Start from what-is-known...

Dear Postman,

OK, so we have some pics of the actual building in question, that's a great start.
Any chance there is an online pic anywhere, so we can get a feel for what you're attempting?

Some questions to start you off.

- Do you have _any_ known dimensions of the building?

- Are there any people or other items of known dimensions in the pics?
(Even working off the known gauge of any track nearby might give a clue!)

- are any of the pics taken relatively _square-on_ to any/some/all sides of the building?

if you answered "Yes" to all 3 of the above, it sounds like we've actually got a decent ammount of info to work with. All we need to do is massage it into a useful set of numbers, and maybe draw up a basic "plan" of our own to work from 

If you answered "Yes" to 2 out of 3, then we've got some detective work to do, but it's do-able.

If you only answered "Yes" to 1 out of 3, all is not lost, but it's time to dig deep into the "grey area" of "if it looks right, it must be right, cause the photo says so"...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

PS what scale are we talking?

SCRATCH BUILDS

good morning mr postman

  first of all, i do  agree with the professor ,you need to have some sort of reference..a car, a person, a tree or something you can  gauge your sizes. all the structures on my layout are scratch built by me. i have taken lots of pics of my structures. i also Googled the ones i could not photograph. a few of them i just guesstemated on their size & shape. even if you are building a prototype, as long as you capture the essence of the structure, you will be OK. i will admit that most of my structures are NOT to scale but, when i get a comment like " i drive past that place everyday" i know i have captured the essence of that structure.

  if you would like, you can check out my blog page. there you will see most of my scratch builds during construction  along with the materials i used. http://www.bnsf6951.blogspot.com

  i will ask the same question as the Prof. did, what scale are you modeling???

  any way i hope this helps...feel free to ask questions

vinny...aka..bnsf6951

http://www.bnsf6951.blogspot.com

Not sure f the building

Not sure of the building construction but look at doors and siding materials. A standard walk door is 3 x 7 for most commercial buildings and 3 x 6-8 for residential.  On siding use 6 inch lap for clapboard and  if brick or block 3 x 8 and 8 x 16  will get you close.

Pics

Dear Prof Klyzlr,

Well the pics were taken from the internet :  http://www.flickr.com/photos/75624448@N00/8483604453/in/pool-1408456@N24

I don´t have any known dimension of the building but there is one boxcar next to the structure. I don´t know if it may help.

Are any of the pics taken relatively square-on to any/some/all sides of the building?. Umm!. Not really. I´m modeling H0 scale.

I

Height Reference

For reference, the outside height (from railhead to roof) of that TBOX boxcar is given as 17'0" in the equipment register.

The building looks like a pretty generic warehouse type structure, you'll probably end up selectively compressing a bit to fit, but you'll be able to get the feel of it quite easily.

Roll up doors look to be about 10-12' wide, and should be evenly spaced to line up with the spotted boxcars. This is a modern structure, and the cars in the photo are all 60' (inside) long cars, so line things up accordingly.

If a 50' car was delivered here, it would be uncoupled and spaced out accordingly to line up with the door.

I'm Guessing...

I'm guessing that since the pictures in the group are all of different buildings, you're looking to model something like this building, but not this exact building.

If that is the case, you can use some generic measurements like those given above. If you know how many doors you want to model, you can line up that many boxcars, and measure the distance between the boxcar doors. The center of the doors will give you the center measurement for aligning the doors in your building. The door height from the ground will be comparable to the height of the boxcar doors from the ground. They might not be exact, but they would be close. You don't want to step up or down from the boxcar into the warehouse, especially since they would probably use forklifts to load or unload the boxcars.

Building height can be guestimated based on the boxcar height. The picture is at an odd angle for this, but I would guess that the roof is between 15 and 20 feet above the tops of the doors. You could use card stock and using the door measurements from above, cut it to 20 feet above the doors and set it next to the line of boxcars you used for the door measurements. If it looks good, go with it. If not, cut it down, or make another higher wall, and see how that looks.

You could even cut out doors where you plan to have them next to the track. This will give you a very good idea of how it looks. Once you have a wall made of card stock that looks right, you can use it as a template to make the actual wall out of styrene.

The other three walls will be the same height, and at least one of them will be the same length. You'll have to use your imagination to determine what they would look like, or go surfing the web for pictures of similar structures, and use them as guides for detailing the other building sides. It's likely that one of the other sides will be set up for semi trucks to back up to for loading or unloading, and one side will have the main entrance for employees and possibly clients.

If you live in a larger city, chances are you have similar buildings used for distribution, that you can go look at for inspiration, or even take pictures of. They don't have to be made of the same materials this one is, since you're only using them as inspiration for what details to put on the other sides of your building.

If this project is for a flat that will go against the wall, things are even easier since you won't need the other walls. You'll just need short sections that hold this loading dock out from the backdrop.

"The picture is at an odd angle for this"

Should be pretty easy to work out a height section right there where the railbox car is spotted. Building floor would be car floor height, project top of car over to wall then proportionally figure out the roof height. Looks like there's either a  porch roof over a loading door beyond  the car or maybe a wall mounted loading or unloading pipe?  Walls look like concrete with expansion joints. Pretty simple design and fun to build. The idea of cutting cardboard trial walls is a very good way to go about it, that way it will look right in place on the layout which is more important than the exact dimensions.....DaveBranum