I looked around the internet to see if anybody still offered a Kit of the Rico Colorado 3 Stall engine house and found one pre built for $650.00. I figure I can buy enough scratch building supplies for $650.00 to build 8 or 9 of the Main Structures I need for my Rio Grand Southern so I started reading the many articles I have in Books and Magazines the explain in good details what the Engine House looked like plus I found a few full dimensional drawings of the interior and exterior of the structure and figured this would be a great project for the 120 day challenge and a great starting point for the Rico Yard on my Rio Grande Southern RR.

The first Photo is a stack of books and magazines opened to the articles that inspired me to build the 6 Stall Engine House for myself as well as the 120 Challenge:

I didn't want this photo to be in perfect focus so I wouldn't break any copy right rules. You can still get a vague Idea from what can be made out as what the engine house looks like.

In the following Photo I started by building a mock up of the two longest walls to get a better feel as to the size of the engine House. At first I tried white foam core as the basic walls but I didn't like the material as I started cutting out the windows. Next I tried some 3/16" thick card board and got as far as cutting out all the windows and the 1 door on each long wall and just didn't like the card board. Next I bought some 060" thick (15 mm) Evergreen Scale Models black sheet Styrene. This was much harder to cut but made a much firmer structure and a great base to attach the Plastruct HO Scale Rough Brick sheets I was going to use as the brick surface and made the perfect thickness for a Brick structure once I applied the brick to both sides. Oh yeah the exterior dimensions of the engine house are in HO Scale 125'8" long and 60' wide actual model size is approximately 17-3/8" long and 8" wide.

I decided to build the model on a removable Modular Base 22-1/2" long by 13-3/4" wide on 1/2" Homasote base  attached to a frame work made of 3/4" X 1-1/2" furniture grade Birch plywood. That way I will be able to keep the model away from all the other base construction needed to build the Rico Yard. I plan to build every and all structures on their own removable base so should I ever move I can pack each Model in its own save container.

The next photo is the Plastruct Brick sheet applied to the Black styrene and the basic mortar applied as well as the individual bricks I added over the door and windows (not finished yet) to look like arched windows on the original structure. I still have some detail work to get the the mortar to look correct on the arches.

the next few photos are of the structure posts that hold up the roof as well as the walls and the frame work I used to construct the Posts and Stringers. The main posts are 10' X 10" Northeastern Scale lumber with 8" X 8" posts to support the rafters not yet built these will hold the removable roof.

these next two photos will show the 6 engine service pits inside the engine house and the frame Jig I used to assemble the Posts and stringer. I used Aleene's fast Grab Tacky Glue to assemble the 10" X 10" Posts w/ 8" X 8" posts on the sides of all interior 10" X 10" and the 10" X 12" stringers connecting each of the 4 rows of Posts together. 

I still have a lot of work to go as I figure what I have done so is about 10% of the model so far and I hope the 120 days I started with allow me to finish this model in time. Oh the Posts in the photo are not glued in place they are just sitting in place. I went to a lot of trouble to make sure they were well balanced and before I'm finished each post will have a concrete footing under them.

What a great start - this was quite interesting!

What do you use for mortar?

I use both out of the tube and thinned fast drying white Squadron putty. I rub it in with my finger and allow it to dry. After it has dried completely I take 320 grit and 400 grit sand paper and scuff it down to the brick layer. I also will drag an X-acto blade laid on its side across the brick to remove excess mortar off the surface of the brick.

To get the used brick look I will turn the aluminum X-acto handle over to the end with no blade on it and rub the flat surface of the end here and there on the brick and the metal from the handle leaves a little black behind. I rub that in with my fingers. If I get too much black I'll go over the dark area with 400 grit or 600 grit wet/dry sand paper to lighten the areas that look to dark. My brick work in the photo is in no way finished yet I still have work to be done and excess mortar to be removed as well as weathering to be done.

Depending on what kind of brick building I'm building (new or old) I also use flat acrylic white and light gray paint applied with my fingers and rubbed into the mortar areas.

Are you using the rough side of masonite to form the floor?  That's genius!  May I steal the trick?

Dan,

What a neat structure and post!  I'll be following your progress.

Rick

That's 1/2" thick Homasote I'm using for the floor. I have used Masonite for a Roundhouse Floor but this building isn't round and since I have 7 sheets of Homasote I picked up for $3.00 a sheet I decided to use Homasote as the base of my Modules. Masonite would be to thin for the base as I needed the extra Thickness for the service pits.

I have used the ruff side of un-tempered Masonite for a yard base a few times and glued my track right to the Masonite but WOW is it noisey.

Dan 

Dan,

Great start of a very busy looking project. I'll be following right along with the other members on the forum.

I'm wondering if you could also use the thin plywood hobby shops sell for the walls? I think it ranges in thickness of 1/64" to 1/4" and perhaps thicker.

Bernd

I have used the ruff side of un-tempered Masonite for a yard base a few times and glued my track right to the Masonite but WOW is it noisey.

I wasn't really thinking about the rough surface as a track base.  I was thinking that it looks a lot like a brick or wood block floor, and a lot cheaper and easier to work with than plastic sheets.  It's not contest quality, but as a hint of texture inside a structure, I like it.

Thanks for the encouragement Rich, at the present time after spending a couple of weeks looking for 12/12 Masonry Double hung windows or 24 pain round house windows to fit the proper size it has come down to doing some Kit Bashing of Tichy Train Group 20/20 Masonry Double Hung windows Part # 8036. Each pain of glass of the 24 per window needed to be 10" X 12" with 4 pains across and 6 pains high to acquire total window size of  4' X 8' including frame work and I need at least 28 of these windows. A number of HO window manufactures made these windows up until about 10 years ago but every one of them that even listed the size required also had Discontinued / Out of Stock no plans to produce any more shown in the listing. I thought I'll just make my own the old way by scribing clear styrene and then use black Indian ink in the scribed lines. Below:

after making these I just wasn't satisfied. I found I had a 4 packs of the 20/20 double hung window from a box of 200 assorted Tichy windows I had bought over a year ago and and tried a little kit bashing. This worked great and I liked the Tichy windows better. I looked on line and found the Tichy site and ordered 6 of the 8 packs of 20/20 double hung windows at $3.50 a pack. the windows arrived in a couple days and Last night I stayed up until 4:30 this A.M. kit bashing 30 windows and then painted the now 12/12 double hung windows in the photo below you'll also see the cut off pieces of the original 20/20 double hung windows I got from Tichy on saterday.

I made a few mistakes when I first started the test of cutting down the larger windows but it didn't take long to figure out the best way of cutting down and reassembling the windows into the 12/12 windows I needed.

if you lay the track first and then cut the Masonite to snug up to the edges of the out sides of the ties and use the rough side up it would make a great surface for a roundhouse and/or yard then you would only need ballast between the rails and paint the ballast and Masonite the same color you will end up with a great looking surface in your yard/engine house.

It's great that you saw this in my photos of the Homasote and came up with the Masonite Idea. I may just have to try this trick.