The Barn

[rogerhensley]

[SeeYou190]

Roger,

.

I like the scene a lot.

.

I have been around a lot of wind powered water pumps, and they come in so many sizes, designs, heights, materials, colors, etc. that I think it is impossible to get it wrong.

.

-Kevin

.

[Doughless]

Growing up in Nebraska and attending my friend's cattle ranch on several weekends, I can attest that windmills definitely are built as tall as what Roger has modeled.  Also not that the barn in his scene is a bit shorter than the barn in the picture.  The barn in the pic is a more serious barn, probably three average stories tall from ground to peak whereas the barn in the scene is more like two stories tall.

Windmills were used to power the well pumps on my friend's ranch to water the livestock.  In addition to being near the farmstead, I also saw tall windmills in the middle of no where, accompanied by a large open watering tank.  We used to ride out to the mills to make sure they were operating correctly, or to turn them on or off depending upon how much water was in the tank.

Edit:  Here is a picture for reference.  I would say that the barn in Roger's scene is a smallish type of barn, probably the IHC, Tyco Mail Pouch Tobacco barn.  I think its peak would hit the second lateral support from the top, as I also think it would in the linked pic. (Also note that it looks like Roger has the windmill on a bit of a hill, setting higher than the barn.)

 https://www.abqjournal.com/256419/fleeing-new-mexicos-small-rural-towns.html

 

[riogrande5761]

Randy,

I can't help but notice the windmill in the photo is in the foreground, which makes things look bigger/taller while the barn is in the background, naturally looking smaller - perspective stuff.  Not only is the effect of the photographer being closer to the windmill to make it look taller in comparison to the barn, but it will tend to exaggerate the height in comparison.  If you get real close, it will look mega tall in comparison.

It would be much more usefull to see a photo of the windmill next to the barn for a more objective comparison.

[rrinker]

 Dunno is this will work, but this barn appears to be a taller type than the one Roger modeled, yet the windmill is STILL taller than it. Yes, partly perspective, but there were many types of windmills, there are plenty of pictures of sturdier looking but much shorter and squatter types, as well as these tall spinly ones. ANd of course many types of barns.

 

If anything is out of scale, it's that the vertical members of the windmill are a bit too thick to be pefectly in scale, but then like many other model things, making them perfectly true to scale would make them too delicate to actually build, so we compromise. However, it looks great to me, but none of the farmers in my family had windmills, so my only basis for comparison is protootype photos. Notice too the windmill is only slightly higher than the 2 story farm house - that's a relatively small type of barn - I don't think that new John Deere crawler tractor would even fit through the door. 

 Note too that a barn like that would more then likely just be an outbuilding on a full size farm, not the main barn. But as Roger said, it was what was available when he built it. Plus building a true to scale farm is a little like trying to put an airport on your layout - you could use a whole 4x8 space JUST for the farm, with little if any of the fields. AGain, we compromise as best we can. I remember an rather old MR article that showed the layout of a farm, with the main barn, house, chicken coop, and other outbuildings. If the barn and house were the size of the typical barn and farmhouse around me, it easily would have occupied a 4x8 foot space in HO - and that's no fields, just the house garden and the farm lane, laid out in a sort of L shape. I don't recall the issue but if you have access to the archive it will definitely be in there. I want to say it was pre-1950's.

 

                                 --Randy

 

[riogrande5761]

rogerhensley

No, the windmill and barn are not out of scale. The windmill is just tall while the barn is a little small, but definitely NOT N scale. 

Next to the windmill, the barn does "appear" N scale.  On my grandfathers farm in Iowa, his barn which was not huge by any standards, would have dwarfed his windmill.

[rogerhensley]

Ok, here is another shot taken near the farm.

[rogerhensley]

No, the windmill and barn are not out of scale. The windmill is just tall while the barn is a little small, but definitely NOT N scale. The scene was put together in 1983 using what was available then. :-)

[riogrande5761]

The windmill looks to be way out of scale to the barn even though it's in the forground.  Is that an N scale barn next to an HO wind mill?

Growing up as a kid when my dad was stationed at Bunker Hill AFB between Kokomo and Peru IN, they used to drive west 8 hours to Iowa where my maternal grandfather had a farm.  Of course he had a barn and a windmill but the windmill was metal IIRC and not super tall.  I always knew when we were driving the maze of gravel roads to his farm because his barn had a, IIRC, red colored roof, unlike most of the barns south of Des Moines.  When he passed away about 20 years ago, his step son had to sell the farm in order to break it up to the 6 children for their inheritance.  I drove out there one last time to see the farm house, that I had seen since I was a young child in the 1960's, in a pile of rubble.  Very sad.

[rogerhensley]

From waaayyy back in 1985. Where ever it was from, its no longer available.

[bearman]

It is a nice scene, but where did you get that windmill?

[woodman]

Very nice, great scenery.

[rogerhensley]

The old Barn and a new John Deere...