Hi everyone,
Some of you may have been following my thread asking about models that resembled the Huntsville, Ontario CN station. After much back and forth I have decided to scratchbuild the station rather than use the Walthers City Station kit. The kit does have a lot of similar features to the Huntsville station, but the differences, i.e. the roof line and number of windows just doesn't do it for me, and besides, I haven't scratchbuilt anything for a while so I need to get off my duff.
Here is the thread which shows the Walthers kit:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/272630.aspx
Here is a picture of the Huntsville station:
Better pictures here
https://www.google.com/search?q=Huntsville,+Ontario+train+station&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS746US746&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJzam1s6HeAhVl2oMKHdQvC24Q_AUIECgD&biw=1396&bih=686#imgrc=tIH9zd9DdXbieM:
The building will be 16" long and about 5" wide. The roof will have the very subtle pitch change that the original has. I am going to light it and do the interior. I have been offered some pictures and drawings of the interior by a lady who was part of the effort to preserve the station. There will also be a freight shed to the right of the station. The shed predates the station by quite a few years. It looks to be covered in something like rolled roofing.
I am going to use N Scale Architect's brick sheets for the walls. The N Scale sheets are only .020" thick so they will require some sort of substructure underneath. I thought about using Walthers brick sheets because they are thicker and would be self supporting, but they are much harder to cut. Doing details like the sides of the window and door frames would be a lot of hard work.
I'm going to use Plastruct asphalt shingle sheets for the roof which will also have to be mounted on a subsurface. Tichy has some windows that are pretty close in size. They are designed for frame construction but it shouldn't be too difficult to trim the window frames back. The club has just been donated some 3mm styrene so that will serve nicely for a base. I'm hoping that it will stay flat.
I have done some sketches of the exterior. These are not exact size wise. Basically I drew what looked right. They are drawn using 3rd PlanIt:
There are windows and doors in the right wall but I can't find a picture of the wall. Calls for a road trip!
I'm going to order the parts tonight.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Dave, let me begin by applauding your noble effort to scratchbuild the station. I do have one observation.
Your drawing shows that small center roof to be peaked, but as I look at photos of the station, it appears that the roof line is flat, not peaked. To me, the scratchbuild will look more like the actual train station with a flat roof line on that small center roof portion of the station.
Rich
Alton Junction
Dave,
It's a nice size project, not too small, but not too large, well worth the effort and effects that scratchbuilding brings to the table.
In recent years, I've had some success in using 3M 77 to laminate various brick and stone sheets over basswood. Getting the corners right is the tricky part, but once I had some experience the results improved. Might try a trial run on something small to get the hang of it.
Looking forward to seeing the results, no matter how you do it.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
richhotrain I do have one observation. Your drawing shows that small center roof to be peaked, but as I look at photos of the station, it appears that the roof line is flat, not peaked. To me, the scratchbuild will look more like the actual train station with a flat roof line on that small center roof portion of the station.
Hi Rich,
I agree that some of the pictures of the observation area roof give the impression that the top is flat, but I don't think it is. I haven't been able to find any straight on pictures to answer the question. Huntsville is less than two hours north of here so sometime before the weather closes in I'm going to make a road trip. Then I can get some actual measurements.
One of the things that doesn't look right to me in the drawings is the depth of the observation area roof. It looks to be too long at the peak, but the drawing does match the side view in terms of the location of the walls relative to the main roof.
Just so you understand, I'm going for a close resemblance, not an exact copy.
Question - What is the proper name for the part of a station that sticks out the front so the trains can be seen coming? I'm calling it an observation area but I don't think that is correct.
mlehmanIn recent years, I've had some success in using 3M 77 to laminate various brick and stone sheets over basswood.
Thanks for the suggestion Mike. I haven't quite decided how to actually build the walls. I want them to have the proper thickness so that the windows are set in from the outsides and insides of the walls. I also want to be able to run wires through them. I have lots of .020" and .040" styrene in both black and white, and I have a lot of square stock as well. I'm probably going to make use of those so I can keep the costs down. Just buying the brick and shingle sheets and the windows and doors has already cost about $90 Cdn.
hon30critter....Question - What is the proper name for the part of a station that sticks out the front so the trains can be seen coming? I'm calling it an observation area but I don't think that is correct.
I've heard it being called the Operator's bay (as in bay window), but that may have been only a local term.
Wayne
Thanks Wayne,
I think 'Operator's Bay' sounds much better. It describes the function more accurately. After all, the bay wasn't there so Miss Prissey could stay out of the rain while she watched her train come in.
I must be getting old! I sold windows for 15 years but do you think I could remember the term "bay window"?
richhotrainI do have one observation. Your drawing shows that small center roof to be peaked, but as I look at photos of the station, it appears that the roof line is flat, not peaked.
Hi again again Rich (always a pleasure!),
I found a view of the station from the opposite direction and it shows pretty clearly that there isn't a flat roof on the bay window. I can't figure out how to get the actual picture to show up here but this is the link:
http://www.railpictures.ca/upload/cn-4132-rest-next-to-the-cn-huntsville-train-station-while-people-are-waiting-for-the-southbound-northlander-to-arrive
hon30critterThanks for the suggestion Mike. I haven't quite decided how to actually build the walls. I want them to have the proper thickness so that the windows are set in from the outsides and insides of the walls.
That's pretty much why I had to laminate the embossed sheets to something. I considered styrene, but decided it was a lot easier to cut all those windows into the basswood as backing than into thick styrene.
hon30critter richhotrain I do have one observation. Your drawing shows that small center roof to be peaked, but as I look at photos of the station, it appears that the roof line is flat, not peaked. Hi again again Rich (always a pleasure!), I found a view of the station from the opposite direction and it shows pretty clearly that there isn't a flat roof on the bay window. I can't figure out how to get the actual picture to show up here but this is the link: http://www.railpictures.ca/upload/cn-4132-rest-next-to-the-cn-huntsville-train-station-while-people-are-waiting-for-the-southbound-northlander-to-arrive Dave
richhotrain I do have one observation. Your drawing shows that small center roof to be peaked, but as I look at photos of the station, it appears that the roof line is flat, not peaked.
I found an interesting discussion of the train station, including some references to the roof architecture.
https://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=10507
My vote is for peaked as well ....
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
Yeah, it may well be peaked as opposed to flat.
In the first photo below, from the angle taken, it looks flat, but in the second photo below it looks peaked. I am beginning to think that it is a "hipped roof".
Mark,
Thanks for the picture of the interior!
Just My but I believe the drawings You made of the roof are correct......
Have Fun!
Got Your PM......
Frank
zstripeJust My but I believe the drawings You made of the roof are correct...... Have Fun!
Thanks Frank.
While I am waiting for the materials to arrive, I decided to print the wall patterns full size. Getting 3rd PlanIt to print to the proper size took a bit of trial and error but I managed to find the right setting. If anyone is interested, I had the Output Scale set at 11.75 and I was using the standard 12" grid spacing to represent 1" on the drawing.
As soon as I looked at the first copy of the front view I realized that the building was too big so I reduced the width by about 1.5" and lowered the roof by about 1". I also reduced the wall height to 12 scale feet. The original side view had shown that the structure was way too wide as well but reducing the roof height corrected that problem nicely. It won't be quite to scale but it will have the right appearance (I hope). It will be very close to the size of the HO Walthers City Station.
I still want to make a trip to view the actual station but it isn't going to happen any time soon. Like a lot of the northeastern States, the Kawarthas are getting a blast of winter tonight. They are calling for up to 20 cm (8"). I'm not going to attempt crawling around on crutches in that mess!
I know that you're planning on scratchbuilding the station, Dave, but I just thought to remind you that Tichy offers rafter tails similar to those on your station. They're on Page two of the link.
After looking at the already reduced size of the station for quite some time I decided that it was still too big. I don't want it to overpower the scene. So, I used a neat little tool in 3rd PlanIt to reduce the drawings to .85% of their size. I am much happier with the way things look.
The Resize tool made things really easy. Instead of having to adjust each line in the drawing, which would have taken forever, I just selected everything on the page, grouped it into a single entity, and told the program to multiply everything by .85. Bingo! Done. Happy happy!
I know lots of guys prefer pencil and paper, but CAD is so much easier to make adjustments to IMHO.
Well, we now have a definitive answer to the bay roof architecture. It is peaked.
I contacted the Huntsville Library to inquire if the library's Muskoka Digital Archives might contain a head-on photo of the train station. I got a reply indicating that the library did not have such a photo, but referred me to the Huntsville Train Station Society as a possible source of help.
I clicked on the link that the library provided and, voila, on the home page of the HTSS website was a head-on drawing of the train station with its peaked bay roof.
http://www.huntsvilletrainstation.com/
doctorwayneI know that you're planning on scratchbuilding the station, Dave, but I just thought to remind you that Tichy offers rafter tails similar to those on your station. They're on Page two of the link.
Thanks Wayne.
I had seen those before but I had forgotten to order them. I'll do that right now. If my math is correct I need almost 200 of them if they are on 16" centers. I'll have to verify that on the roadtrip.
Rich, thanks for the confirmation of the peaked bay roof.
Still waiting for the parts to arrive.
Finally I have the windows and other bits that I was waiting for so now I can start cutting styrene! I have to clear a larger space on my workbench but that won't take long.
Stay tuned!
Okay, this has been a long time coming!
After a long hiatus from working on the station, I have actually made a bit of progress. My last post suggested that I would start building the model without fitting it to the scene. I recognized that doing so might not work out if the model was too big, so I have started on a mock up instead. Here is where I am so far:
It is exactly 10" long. There will be a small portico added to the left side. The size looks reasonable on my workbench, but it will obviously have to be put in place on the layout for the final decision to be made. I hope to have the mock up roof in place by next Tuesday.