Pulpwood Truck

We had one extra spur without a specific industry (the far right-hand spur inside the ovals) on the layout.  The first thought was to use a junk yard idea from a recent "Model Railroading".  That looked like it would be fun, even though it would not say "Southeast" like cotton does.  On further reflection, a pulpwood yard came to mind.  I already had a pulpwood rack from my childhood, so we picked up another rack, and thought about other details.

The 50's in the Southeast saw lots of "bobtail" pulpwood trucks on their way to the pulpmill or wood yard.  So, that seemed like a good detail.  This is what I was aiming for (note the Southern Railway rack, more later):

See this link by Louis the "Desertdrover":

http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=23128

Also, this site includes instructions for building a pulpwood truck.  I took his lead!

Instead of Louis's International Harvestor truck, I used another 41/46 Chevy (like the cotton truck, MiniMetals) but this time it was a tandem axle and was intended to be used as a tractor-trailer rig.  Pulling the fifth wheel was not too tough and that left two, straight rails from the frame.  I used a scale 6 inches of 3/32" styrene tubing for the tubes to hold the vertical logs at the rear of the truck.  That's about an 8-inch tube, which is certainly on the large side, but it seemed to look OK.  Used the same tubing for the front verticals, but drilled the tubes out a little with a 1/16" bit to make the walls thinner on the tops of the tubes.  The tubes are a scale 8-feet long/tall.  Added a roughly 3-foot cross-pipe at 6 feet up the front tube.  All that was glued on with CA cement after getting a coat of flat black acrylic paint.

The fun was trying to figure out what to use for pulpwood.  The linked article (above) suggested left-over Christmas tree/wreath.  However, I felt his load of pulpwood had too much bark and was too big in diameter.  I found another site with a 2007 L&N Magazine containing an article about L&N's pulpwood racks from the 50's by Bob Chapman.  This article listed L&N's total racks at 926, but Southern Railway had the most of any line at 3264.  I felt justified in choosing a woodyard for our Southern layout!  Chapman suggested that commercially available racks by Atlas have logs that are too big -- 9 to 27" in diameter.  So, I was hoping to get more toward the 4 to 12" variety with less bark to wood.  I walked out to the back yard and found some small pine twigs -- but they were pretty "barky".  A dead oak branch looked promising and two other hardwood varieties were selected.

I cut one length to about 5 feet, scale, and used it to cut the others.  At first, I kept all four varieties separate:

Notice the two longer sticks (v-shaped) for the rear supports.  After I thought I had a sufficiency, I started the process of gluing things together.  I used white glue for the pulpwood and tried to include small and large logs throughout the load.

Since I didn't like the looks of the pine "sticks" and wasn't too pleased with the looks of one of the unknown species, I soon found that I was combining the remaining two piles of wood as I went.  My father, a woodlands and wood procurement manager for several pulp mills, would probably not be pleased with this load of "mixed hardwoods"!?!  I finished  with a slightly rounded top and THEN checked to see what the maximum highway height was -- 13.5 to 14.5 feet is what I found on the Internet.  I estimated this load to be about 12.3 feet, so I'm good.  However, it would not surprise me for pulpwooders to get every stick on their truck they could! 

I'm debating whether to use cable/chain to hold the load on.  I'm pretty sure something was used. . . .

Louis (link, above) added mudflaps.  That's a nice touch, and maybe another addition.  Pulpwood trucks are more in need of weathering than cotton stakeside trucks.  These trucks spent time in the woods and suffered from a good bit of mis-use and abuse.  Again, I just cannot bring myself to weathering, yet!

I also need to find a loader for the trains -- a large fork lift or a crane of some sort with a sling would fit.  Another Clever Brothers structure, the yard shed, will probably be used for this spur.  What else?

Stakeside Cotton Truck

I finished up a cotton truck (almost) yesterday.  I ordered a 41/46 Chevy flatbed, MiniMetals brand, in hopes of being able to convert it to a stakeside-type truck.  Actually, the flatbed worked out pretty well.

I used some left-over "lumber" from the Coryden Company Store I had made earlier.  Had to slice a few "4X4's" with this setup:

The horizontal boards came from scale 1X4's that I picked up from a train store in Tampa, FL, the 2nd largest train store in the US!  The first two 1X4's I glued to the 4X4's were farther apart than I had planned, but I just left them that way and matched the others to them:

I only had early American and walnut stain pens to use, so I chose walnut.  Since the flatbed was rather light, it got a few coats of stain, too.  It's pretty evident where I got some extra white glue on the boards:

Still not sure exactly WHAT to use for raw cotton.  For photos, the converted flatbed and a Woodland Scenics pick-up were "loaded" with cotton from commercial cotton balls.  The pick-up was the Henry's Haulin with the acetylene tanks, barrels, and sacks removed.  The "gear" will find itself at the Company Store sooner or later.  All items popped out of the pick-up easily, except one; it finally came loose.  Here are the two trucks of cotton lined up to be weighed and emptied at the Cotton Gin.

Looks like I'll need to add some screen or "fence" to the stakeside to keep the cotton in, or have the cotton wrapped in burlap.  In due time, a horse and wagon with cotton will be added.  Oh, and the truck still needs the outside rearview mirror and maybe some weathering.  Hate to weather a nice, new truck but this is supposed to be about 1956, so the truck is at least 10 years old. . . .



Seven Pines

Earlier I had made three "Southern Pine Trees" using the bottle brush method.  The intent is to place a small hill on the back, right corner of the layout with a pine "forest" on it.  Well, three trees does not a forest make, it seems.  SO, back to the bottle brushes to make a few more.

I took the same approach as before (see the earlier post on Southern Pines) with a couple of exceptions.

First, I only applied the coarse ground foam after spraying the "brush" with brown paint.  I did not use the hair spray for a second coating of fine ground foam.  I felt the first batch had too much "foliage" for a pine tree.  My backyard ("prototype") tree was much "airier" -- you could see lots of sky through the branches and needles.

I used the same method to "turn" 1/4" square balsa dowels into tree trunks:  I chucked each one into my drill and ran them gently against a sheet of relatively coarse (maybe 60 grit) sandpaper.  I applied light pressure with my fingers behind the paper.  The last dowel was too weak to use the drill; it kept breaking off at the chuck.  So, I pulled out my Dremel tool with a sanding drum and worked on that dowel until it was close to being round.  The gouges that the sanding drum caused caught me attention.  I went back to the other "trunks" for the day and applied the drum to them in various places.  This gave the trunks a more natural look, in my opinion.

For the "dead limbs" on these pines, I used dried flowers (Natural Dried Caspia) that I had picked up from Michael's.  For the first group, I had used reindeer moss, but those limbs turned out to be rather hairy and green!  By picking through the dried flowers, I was able to cut out some pieces that looked more like naked branches.  Then I used some of the gray with brown paint that I had used for the trunks to paint the dead branches.  I even went back to the trees with reindeer moss and painted their dead limbs.

A couple of these trees are approaching 100' tall.  That's within the range for full-grown Southern Pines, but I may decide to shorten them.  My wife said the trees look "strong" -- I think she's being polite instead of saying "too tall"!?!?!

I'll need to fabricate the hill before I forest it, but here are the trees, first group of three (with the hairy dead limbs) and second group of four.  With a little undgrowth here and there, I think that's enough for the forest!

A Double-Crossing -- Sort Of

With encouragement from the good folks on the “Model Railroader” forum, I pursued adding a return crossover from the inner oval to the outer oval of the Blacktop Crossing layout.  Originally, I thought of using a double crossover.  I wasn’t sure I had enough room otherwise, and for some reason the double crossover just looked like a neat approach.  Input from the forum suggested that the crossover might be expensive, and then all the talk about electrical continuity raised my concern.  A couple of posts suggested just using a return crossover.

So, a return crossover, it was.  There was a little room on the back, left side of the layout; maybe enough for a crossover.  I wanted to use #6 turnouts as we had done on the first crossover.  My thought being, operationally, that the occasional passenger train on Blacktop Crossing could make a loop or two around the outside, then around the inside for a change of venue, then back again.  I liked the lower angle of the #6 – even though the inside loop does have 18” radius track.  Oh well, it was a thought.

I ran into only a couple of issues.  One was that two ties on the straight track between the turnouts overlapped with turnout ties.  Only one turnout gave me that problem, and I had not seen it on the first crossover.  No big deal; just cut those ties close to the rail.  Another issue was the distance between the last 18” curved track and the first spur track turnout.  That required cutting an inch or so off of the inside turnout.  Another, “no big deal.”

I used a fairly long straight section between turnouts – maybe a 9” plus another 1 ½” section.  I replaced two 9” straight sections plus a short piece or two with the second turnout and some flextrack on the outside track.  As luck would have it, one of the rail connectors was also an electrical junction; and the new turnout put the junction right in the middle of its straight section.  Fortunately, it was a "common" junction, so I just moved it into the next curved section.  Of course, I needed an insulated connector between the turnouts.  None could be found in my "inventory", so a special trip to the hobby shop was in order.  Between the two ovals, I decided to just “ballast” the whole thing; I think I had seen that on another layout and that seemed easier than figuring what to do between two roadbeds!

When all was said and done, I pushed a couple of cars over the new crossing and then ran a locomotive pulling a few cars including a passenger car.  With just a little modification (mostly tacking down the track), everything ran fine.  I found myself trying to get track very straight, but then recalled seeing the “real thing” with twists and bends everywhere.  I wondered if I didn’t need to take a sledge hammer to our layout!  The "S-bend" worried me a little, but loco and cars navigated everything smoothly.  We do need to install a tie here or there, and ballast the WHOLE layout.  But, as it is, see what you think:

 

The Southern Yellow Pine -- Bottle Brush Style

The Blacktop Crossing layout seemed to need a little more of something to give it the truly Southern theme and locale.  What's more Southern than a Yellow Pine forest?  So, since the far, right-hand corner needed some scenicking, I thought a little knoll with a few pines would be just the thing. . . .

Hoping to make the trees myself, I reviewed several websites, YouTube videos, and such about making conifers via the "bottle brush" method.  Most of them, however, leaned toward spruces, cedars, and other conifers that had the typical "Christmas Tree" shape.  Of course, Southern Yellow Pines don't!  An example from my back yard:

While the top approaches a conical form, the bottom 2/3 is nothing but trunk.  Other prototypes are even less symmetrical!  But, what the heck, the bottle brush method looked like fun, so I gave it a try.

The materials I used, in most cases because it was what I had on hand, were:

Green florist wire, 20 gauge, 18" long

Sisal rope, ~1/4" diameter because is was what I had on hand

Masking tape, 1/2"

Leather brown Krylon satin spray paint (not latex, but what I had in garage)

Woodland Scenics fine turf, burnt grass

Woodland Scenics coarse turf, medium green

Tresemme' extra firm pump hairspray

Elmer's white glue

Clothespins with hole in the "handles" to hang on. . .

Cut clothes hanger for drying

1/4" square Balsa sticks

60-grit sandpaper

Fairly coarse "artsy" paintbrush

Acrylic, "artsy" paints -- bark brown, pewter grey, black

Florist moss from dollar store.

I doubled the florist wire to make about 9" long; cut about 4" lengths of rope, unwound, and combed.  My first try I used about a 4-5" length of masking tape that I spread some 4" sisalettes (stole this term from Chris on Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine website) along the tape.  After placing the masking tape with sisalettes between the doubled wire, I hooked the looped end of the wire around a bird feeder shepherd's crook and chucked the other end in a variable speed drill motor.  When I turned the drill on (slow speed), the bottle brush was formed.  It looked OK, but the tape seemed to "push" the sisalettes into more of a spiral than I wanted.

So, for the next tree, I tried putting white glue on one leg of the doubled wire and placing the sisalettes on it.  The glue mostley dripped off of the wire, so for the third tree I just placed the sisalettes between the legs and let the "spring" of the doubled wire hold them in place.  That worked about as well as any, as long as I kept the sisalettes horizontal or supported them lightly as I turned the drill on.

With the three bottle brushes complete, I sprayed each one with leather brown paint -- including the "trunk" -- and dusted on the coarse foam while the paint was wet.  Then I sprayed with hair spray and dusted on the fine turf.  Frankly, I liked the coarse foam by itself.  I think I used too many sisalettes for Southern Pines and by the time I had added the fine turf, the foliage was VERY thick!?!  It's a little hard to see, but the far right tree only has the coarse foam.  [By the way, the picture is upside down since I was hanging the trees to dry on the cut coat hanger.]

Since the foliage in only on the top 1/4 to 1/3 of a Southern Pine, I had to make trunks.  For this, I used the 1/4" square Balsa dowels.  I drilled a hole, maybe 2" deep, to fit the twisted wire into one end of each dowel.  I hand-sanded the first one round, but chucked the other two into my drill and sanded them as they rotated in the drill.  Using fairly rough sandpaper, 60 grit, the trunks had a LITTLE bit of character.  I painted the first dowel with bark brown and tried to highlight by "dry brushing" with black.  For the other two, I used a blob of bark brown next to a blob of pewter grey on a styrofoam paper plate as a palette -- picked up a little of each color on my brush.  After painting all three, I think the greyish ones are a LOT closer to the actual color of my backyard Pine!

I added a few, small (!) pieces of floral moss to the trunks by first wallowing out a small hole with a #11 Xacto blade then putting a little white glue in the hole.  I had to hold the "dead limb" in place for just a few seconds before it would stand on its own.  I cut each bottle brush off to remove the loop at the top and to leave about 2" of twisted wire at the bottom.  Then, I used white glue as I inserted the twisted wire into the trunk.  Finally, I did a little trimming of the foliage.

The final results are not quite what I was hoping -- the foliage is too dense, the trunks are too straight (although a LOT of Pines have almost perfectly straight trunks), and the dead limbs are a bit off-color.  But, that's a good start for my stand of Southern Yellow Pines!  Some folks would say, "Just use these away from the front of your layout."  Problem is, the layout is too small to get very far away.  I like the two on the left OK, the one on the right needs a new "do".  I plan to make another handful or so and use fewer sisalettes. . . .

The Little Deuce Coupe

Well, what's the sense in having a blacktop highway (crossing or not) if you don't have some cars to race on it?  With deference to "American Graffiti", I've used their two car "stars" as models for mine.  The black '55 Chevy was not too tough to get -- die-cast models can be found easily on the Internet.  I believe mine came from Model Power.  It came as two-tone, black and white BelAir.  I painted the white, black.  I haven't done much with the BelAir, but I'm pretty sure Graffiti's was a 150.  Maybe I'll fix that as well as put a hood scoop on it at some time.

The Deuce Coupe was another matter altogether.  I hunted the Internet until I finally found one at GHQ (www.ghqmodels.com).  It's a kit with "pewter" metal parts.  It came with full fenders and running board.  That's NOT what Graffiti had.  So, I asked GHQ if they knew of anyone who had removed the fenders and running board from their model so I could use that as a guide.  No luck, although the instructions actually HAD a picture of a fenderless roadster on it (but there were a lot of other changes for that model -- different front and rear wheels, a windshield frame, radiator/hood support -- so this may have been a different kit altogether).  GHQ suggested I might want to practice on something else before messing with my kit.  Gee, you gotta practice on SOMEthing; why not the kit?  So, I did.  I couldn't figure how to get the front fenders like Graffiti's (basically motorcycle fenders, and I could not get down to that level of detail).  I just cut off the running boards with a Dremel tool and bobbed the fenders a little. 

My biggest problem was that I dropped the steering wheel when I tried to clamp it in a clothespin to paint it.  I still haven't found it, so I have not glued the body on!  Maybe the steering wheel will show up!

I'll include photos of Graffiti's Deuce Coupe. the GHQ Deuce, and my model (with the '55).  See what you think!  Now, mine is a Flathead, not a 327 Chevy; it doesn't have headers, but I'd like to consider putting them on; etc.

Cotton Factory Smokestack -- Details

I plan to post a link on Clever Models website/discussion, so here’s a little more detail on the construction of the Cotton Factory smokestack.  I’m getting to feel like Dave and Thom Miecznikowski, the Clever Bros!!

I actually stepped off (roughly measured) the base of the smokestack at the factory although I’ve never really planned to make an exact model.  The base was about 12 ½’, square.  I couldn’t measure the height and didn’t necessarily want to use my Boy Scouting skills right there in the parking lot to determine – besides, my wife was with me and she probably would have been more embarrassed than I.  In any case, the 8 ½ X 11” sheet of paper only allows a height of about 70’, so I used that.

I could have pieced the stack together, but for some reason I wanted it all to be one piece.  I did use my “engineering” skills to make a prototype out of typing paper (these days I think it’s called copy paper).  I glued it together with a glue stick, although I didn’t really complete it.  By doing the prototype I was able to gain confidence that it would work.  I also learned I needed to give the top of the stack some glue tabs! 

The “final” model was cut from one sheet of the Clever Models Old Brick (HO-105) texture.  I drew the one-piece stack on the back of the printed cardstock after cutting exactly along the bottom of the printed area from the front; this gave a reference for the rest of the drawing.  There’s a section at the bottom with vertical (not slanting) sides as well as a section at the top with vertical sides.  The full, scale, dimensions are:

Height – roughly 65’, the slanted sides reduced the full height a little

Bottom width – 12.5’

Bottom section height – 10’

Top section width – 6’

Top section height – 5’

I included tabs on the top, cut at 45 degree angles, to give a 1’ rim around the top plus a 1’ “turn-under” for gluing and to give a little depth of field.  In addition to vertical gluing tabs for the top section, I included a gluing tab on the bottom section, and long gluing tabs along one side of each of the four slanted sides.  I used two, horizontal stiffeners on the bottom section, two on the top section, and one in the middle where the width of the slanted sides was about 9’.  Scoring the folds is almost imperative.  I actually scored the horizontal folds of the top section from the inside even though they folded the opposite way.   I just didn’t want the scoring to show.  I used white glue instead of CA since I felt it would take me a while to line every thing up; that was probably a good idea.

On the top section, I added four rows of bricks.  I did this by cutting a length from the old brick texture from Clever Models that was nine layers of brick high.  I scored and folded both sides of this long strip to leave four bricks showing, about one brick, total, was taken up in the two folds, and the rest almost met in the back – glued this together.  Then I just wrapped it around the stack, cut it to fit, and glued it on the stack.

If I really were Thom and Dave Miecznikowski, I would probably do this a little differently.  Working with only one piece was an interested Geometry puzzle, but the gluing was a nightmare for the last side – I was working with glue tabs from two slant sides, two top sections, the bottom section, and five stiffeners.  So, maybe one piece for the bottom section, one for the top, and four separate slanted sides would be a good idea.  By making it from one piece, I ensured that the bricks were all parallel with each other.  The Clever Bros would be able to print all that, piece by piece, and ensure it was lined up.  Since my glue tabs were cut from the brick texture, that helped to hide where they were folded and therefore not have to worry about white cardstock showing.  But, cutting from one piece for me meant I could not run the glue tabs all the way to the bottom of the slant sides.  So, my smokestack tends to have small “cracks” on the sides where there are no glue tabs.

Later:  After driving by the Cotton Factory again, I find that the smokestack doesn’t have vertical sides at the bottom OR the top.  And, instead of a row of bricks at the top, it actually “flares” out a bit.  Oh well, we never said it was going to be an exact replica.  I like it as is!

Cotton Factory Smokestack

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Rock Hill Cotton Factory is it's squared (not round) smokestack.  So, here's a stab at making one to "resemble", not copy, that smokestack.

Oops, now I can't tell which is the REAL one and which is the model. . . .  Well, it's not so hard to tell and the model photograph is not so hot, but it's getting there.  Used the Clever Models Old Brick (Colonial Brick?) texture for the model smokestack.  Interesting how the real smokestack is obviously from the old brick, unchanged.  The renovated factory, itself, seems to have been painted or, at least, cleaned.  Don't know if I should leave the model factory all shiney or try to weather/age it to match the smokestack.

Holding off on building the model factory until my [older] grandson shows up for a few days.  Seems we may need some ramps, roofs, and such.  Hope the factory kit has that -- I had planned on fabbing a boiler room, but wasn't thinking about the other details.

Two Gnarled Trees

Oops, looks like I've caught up with myself so I'll post comments and a picture of the latest additions:  two "gnarled trees" from a Woodland Scenics kit.

This kit was a Christmas gift from Santa or my wife, not sure which.  The soft metal castings needed a small amount of flashing removed and then the limbs needed to be bent to shape -- so they were not all in roughly the same plane (as cast).  Not too tough, and the identical castings could be shaped to look like two different trees.  The directions recommended dark grey trunks with highlights of browns.  I tried dark grey with bark brown highlight for one and bark brown with dark grey highlights for the other -- acrylic paints brushed on.  I also tried something I had seen, probably from Cody on Model Railroader website, that was called dry brushing.  I used "cafe latte'" brown for that.  I'm not sure it added much although I could see a bit of the details in the casting in a place or two.

The kit came with lots more "leaves" than apparently is needed, and the directions commented on that -- the lacier the better. . . .   I cut (about 1"X2") and pulled the leaf mats in several directions.  Then I applied white glue to the ends of the limbs and pressed the fluffy mats on -- I had done a dry-run with the mats prior to gluing.  After that, I sprayed the whole mess with heavy-duty, cheap hairspray in a pump bottle.  After a second or third spraying, I dropped a few pinches of a different colored (maybe "dead grass") ground foam on the trees; the hair spray was still damp.  You can even see some of the highlights in the photo, especially the left tree (it's NOT the flash).  By then, I was feeling like a hairdresser (highlights, hair spray, and a peculiar aroma for a train layout. . . ), so I quit.  I might go back with a little more of the different colored foam; or I might not.

The cheap hairspray produced a good bit of "shine" on the tree trunks.  I was fairly well pleased with the trunks before the spray.  Not sure how I'll remedy that.  Maybe I'll just keep bright lights off the trunks!

I think these trees will look best near the mill village.  Maybe we can add a tire swing to a low-hanging branch.

Most of the layout will probably have pine trees instead of these hardwoods (where there are trees), but I like the emphasis these two trees can provide by their "difference".  I'm looking at the bottle brush method for the pines.

Looks like I'll need to determine the location of all structures, roads, track (well, that's pretty well settled), trees, cotton field, etc., before I do much of the general scenery.  With the exception of a few pine trees and maybe some small cedars as a hedge row around the (to be applied) cotton field, we have all the structures that are needed.

Although I have not advertised this blog very much (the main purpose was just to put up some photos of the Clever Models cardstock structures that I had made), I would still like any comments from those who happen to bump into this site.

Thanks!

The Passenger Station

Here's the last structure on the Blacktop Crossing layout that is currently "complete" -- I suppose several of them need a little touch-up, maybe some weathering, and such.  It is a plastic passenger train station from Atlas (#706).  My 11-year old grandson helped to put it together.  He is a GREAT helper.  If you've ever worked with someone else to build something, you know the difference between a REAL helper and someone who gets in the way -- the former will be at the other end of a 2X4 when you pick it up as the next lumber you need, the latter will be at the end of a 1X4, instead. . . if you know what I mean.  My grandson was always at the 2X4 and sometimes even handed it to me just as I was thinking I needed it.  I really enjoyed working with him on the station.

I'll admit that he and I, both, tended to get glue on our fingers and then spread it to the station, but we recovered from most of those errors.  Here's the result:

This is supposed to represent (not model EXACTLY) the station in my grandsons' hometown of Belton http://tsalmon.topcities.com/belton.htm OK, so keep in mind, it "REPRESENTS".  There are a few similarities!

Our route is supposed to be the Southern Railway, although at this time our locomotives are Santa Fe, B&O, Seaboard Coast Line, and the non-prototypical "Mystery Loco" shown in a prior post (at least it has "Southern" on its side).  The passenger car at the station IS Southern, so we're trying.

New additions to the layout include the Seaboard Coast Line loco (a GP-35, so we are CLOSE on rail line and CLOSE on era; but it runs really well on the layout!?!), a junk yard gondola, a hopper, a clothes line with clothes (that Santa brought to my wife, she really liked it, sort of), and a couple of Woodlands Scenic build-your-own hardwood trees.

While the 7-year old spent a couple of days with us over the holidays, the 11-year old didn't.  We labeled the control board schematic and ran the trains, but the Cotton Factory didn't get built.  Maybe this summer.

Our New Year is off to a good start.  Hope yours is, too!

The Quonset Warehouse

So, in my usual approach to this Blog, here is another structure that was made earlier than any of the others posted!  It's a Clever Models' Quonset hut that will be used as a military warehouse on the Blacktop Crossing layout.

My 7-year old grandson likes military, his train started all of this, SO we'll need to include the military.  The Armory here in Rock Hill, SC, actually HAS two Quonset huts in the rear of the lot, so this seems to fit the model location fine.  We may have to do something to "date" the military vehicles back to the 1950's!!

The hut is from cardstock and was my first attempt with this "medium".  I found it challenging but rewarding.  From a few feet away, the hut looks pretty good.  I was amazed at how well most of the parts fit together.  I could not believe that the roll-up door chain drive cover could really be made from cardstock with its many folds.  But, the creasing of the cardstock at the proper places ensured that it went together well.  I was using 80-lb cardstock on this model and ran into some issues on the large door on the side (I guess it's a drop-down door/ramp; I'll have to look into this so I'll know where to put the structure in relationship to track, road, etc.).  The door "frame" required some compound folds and the cardstock seemed a bit too thick.  I've since gone to mostly 65-lb cardstock which seems to work better.

I took my grandson by the Armory to see their Quonset huts, and while the view was a bit distant I think he got the point:  the hut fits the use and scene!?!  I also mentioned that my 8th grade classroom in Panama City, FL was a Quonset hut.

The Mystery Loco, II

The Model Railroader forum is amazing.  Concerning the "Mystery Loco" in my last post, I received two replies almost immendiately.  Both gave informative details about the little Southern steam engine.  Check it out:
http://tycotrain.tripod.com/steamengines/id3.html

This is obviously the correct, Tyco, locomotive.  AND, the timing is about right, around 1976.  My son would have been about three years old, and I was probably getting ready to introduce him to HO Gauge at a young age.  I also have several copies of "Model Railroader" and "Railroad Model Craftsman" from the mid-1970's.  These magazines are stacked with some from the mid-1950's, when I first became interested in HO Gauge trains.  Frankly, the current "go-around" with this hobby is the farthest I've ever gotten.  Wonder how far it will go. . . ?