I'm trying to figure out how to fill a 12x16" area for servicing perishables and farm equipment in rural VA during the 1980s. What structures, beside the Walthers State Line Farm Supply to include? I looked online at various areas in Southern Va and didn't really see anything except warehouses.
TIA!
~Lee
You could look at Pikestuff buildings. They look very much like the buildings I saw growing up in South Georgia and they are easily kitbashed if you want something different
http://www.rixproducts.com/pikestuff_listing.htm
Pole barns would be very appropriate. Dowels and corrugated sheets. Dull silver paint. The farm I grew up on had more of these than anything. Market properties also.
Pole barns. Don't limit yourself to silver, they came in all kinds of colors even back then. I have 2 pole buildings on my property that date back to the late 70s. One is light blue and the other is yellow. The siding on the Pikestuff buildings is closer to the steel siding on a pole building then the corrugated steel that is used on roofs and older buildings.
There are all sorts of variations, lean to type roofs, peaked roofs, peaked roofs with overhangs to park equipment under. Some were open on one side, most in this area have large sliding doors 16' or so and not overhead doors. They are used for everything from machine sheds, barns, workshops, milking houses......
kasskaboose I'm trying to figure out how to fill a 12x16" area for servicing perishables and farm equipment in rural VA during the 1980s.
I'm trying to figure out how to fill a 12x16" area for servicing perishables and farm equipment in rural VA during the 1980s.
Sounds like a sorta improbable mix of industries and era to be rail served. Are you modeling after an actual industry?
I would think a rural setting would mean it would be shipping perishables out, so it would have to have some sort of packing shed or warehouse that would load into trucks. It might have some sort of pole barn associated with it as a garage to service whatever farm equipment brought the perishables into the packing operation.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
There's pole barns and then there's metal pre-fab buildings. These can take form very similar to pole barns, but others look more like Quonset huts, but bigger.
Inputs could include both fertilizer and ammonia, plus fuel was also commonly handled by coop-type ag supply dealers. If you have a dead-end siding, a ramp for unloading farm equipment is another possibility.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
The structure you are looking for will probably have to be fabricated, there are no kits that I know of. In any case, a facility like the one you are after is simply a modified truck loading barn where produce was kept for a few hours until it was loaded. Even in the 80's that kind of structure was probably built back in the 30's and would be an older archetecture style with modern AC and perhaps updated doors. There is an excellent example of exactly what you are after located in Cape Charles VA on the ESRR right of way. Only recently has it been abandoned and fallen into disrepair. I don't have a photo handy, but I've got a few somewhere. It is simply a small barn with a long extension that has bays on one side for pick up trucks and the other for rail loading. I have been intending to model it myself for my version of the ESRR.
You shouldn't have any trouble kitbashing or scratching one yourself. Don't worry so much about appearances, you can take a barn, add a long shed and call it done- it doesn't matter if it matches or not, most of the real ones didn't! I would avoid a modern style steel prefab, in rual VA then and now nobody would spring the buck for one of those- at least not when grandad's shed can still be used! You could also take a newer building and add an older loading dock or vice versa with an old storage unit and a new dock for rail.
The Dixie D Short Line "Lux Lucet In Tenebris Nihil Igitur Mors Est Ad Nos 2001"
JWhite ... they came in all kinds of colors even back then....
... they came in all kinds of colors even back then....
When did the 1980s become "back then?" It wasn't that long ago.
jmbjmbWhen did the 1980s become "back then?" It wasn't that long ago.
jmbjmb JWhite: ... they came in all kinds of colors even back then.... When did the 1980s become "back then?" It wasn't that long ago.
JWhite: ... they came in all kinds of colors even back then....
1980 was six presidents back. Entire generations of things like locomotives and military aircraft have come and gone since then. People that were young adults then are now becoming grandparents. Its "back then" now.
I'm curious what "perishables" southern VA would have been producing. All I can think of are apples in the northwest.
NittanyLion Entire generations of things like locomotives and military aircraft have come and gone since then.
Entire generations of things like locomotives and military aircraft have come and gone since then.
NittanyLion jmbjmb: JWhite: ... they came in all kinds of colors even back then.... When did the 1980s become "back then?" It wasn't that long ago. 1980 was six presidents back. Entire generations of things like locomotives and military aircraft have come and gone since then. People that were young adults then are now becoming grandparents. Its "back then" now. I'm curious what "perishables" southern VA would have been producing. All I can think of are apples in the northwest.
jmbjmb: JWhite: ... they came in all kinds of colors even back then.... When did the 1980s become "back then?" It wasn't that long ago.
Then and now southern VA produces apples, berries, grapes, melons, peaches, pears, strawberries, nectarines, asparagus, beets, broccoli, cabbage, corn, cucumbers, eggplants, green beans, mixed greens such as spinach and kale, herbs of all kinds, mushrooms, onions, peppers, potatoes, squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, beef, bison, chicken, duck, emu, geese, goat, lamb , pork, rabbit, turkey, peanuts, tobacco, ice cream, milk, eggs and probably more stuff I can't think of right now. Non perishable agriculture products are such things as cotton, peanut butter and other processed canned or jared foods, Christmas trees, horticulture products like seeds and bedding plants, and that sort of thing. Any of those items would be appropriate for a SVA layout from just about any era.
Any of those products would require fast shipping and should provide the modeler enough leeway to be creative in a track side facility. Not all of them were shipped by rail, but the possibility certainly exists that at one time or another at least some of the products went by rail. If you are frelancing then that should be just enough of a "hook" to make legitimate a specific facility on your layout for any of those products.
Suffolk, Virginia, peanut capital. Home of Planter's Peanuts. Plus all the other stuff mentioned.
Bob
Photobucket Albums:NPBL - 2008 The BeginningNPBL - 2009 Phase INPBL - 2010 Downtown
FWIW,
Saw this this example of the quonset hut type equipment sheds I mentioned while browsing through the Walthers catalog:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/189-1408
The farms around here in upstate NY either still have the old wooden barns of ages past, if not centuries past for farm equipment storage or have pole barns as mentioned. They can be quite cool, especially in the stone or concrete "basements".
For something more modern on the farm:
A pole barn is built by driving pole into the ground and putting in crosmembers horizontally over the vertical poles and sheeting over them all and connecting them with corrugated metal siding. As mentioned, they DO come in different colors. Relatively cheap, easy and quick. They have no "basment".
Also, SHeet metal buildings with metal frames are also popular, like the Pikestuff mentioned.
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
The problem with pole barns in this instance is the small fact that there were very few, if any, pole barns being used in VA. Even today pole barns are few and far between around here, they are far more popular in northern states. But with that said, there is nobody but you that will notice that small detail if you want to use a pole barn for the application mentioned. "Rustificate" it and call it done.
Ah, Suffolk! I blew up a HMMWV engine in front of the Planter's one dark and very cold night during a convoy to Ft. Picket. Hmmm, makes me want some peanut soup from the Virginia Diner.....