Nice standardization of

Nice standardization of structures, really captures the family look of things. I am not a modeler or follower of that particular road so do not know how accurate they are but do to the paint , lettering, and similarity they would all look very good to me. I am doing a free lance Line myself and since the section I plan on modeling was used by Pennsy and B&O as well as a few others I have some prototypes to tie in with the free lance. I will be using color scheme to tie my models together and hope it turns out as well as yours did.

Rob in Texas

Almost standards

As it turns out for the few section houses I need, they were all just a little different.  Some had the porch to the right, some to the left, and one had no porch but simply an eye brow over the door!  They also had sort of a standard for bunk houses used to house the track crews etc,.  They had two kinds, one a stick built and one a log cabin style.  When the timber was scarce they did the stick built.  Then of course there were all of the 'standard' little sheds for tools, speeders, etc,.  The water tanks are 4 inch pvc pipe with a computer printed paper wrapper.  At a kit price tag of around $90 per, the pvc ones will do just fine!  Thanks for looking in and the comments, They are appreciated.  Russ

PVC! what a great looking

PVC! what a great looking model, I would think that they will do more than just fine from the looks of them, great job.

Rob in Texas

I model that line

Summer of 1940

Industries during this time period were at the opposite ends of the line.  The Chama to Antonito 66 mile stretch was just a way point along the 800 miles of narrow gauge.  So mostly stock cars, gondolas for sugar beets, some tank cars (Gramps Oil) and some ore, some lumber from the mill in Chama, an east and west bound passenger train, the San Juan (4 or 5 cars max).  We've taken a great deal or artistic license and added in the Dalton spur (gone in the 20's) and a spur and siding at Cresco and spur at Osier.  There is just the two of us we aren't planning anything to elaborate, just fun stuff.  Chama yard will be a switching challenge, and so will be the roundhouse hostler.  The east bound freights were split up and taken up piece meal to Cumbres where the helpers would be cutoff and sent back down grade to Chama to pick up the next section.  On the third trip up they would still cutoff helpers but gather up all the cars for the trip into Antonito.  The oil cars were loaded at Chama for the refinery located just past Antonito in Alamosa.  The hidden storage yard we are calling Durango and the workbench yard we are calling Silverton.  This gives us a reason for the through freights without having to model anything.  Thanks for asking.

The water tanks were a fun project and I wrote up a little tutorial on the process, its available on our website but here is a link if you are interested.

http://www.hobby-tronics.com/1940DRGW/images/watertank.pdf  the tutorial

http://www.hobby-tronics.com/1940DRGW/index.htm  the website

Nice

Very nice workmanship! Your club has really gotten the flavor of the area and time period.

Keep up the good work, and post more pictures.

Wes

Re: Summer of 1940

Your club has really gotten the flavor of the area

No club, just my buddy and I.  The layout is in the loft of his wonderful shop.  We are co-owners / developers, etc,.  I also have a shop and that is where the majority of the woodwork was cutout and then taken to the layout for assembly.  My shop is a digital wood shop.  I have a 48x96 cnc router, 3d printer, laser cutter and the rest of the regular wood working tools.

This shows the pieces as they were cut from 3/4 inch cabinet grade plywood.

The buildings are mostly sintra plastic which is a pvc product.  Glues up are great, just grab that pvc glue can from the hardware store and let er' rip!  Seriously, great stuff to work with.  The smaller buildings are all 3mm or 1/8th walls with the larger ones being 6mm.  The sheets come in 48x96 size so lots of buildings out of one sheet.

Antonito Station - original

After many months we are back at it.  We are sloooooooowly making our way up the helix, around the corner and into Antonito.  To mark this momentous occasion I am starting on the Antonito station, the original one. The station was made from very large black basalt blocks,

The pvc plastic I use when routed leaves a very slightly porous surface.  My software allows me to create my own textures for the surface.  I think I am pretty close to getting a look I like for this structure.  When done cutting the pieces I will rub on some wall spackle and then wipe off the excess.  Should give me that look.

Just a quickie reminder (since its been so long since we posted), there are two of us, building a 20x40 triple deck ON30 layout, Chama to Antonito, summer of 1940.

Anyhow here is a link to some research stuff and just a couple of pix.

http://www.hobby-tronics.com/1940DRGW/antonito.pdf

Windows

Some 3d printed windows for the structures.  Russ

Test cut for Antonito

Finally got out to the shop (SNOW) and did a test cut for the Antonito station walls.  I think it is passable.  Russ

Like it a good brick pattern.

Like it a good brick pattern.

Bigger than a brick

Thank you, but it really is bigger than a brick.  The black basalt blocks are over 12 inches high and 18 to 24 inch wide.  Really big compared to a brick.  That was part of my design problem.  In o scale that's a 1/4 inch versus a brick at just a tad over 1/16 th inch.  Check the pix of the door, 5 blocks is the height of the man door.  Russ

There what you call a ash cinder block

ChiloquinRuss.

In Australia we manufactured Ash cinder blocks (Fly ash is a byproduct from coal burnt in power Stations)

12-12-18 to 24 inchs long .Lots of buildings were built with this material in the 50s to 70s.

Smokey Dawson      Australia

Ash cinder blocks

That's interesting that it is a manufactured block.  In New Mexico it was a quarried product.  Thank you for the information.  Russ