Shed

[FJ and G]

Purpose: 1. To provide an industrial warehouse for the railroad; and 2., to house toy trains outside for a planned garden railroad (my shipment of code 148 n/s rail arrived so I can start laying tracks now on cedar ties, which I custom-cut myself).

Specs:

Approx. weight of shed: 100 pounds; filled with trains, transformers and DCS (housed in the upper office portion: 150 pounds.

About 11.5 feet long.

Long roof comes off in one piece; upper office comes out as well.

Structure made of cedar with waterproof wood glue and silicone calking.

Windows are constructed with a variety of parts including a telephone keypad and parts to a computer.

One of the doors was made from brass and two doors were made from boxcar doors.

Roof vents are constructed with plumbing pipe and with Port wine caps.

"Mort Industries" sign was made from a piece of ductwork with Lowe's mailbox letters (vinyl). They were too shiny so I sprayed them down with auto primer.

Obviously this is a work in progress as tracks are missing.

Below is the door, which is held in place at the bottom w/2 MTH RealTrack center rails and upper part with homemade brass latch.





Below are 8 side delivery doors, with rails from MTH Realtrax spiked with staples. Lights are operational and consist of copper plumbing parts. Electrical outlets between each delivery door were made from Lionel 027 track insulation pieces painted silverish color.



Below are multiple aerial views, taken from a small airplane. : The fan on the back is from a computer.













It was pouring down rain last night so I only managed to get this one blurry night shot. Some other lights are also on but cannot be seen in this picture. I ran 2 circuits, one in parallel, attached to the AC portion of an MRC HO X-former and the other is in series on the DC portion. I cut up Christmas lights to do it.




I was advised by garden railroaders not to use wild plants, so naturally, I went out and found a variety of natural plants incl. mosses, ferns, juniper virginiana, grasses and others I have in pots that even look cooler that I'll plant soon.

[1688torpedo]

Hello Dave ! I'll bet that BB will want you to build her a Doghouse that is as nice as the storage shed for the trains.[;)][:)] And, She'll probably want a layout in it as well[;)] Everything looks nice though. Have fun.

[csxt30]

Wow Dave ! That's really nice & a lot of work went into it ! If I still had my R/C heli, we could have used that for the pictures instead of you paying all that money out for the plane !![:D] Oh, do you have a name for this RR yet ? [:)]
Very nice Dave !!

[FJ and G]

Thanks, guys. I get grief from a few garden RRers who are not exactly convinced about O being used outdoors and using natural plants.

There's a crowd in this area who model live steam. That's my ultimate challenge down the road; to build some of those babies.

Name of the line?

Haven't had time to think of one. The Hound Dog Central has a nice ring to it.

[tmcc man]

David, that is amazing. I was and still am thinking of putting a loop of O gauge outside in the center of my G scale loops.

[andregg1]

You are really crazy.........
very very nice job.
Is good idea about wine cup........hey honey i need to open more wine bottles to my railroad empire!!! I'm kidding....
This is al final position?
the rain can not move the land?
Andre.

[overall]

Excellent modeling Dave. I think if you can build something like that you can make O gauge happen outdoors. I hope you keep us updated as you outdoor O gauge railroad progresses.

George

[Odd-d]

Great idea. Once you put all your trains in there a couple of thieves can sneak in, pick it up and walk off with your whole collection. Odd-d

[FJ and G]

Thx guys, will post more photos as it goes.

Odd-d,

But you forget one important detail.

The thieves would first have to get past the guard dog. :-)