most of the building are mostly off the layout, we see a wall or so and the rest are left to our imagination. So to me, no building is too small to spot a car at. Of course all of what I just said really only applies to buildings that sit on the back edge of a layout such as what you have done Reinhard

[jonte]

Hi, Johnathan, and thanks for your reply.

I see what you mean about larger equating to logical or believable, which concerns me in light of something similar I've read about run-rounds and a minimum length a model should be.

Although my own layout is a merely a bit of fun and something on which to cut my railroading teeth, it includes a short run-round and equally relatively small buildings which I'd still like to be considered a little believable, if only for those who have interest in this area of LA. Now, I'm not so sure.

Unfortunately, I'm limited by available space and there's nothing I can do about that - apart from switch scale! Still, the buildings I've chosen to model were indeed rail served (including my current build) although I've chosen to model the street facade rather than the less appealing rail served rear in this instance. But will it work?

Food for thought.

Regards,

jonte

[jonte]

In reality, most all building that are on model layouts are very small. Most real life size buildings would not fit on a layout and in some cases would not even fit in the layout room. Before I retired and was working as an inbound traffic coordinator, I worked for a dry goods grocery warehouse. The building was roughly 8 1/2 X 6 1/3 feet in HO size. The building had 2 tracks that ran inside the building and held 8 cars on each track plus 5 or 6 doors on the back wall that faced another track that ran along side of the back of the building. That building was just one of two warehouses the company had and the other was bigger. I add this comment to say that we as modelers have to use a lot of compression and as we see on many layouts, most of the building are mostly off the layout, we see a wall or so and the rest are left to our imagination. So to me, no building is too small to spot a car at. Of course all of what I just said really only applies to buildings that sit on the back edge of a layout such as what you have done Reinhard

Thanks, newhaven48.

This came through whilst I was posting.

jonte

[Brakie]

Let us look deeper and see what we see shall we?

A fine example of a building way to small for a centerbeam flatcar or any modern car is the Atlas lumber company building..It would look unrealistic. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/150-650">http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/150-650</a><!-- m -->

Looking deeper we can see a 40' boxcar would look at home at that lumber company.

So,we should match the industry to the era we model.

Now let's take a peek at the Pikestuff Tri Star Industries.. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/541-20">http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/541-20</a><!-- m -->

By the time we factor in the production area, rest room(s) lunch room and the shipping/receiving area we can see a loaded 50' boxcar would flood the receiving dock.

What to do?

Here we should add a storage tank for unloading a tank car of say plasticizer or covered hopper of plastic pellets and now we have a fully believable rail served industry.
---------------------------------------

Non Rail served industries.
A fun building that adds a touch of down home Americana since you see these in just about every city and town.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/490-578">http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/490-578</a><!-- m -->

No,not a newspaper but, a small machine or welding shop that specializes in repair work or custom work for small industries and the public.
---------------------------------
I once used this building for a forklift repair company at a club I was a member of: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/541-4">http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/541-4</a><!-- m -->

I completed the scene by adding forklifts parked behind the building thus,Zimmers Forklift Repairs was born.

[jonte]

Thanks, Larry, for qualifying that; it makes sense.

Regards,

jonte

[Gumpoleon]

Hi gang,

Interesting discussion :hey: on size of Building vs rail car(s) used. In a strange twist of events the Building won't be rail served
The current kitbash is on hold untill weather permits me to blast it with a rattlecan - outside.

Another Building to be kitbashed is a warehouse to be clobbered together from 2 truck terminals and perhaps another loading dock kit - That one will be railserved though :geek:

While waiting for weather improvements i gave the 2nd road a final layer of spackle today - tomorrow or the day after should see the road getting some asphalt color

Keeping the spackle out of the turnout parts like frog and guardrails was a pain in the posterior

Keep the trains rolling!

Martin

[Rscott417]

Keeping the spackle out of the turnout parts like frog and guardrails was a pain in the posterior

Same thing goes with Woodland Scenics Smooth-it, use painters tape, tape one edge to some newspaper then the other side of the tape along the edge of whatever you're using to keep the spackle contained to your street. That'll cover a large area that you don't want spackle to stick. Hopefully I explained that easy enough.

[Gumpoleon]

Keeping the spackle out of the turnout parts like frog and guardrails was a pain in the posterior

Same thing goes with Woodland Scenics Smooth-it, use painters tape, tape one edge to some newspaper then the other side of the tape along the edge of whatever you're using to keep the spackle contained to your street. That'll cover a large area that you don't want spackle to stick. Hopefully I explained that easy enough.

Thanks, I'll remember that

[Gumpoleon]

Hi gang,

After a day of inactivity (school takes an amazing chunck out of a day) I managed to fit the roof sections together for the retail store

Not bad for an 'after dinner project'

Next project will probably be painting the thing. Dry weather is needed for that, however.

[Gumpoleon]

A minor update.

I mannaged to finish Building a couple of oil tanks for the food plant.

They are from the Faller kit #130486 'ARAL Tank farm'



I REALLY need the weather to get it's act together and play along, so I can use my spraycans.... (No way I'm doing that indoor)