Because I model

 Because I model "impressionistically"*, I let my model railroad  find it's own identity.  I've started building  structures without any real idea of where to put them.  I buy kits and parts without any  real use for them. Gradually though things  coalesce into a something and an identity is formed. These three structures are the latest addition to the town of Boomer Flats and typify my idiosyncratic approach to the hobby.  These three structures are the latest addition to the town of Boomer Flats and typify my idiosyncratic approach to the hobby.

The easiest one to recognize is the tow story brick storefront on the right which of course is a fragment of a DPM kit.  I'm sure I bought the kit at least a decade ago and probably assembled it soon after purchase.  It's just that I never found a place to put it so gradually parts of the building got incorporated into a variety of projects.  For a while this storefront was part of a building flat that was placed behind the courthouse in the city of Bay Port but when I removed the backdrop wall behind the city and replaced it with a wall of taller buildings this storefront was once again an orphan. Somewhere along the line I started painting it but never quite go around to the cornice or storefronts. But now that it has found it's home, I've added sidewalls and a roof and the chances are good that i will finish it.

The middle structure started with a Pikestuff store front that I have also recycled from another project.  The siding is from Evergreen, the windows from Campbell (this came to me in a miscellaneous collection of train stuff that I bought on Ebay at least five years ago.  The cornice is built up out of scraps of styrene and some Grandt-line corbels.  I first built it for the town of Red Bluff on this current layout but then realized that it didn't have enough detail to be displayed prominently but would look just find tucked in behind the depot in Boomer Flats.  So here it also sits awaiting painting, detailing and signage.

The warehouse structure on the left was built specifically for it's location.  It's a "scrap box special".  There are at least sixteen pieces that make up the siding on the front wall alone.  I've pieced it together out of fragments of the side walls of a number of IHC "Painted Lady" Victorians.  The windows came from a old Kibri  Western town kit.  The door I carved out of a wall section of an IHC farmhouse. I don't remember where the freight door came from.  The loading dock is a fragment from a Tyco freighthouse.  The roof comes from a Tyco Arlee Station.  It's detailed with a old Bachman Plasticville figure and another from Model Power.

Aran I really like your

Aran

I really like your town and the detail you have put into your structures.  I assume the large structure on the far right of your first picture is an ore processor - can you get a couple of close-ups of it and the depot?  Do you have a time period - it looks like early 1900's?

Thanks for your interest. 

Thanks for your interest.  The large structure is a slightly reworked Walthers Cornerstone Coal mine which I think was based on a Wyoming coal processing plant.  I cut in down from three bays to two but it's otherwise unmodified  I included it in my layout because one time when we were in Jack London Square in Oakland an SP train came through pulling a string of Rio Grande hoppers.  So switching and hauling away the loads the coal plant becomes a job on the layout.

The depot is built from a Tyco (or AHM) Rico Station kit which seems to based on a Rio Grande prototype.  I paint all my Railroad structures in a yellow and green scheme which sort of matches those used by the Santa Fe but I use it because in also marches the yellow and green of my scenery.

The colors seem a little brighter than they actually are.  Window glass and reinstalling the broken off piece of roof ginger board are on my to do list.

Supposedly I am modeling the 1950's and try to indicate that with the cars and trucks on the layout.

Aran Thanks for the

Aran

Thanks for the close-ups - they really look great.  And now I see the car and truck - I missed them the first time around.

Nice work Aran

The RR Station you have assembled is the "Rio Grande Southern's" Rico Station that every one that ever modeled that narrow gauge Colorado RR will recognize. I wanted to know if the model you have put together was manufactured by "IHC" ? If Not who produced it.

I built my first two railroads much like you and built almost every model that was produced to construct my cities. You have done a very nice job !! Keep up the good work.

P.S.

OOPS !! I guess I missed the paragraph that said it was the "AMH" Rico Station I didn't think that one was still available.

Dan, didn't AHM "morph" into IHC?

I think AHM & IHC are the same company either reorganized or with new ownership and a different name.

I didn't know

I didn't know IHC bought AMH or that AMH changed their name but it makes sense and answers a question about a few other models I have seen in hobby shops.

Thanks for your

Thanks for your encouragement.  I like to maintain  some continuity from one layout to another so I tend to recycle structures from one to another.  About twenty years ago my eldest built up a Rico Station kit (which I mistakenly painted green and ended up destroying) so I like to have one on the layout in his honor.

It's true that to them that know it says Rio Grande but I think that it works well enough in my town of Boomer Flats. Afterall it is a mountain mining town.  Incidentally the town's name is both a reference to the fact that I am an aging "baby boomer" and also to that great railroady word "boomer" which was once used to describe the transient railroad workers who moved from place to place chasing the next job.  The "home guard" tended to view the "boomers" as inferior much as "true prototype modelers" tend to view those with a more eclectic approach. 

Some fine old artwork from a AHM kit box.

P.S.  Last year I bought on Ebay a Classic Miniature kit for an Ophir Depot cause maybe someday when I've finished cutting and gluing and painting plastic I'l move on to cutting and gluing and painting wood and paper.

These  two store fronts got

These  two store fronts got painted before my attention moved on to another project.  

For  the curiosity of it I

For  the curiosity of it I looked up the Rico AMH & IHC station and found out the following:

TYCOKIT No.7783 Rico Station contains 109-pieces molded in 4-colors. When built, the model's dimensions are 5" x 12-1/2". This kit was among the introductory group of TYCOKITS in the 1976 TYCO catalog. This kit carries a $5.00 retail price in the 1976 catalog.

The Rico Station kit is found in only two TYCO catalogs, the 1976 and 1977.  AHM also imported this kit and sold it for a number of years in their line.  For AHM the Rico Station was No.5814. 

Pola of West Germany produced this kit and it sold under both the AHM and TYCO names, plus it was also available in the '70s as a Pola-Quick HO kit (No.654). 

The IHC Rico Kit was developed in 1990 by IHC with 111 pcs in 5 colors and sold for $9.99 in the 1990 catalog.

AMH is an Importer of models and place their name on many actually produced by other manufactures.

IHC is a plastic modeling company that produced and Imports a number of scale models for the HO scale and The N scale toy train industries as well as many other plastic models of Tanks, Autos, Trucks, and more.

In its day, AHM sold trains imported from Europe that were made primarily by Rivarossi or Pocher.  Both of these companies went bankrupt and are now owned by Hornby of England, and manufacturing has been moved to China.  Today's IHC products are made by Mehano in Slovenia.

Sources

It's helpful to post the sources of information so that others may benefit. Much (or all) of what Dan posted on the history of the Rico Station kit came from Tony Cook's well-researched site.