Ralph's scratchbuild 2014 summer challenge

[jwb]

The only slight suggestion I would make is that the Penn Central tended to give its towers short, pithy names. "Port" rather than "Kings Port" might be a little more PC. And of course in the streamlined white on green!

[Catt]

I can see two flaws in all of your buildings Ralph.

1 They are in the wrong scale.

2 They aren't on my layout.

Oh well I guess I'll just have to give you two of these. :mrgreen:

[Ralph]

Thanks for the nice comments guys!
jwb, I was using pics of Berea tower as a general guide and followed the lettering style and ID name plate on that tower..which I thought might be old NYC...but maybe not?

[jwb]

Here's a shot of an NYC tower in 1967 <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nyc/nyc-alttwr-gea.jpg">http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nyc/nyc-alttwr-gea.jpg</a><!-- m --> Here is a tower with white-on-green PC lettering, although not the italic style <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/pc/pc-baytwr-ags.jpg">http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/pc/pc-baytwr-ags.jpg</a><!-- m --> The photos I've seen of Berea tower are all from the Conrail era and have Conrail style white-on-blue signs.

The towers I remember on the NEC from PC days had PC italic style lettering on green backgrounds.

[Ralph]

slightly off topic: You gotta like the yellow orange KP&W boxcars a natural compliment to NYC/PC green. How much of your rolling stock is KP&W?

Thanks! I've been gradually increasing the KP&W rolling stock roster over the last few years. The cars in the photo are part of a half dozen plug door boxcars I bought unpainted from MB Klein last year. I've lettered about a half dozen covered hoppers for the road and patched seven clam shell coil cars with the KP&W logo. I have a similar number of open hoppers I experimented lettering for the KP&W with an ink stamp. Oh...and one lonely 40 ft regular boxcar! Hmmmmm, tallying it up I have more than I thought! I have some 50 ft cars I lettered years ago that I am re-doing in the new lighter orange scheme. So, I have slightly fewer KP&W cars than Penn Central cars, plus a mix of "foreign roads".

[Ralph]

Here's a shot of an NYC tower in 1967 <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nyc/nyc-alttwr-gea.jpg">http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nyc/nyc-alttwr-gea.jpg</a><!-- m --> Here is a tower with white-on-green PC lettering, although not the italic style <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/pc/pc-baytwr-ags.jpg">http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/pc/pc-baytwr-ags.jpg</a><!-- m --> The photos I've seen of Berea tower are all from the Conrail era and have Conrail style white-on-blue signs.

The towers I remember on the NEC from PC days had PC italic style lettering on green backgrounds.

Thanks for the pics! Here is one of the Berea Tower shots I was using for inspiration that has the black and white... <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://northamericaninterlockings.com/images/bereaOHunknown.jpg?64">http://northamericaninterlockings.com/i ... own.jpg?64</a><!-- m -->

[jwb]

Fiddling around with MS Word and MS Paint, I was able to come up with a "close enough" picture of some PC style tower names:

   

[Ralph]

Those look good!

Short of having the actual prototype font available I've tended to go with Ariel Black (bold and italicized). Is that what you used? I used it on signs for West Mill's commuter station and the old tower by the engine yard in Kings Port.

[jwb]

I used Square 721 Bold Italic free font off this site: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://fontzone.net/font-details/square-721-bolditalic">http://fontzone.net/font-details/square-721-bolditalic</a><!-- m -->

[Ralph]

I think I like that better than Ariel. Thanks!

[Ralph]

I added stairways. To reinforce the idea of never throwing out anything that might be model railroad related, the top part of the stairs was originally from an old Model Power coaling tower I had as a 12 year old boy.

[Ralph]

The tower in place....







I'd like to add some details and a person or two...but otherwise am close to finished. After that I'll turn my attention to that box I plan to use for another building in the West Mill business district block.

[sailormatlac]

Excellent! I like that simple yet industrial design. Hard to believe it started from very humble material!

Looking forward for the next building!

Matt

[Ralph]

I haven't started work on that business district structure but decided to use a couple of smaller boxes for this similar building by the passenger platform (To the right of KP tower) . I also put brick paper on the station in the background to blend it all in.





Here is what the area used to look like w/ a very simple station background structure.

[Tyson Rayles]