Jason
Modeling the Fort Worth & Denver of the early 1970's in N scale
orsonroy wrote:Don't tell that to the Romans! Inlaid brick patterns have been around for aeons, as have both straight and arched window openings.
The Romans build very few buildings during the late 1800's and early 1900's in N America. 8-)
If you look at the Smalltown USA buildings they all have a geometric pattern in the brickwork of the facade. Those are 1920's-1930's designs.
Yes, you can have a flat top to a window in a TOC brick building without a lintel. But if you look closely the bricks don't go straight across, there is a "flat arch" of bricks laid on an angle from each side. If the bricks go straight across that means there is a steel angle or structural shape buried in the wall above the window (a hidden lintel) That was not a common construction method until WW1 or later.
There are most assuredly exceptions, but 99.99% of the buildings I have seen with brick courses straight across the tops of the windows and doors have been built WW1 or later. If you find 100 brick buildings with all arches, stone lintels or cast iron channels over the windows and doors and stone window sills with floral motifs of curves in the corbels in the facades, better than 90-95% of them will be TOC buildings.
On a more rational level, look at the surviving buildings at Colonial Williamsburg. The brick buildings have both types of window openings on the same building. Some have lintels, some don't. <snip>MY advice to anyone looking for ToC structures would be to sit down in front of the computer and start studying. There are tens of thousands of 1890-1910 era photos online.
<snip>
MY advice to anyone looking for ToC structures would be to sit down in front of the computer and start studying. There are tens of thousands of 1890-1910 era photos online.
One of my sub-hobbies is taking pictures of old brick buildings and surviving TOC buildings. I have several thousand pictures from dozens of locations. My rules of thumb are based on my observations of those buildings.
I do second the motion of looking on line. The American Memory collection the Library of Congress HAER-HABS has a lot of pictures of older buildings (in assorted states of repair).
If there is interest in a particular type of building, I can post some of my pictures.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dehusman wrote: When looking for TOC buildings, brick buildings will have some form of arch or lintel above the doors and windows. If the windows are bricked straight across and ther are bricked window sills then its more of a post WW1, 1920's or later building. You can convert those buildings by adding pieces of styrene as lintels and window sills (representing stone) or a piece of channel material as a lintel (representing a cast iron lintel). Buildings with inlaid geometric brick patterns in the facade are most likely 1930's era buildings.Dave H.
When looking for TOC buildings, brick buildings will have some form of arch or lintel above the doors and windows. If the windows are bricked straight across and ther are bricked window sills then its more of a post WW1, 1920's or later building. You can convert those buildings by adding pieces of styrene as lintels and window sills (representing stone) or a piece of channel material as a lintel (representing a cast iron lintel). Buildings with inlaid geometric brick patterns in the facade are most likely 1930's era buildings.
Dave,
Don't tell that to the Romans! Inlaid brick patterns have been around for aeons, as have both straight and arched window openings.
On a more rational level, look at the surviving buildings at Colonial Williamsburg. The brick buildings have both types of window openings on the same building. Some have lintels, some don't.
Figuring out architectural styles is actually pretty difficult, especially once you get out of the "fashionable" architecture and start looking at the bulk of strucures made during any given period. The "commoners" didn't always hear about what they were "supposed to be doing" from the fashion settters, and did what they knew how to do.
Ray Breyer
Modeling the NKP's Peoria Division, circa 1943
jguess733 wrote:Orosonroy, those cars are awesome. Is there a possibility you could make a tutorial post on how you scratch build those cars out of plastic? I also wanted ask if any of you guys could tell me how much of a learning curve is associated with the Lebelle kits? I want to purchase a few kits but being afraid of screwing the kits up is preventing me from buying them. Thanks for the help.
Hi Jason,
I'd love to crank out a clinic on how to scratch a simple ToC boxcar, but right now I absolutely don't have the time! With a growing family my modeling time is pretty precious, and it's all currently being used to work on my home layout and a few contract modeling jobs (to PAY for the home layout!). I have given online clinics in the past; you wouldn't BELIEVE how much time they eat up, especially photographing everything!
I will give you this tip: if you can build a simple box out of plastic, you can scratchbuild a boxcar. They're not hard at all, even WITH adding bolt detail where they need to go. See the link below to my Trainboard account, to see more photos of other ToC cars I've scratched and bashed. Believe it or not, with a couple of hand tools and a stash of Evergreen strip & sheet stock, you can scratch build basically any car that I've done over the past couple of years.
Along that vein, here's free tip #2: ignore LaBelle. Wood is HORRIBLE to work with. I say that as a budding professional model maker, and as someone who's worked with both plastic and wood modeling projects. About the only thing wood does better than plastic is be the right color for wood. In all other regards it's an inferior modeling medium. If you like one of the cars that LaBelle produces, look up the car type and general arrangement drawings in a "Car Builder's Dictionary". There are three available for free downloading on Google Books. Armed with the data in those books you can scratch ANY of the cars shown in plan form, and in fact can build any car built before steel hoppers and boxes. The only limitation is your own skills set, and for boxcars, that's not something hard to learn. If you can measure and cut a straight line, and use liquid glue without blowing yourself up, you've got 85% of the skills required already.
We need a nice hopper bottom gon too, they were a very common coal car, especially in the east. A PRR class GD or a P&R class HPa would be wonderful.
Great news is that Art Griffin, who makes a fantastic array of TOC decals has decided to resume production, he will be doing HO-S-TT decals and will be accepting orders from Sept-June.
bump ... beacause it's been a while
http://mprailway.blogspot.com
"The first transition era - wood to steel!"
John Signor's division-by-division history of the Southern Pacific has a lot of pre-1920 photos, maps, and history, too - they're well worth the price. He has done books on Donner Pass, the Shasta Division, the Coast Line, the Western Division, Beaumont Hill, and the SP de Mexico; he has contributed maps to PFM's book on SP operations in Oregon and to the recent book on SP operations in Los Angeles. Signature has announced they're going to release a book on the Salt Lake Division, too, but it doesn't yet have a due date.
i have 3 of David Myrick's 5 books on arizona railroads , and they're an amazing resource , lots of photos , maps , and historial tidbits
reading through them it's quite astounding how many times those old west towns had major fires especially near the train station . no wonder when they rebuilt they usually used brick
Ray , nice work on those cars , when the kits are available be sure to find some way to let us know , but remember ... no advertising on this forum , wouldn't want to see you get in trouble !
tichy's instruction sheet says their ore cars are typical of cars built from 1900 to 1915 . ( i'm not sure what i was thinking but i was sure arch bar trucks were banned from general use sometime around then . but i did some looking around on the 'net and it seems 1940 was the last year they were allowed for interchange service . funny how the mind mixes up facts )
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Thought you guys would like to see what I was up to over the weekend:
This is a batch of test patterns that I whipped up on Friday evening. There are enough parts here to make an 1890s 34' gon and boxcar, sharing a common underframe and brake detail. These aren't as highly detailed as my other scratched cars, since I'll be using them to teach myself how to make RTV molds and home cast resin car kits. I figure that if I destroy them in the process, I won't have lost much!
These masters didn't take me very long to build at all; no more than two to three hours in all. If you're modeling any time before the 1920s, scratchbuilding car parts and casting your own resin cars is probably a great alternative to waiting for the day that manufacturers actually support our end of the hobby, or running strings of identical MDC cars.
My eventual plan is to crank out several masters like this every year, cast as many as I can out of each mold, and then sell off the excess as resin-only kits (no wire or plastic details). Any interest in a new, pre-WWI supportive cottage industry? (in HO only; sorry!)
Heading to the library of my new employer UNR will be one of the first things I do when I get to Reno. However, I have 8 weeks of planning before we leave West Virginia. If you have any files of the Tonopah or Goldfield maps you could emai lto me I would appreciate it asI am going to be really busy when I get there. - Nevin
Nevin
If you're going to be at UNR then check both the Nevada and USGS geological publications around the date you are interested in. Often they show the topography and railroad as it existed at that point in time. That is how I got good track layouts for Tonopah (including Myrick, of course).
Jack W
One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of towns in the old West often didn't feature too many of those rough & ready false-front type buildings, especially if they had been around for more than a couple of years. Especially in a successful boom town (Virginia City is a prime example) before long you'd have far more elaborate Second Empire mansions, Queen Anne cottages and other examples of Victorian architecture--and if there had been one or two bad town fires, probably a few brick buildings, as elaborate as the owner can afford. Hollywood generally doesn't include this sort of thing (with some exceptions) because the perception of the Western town is the one-horse sort of place with false-front buildings, even if the reality falls short. Heck, when they were creating their "historic district" area, the town of Dodge City, Kansas knocked down some of its actual historic structures and replaced them with new buildings because the old ones didn't look "western" enough!
All this Old West stuff and some recent research has inspired me: in 1939, the city of Sacramento held a "Roaring Camp" event in a city park, and threw up exactly this sort of fake Old West structure in great quantity--tiny little wooden buildings, mostly temporary, and an "Indian village" featuring tipis (even though the local tribes never used them) to celebrate Sacramento's 100th year as a city. It was right next to the streetcar line and the belt line I model, and even though it's not technically in my period (1950s) I think it might be fun to include a bit of non-period historical reference (and will give me excuses to run streetcars once in a while!) I'll post photos if I actually break down and build it...
Alan:
That is exactly what the prototype did. After the trains were brought into the yard in Virginia City, the engines were backed down the hill thru a tunnel that went under the road in front of St. Mary's Catholic Church to the turntable, turned and prepared for their next trip to Carson City and Reno. My idea for this layout is less compressed than most. I just eliminated a couple of tunnels and curves otherwise it follows the drawing in David Myrick's book prety closely. You could easily walk from Gold Hill to Virginia City (I have).
The question is whether a model railroad that depicts a relatively short section of the prototype will have enough operation to remain interesting once it is built. My current railroad depicts a B&O (WM) secondary line through Morgantown WV in 1950. It represents only about 2 miles of the prototype. Trains enter the scene and then exit back into the staging area. I will have my 4th and final operations session this weekend before it gets torn down so I'll see what everyone thinks. - Nevin
Nevin.
Decent general maps are available in David F Myrick's "Railroads of Nevada and Eastern Californis". There are two volumes, one for the North and one for the South, the one you want is the southern one for your roads of interest. You will need some topographic maps for detail work though. The LV&T basically followed Highway 95 from Las Vegas to Beatty, and then the T&T from Beatty to Rhyolite on a "straight line", and then from Rhyolite it basically straight lines north to Lida Junction, but from there I haven't been able to track it down, although 95 may have been put down over the top of it (I may have the road names mixed up a little as I am going from memory). The road bed is easily discernable on the ground (where it hasn't been turned into highway), in fact, in my younger days I drove over a lot of it. You can probably get a good feel for it from terraserver.microsoft.com which allows you to switch between topo maps and aerial photography.
The V&T is a very interesting road. I actually have it all duplicated (except for buildings and some terrain, and the Minden Branch) in Microsoft Train Simulator, although I haven't touched it in years since I started model railroading again. As you said, it is ready built for model railroading.
SpaceMouse wrote: Dang I wish I could get styrene around here.
Dang I wish I could get styrene around here.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?category=SBS&scale=&manu=Evergreen&item=&keywords=&instock=Q&split=30&Submit=Search
http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?MerchantID=RET01229&Action=Catalog&Type=Department&ID=67
http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/
If you can live with mail order, you might try one of the above sites.
Have fun
NevinW wrote: Here is the design for the V&T layout. Let me know what you think.
Here is the design for the V&T layout. Let me know what you think.
With your turntable in the middle, and no way to turn engines at Staging or Virginia city; you are going to have some long runs with the loco running backwards.
I think that you need some way to turn engines at the "ends" of the runs; or possibly, a connection that allows for continuous running (loop).
My layout is point-to-point with a turntable at each end just to "avoid" having to run loco's backward for long distances. This my not be a problem for you though.
NevinW wrote: Spacemouse directed me to this thread. I wanted to introduce myself. I am planning on a pre-WW1 layout based on the Nevada mining railroads. I have about 16X17 feet. It is either going to be the V&T in Virginia City or the T&G/BG in Goldfield or LV&T/Tonopah and Tidewater in Beatty/Rhyolite. Being from Las Vegas I am partial to the LV&T even though it was gone by 1918. I rode on the Tonopah highway for many years as a kid never knowing that it was actually the roadbed of the LV&T. I am using Cadrail to come up with the designs. Designing a layout for the V&T is almost cheating as I have the Virginia City Sanborn Maps and most of the trackage looks like it was designed by a model railroader. The Gold Hill depot area is perfect for fitting into a corner. Getting accurate information about tracks in Goldfield and Beatty is not so easy. I have a bid on a map of Goldfield on Ebay so I should have some good information. If I could figure out how to post a BMP or a cadrail file on the forum, I would show everyone my ideas. I am very interested in finding pre-1920 model railroad equipment. thanks for letting me kmnow about this site. - Nevin
Spacemouse directed me to this thread. I wanted to introduce myself. I am planning on a pre-WW1 layout based on the Nevada mining railroads. I have about 16X17 feet. It is either going to be the V&T in Virginia City or the T&G/BG in Goldfield or LV&T/Tonopah and Tidewater in Beatty/Rhyolite. Being from Las Vegas I am partial to the LV&T even though it was gone by 1918. I rode on the Tonopah highway for many years as a kid never knowing that it was actually the roadbed of the LV&T.
I am using Cadrail to come up with the designs. Designing a layout for the V&T is almost cheating as I have the Virginia City Sanborn Maps and most of the trackage looks like it was designed by a model railroader. The Gold Hill depot area is perfect for fitting into a corner. Getting accurate information about tracks in Goldfield and Beatty is not so easy. I have a bid on a map of Goldfield on Ebay so I should have some good information. If I could figure out how to post a BMP or a cadrail file on the forum, I would show everyone my ideas. I am very interested in finding pre-1920 model railroad equipment. thanks for letting me kmnow about this site. - Nevin
Can't wait to see the plan. Convert the .bmp to .jpg if you would and save a lot of space. Also if you could reduce it to fit a screen without scrolling it will make it easier for people to get the lay of the land.
To post the picture you need to upload the image to a web site. Most people use a free service like photobucket.com or railimage.com. It will take a few days to get an account. Then it is just a mater of linking to the phos from your post. There are instructions at the top of this forum.
The challenges of modeling pre WW1 is the reason this thread exists. If you read back, you'll find sources for your mining cars and some appropriate figures.