Research of the shack

In 2014, I started the first version of this MOW shack as part of largescalecentral.com's annual MIK build. The MIK build is an annual 'contest' during the second half of January for 30 days. You only get to spend $30, excluding a bottle of paint and a new bottle of glue. The founder of the challenge years ago was a low income modeler that challenged everyone on the website to start building. When it started, to MIK $30 was a heavy investment. Since his passing, a core group of modelers have continued his tradition of the annual build challenge. 

Over the years, the challenge has become more organized with various themes, and often someone will volunteer to come up with the theme. 2014, was the year of the building. Each 'contestant' was mailed a standard resin door. Here are some of the other modelers work after the 30 days.

Since I was smack in the middle of being both a poor graduate student and soon to be an parent, I decided that a 30 day and $30 build challenge would be right up my alley... Little did I know that almost 6 years later I would finish version 2.0 (more on that later).

I was mailed a resin door, and I began researching the Woodinville MOW shack more. 

I started with the standard google maps...

Followed by paperwork...

I found images online.

But then I started to dig a little bit deeper into the research. Low and behold, the joint GN/NP Archive site had BN station drawings of the Woodinville section house.

While the images showed the overall dimensions, and some critical pieces of information, I decided to take the drawings one step further and import them into Sketchup to get a detailed drawing.

I ended up with a set of drawings that I could use to build the first model. These drawings would eventually lead to my sage with the HO modeler... But we will save that for another post.

@Craig

Craig,

Fascinating history and project you have on-going, and of particular interest to me since I lived in the area (Kirkland) for 20 plus years).  And I really enjoyed looking through that thread of the other entries in the challenge.  I especially liked that "yard tower" sandwiched between a boxcar and a coach - how unique!

You mention Woodinville was the hub for 4 branch lines at one time.  I'm guessing the branch to Redmond/Issaquah was one of them.  Are the other three legs the line from Renton, the line to Snohomish, and the line west around the old SLS&E line?

Looking forward to following your progress on this build.  Too bad Eastside Rail shut down - is that temporary?  Are they still operating in Ballard and Puyallup?

Al Carter, Mount Vernon, WA

@Al

As far as I know, the four BN locals where:

1. North Bend Turn (North Bend to Woodinville and back to NB)

2. Maltby Turn (Stacy Yard to Woodinville via Renton, Bellevue)

3. Kirkland Turn (Everett? to Woodinville working Snohomish, Maltby, etc)

4. Bothell or Kenmore Turn? ( Interbay to,Woodinville via South Lake Union)

At one point the MILW also had traclage rights as well. They ran 6 axle units while the BN was restricted to 4 axle units...

Ballard Terminal and Meeker Southern are still holding strong, but Eastside Freight is dead.

Nice

Nice job on the research.  Off to a good start.

Version 1.0

As I alluded to in the first couple of posts, I started this project in 2014. The plan at the time was to use the full 40' x 16' building. Since I was in graduate school at the time, and had a small stash of modeling supplies, I thought I had everything I needed. There was no hobby shop close by, but by accident I discovered that the university bookstore sold styrene sheets (and you thought hobby shop pricing was high...)

I used my drawings, and marked up the styrene.

I used the common resin door as the door for the foreman's office. This is how far I got in 30 days during the 2014 MIK challenge....

And that's how the building sat in my modeling shop across 3 moves, and six years later. Version 1.0 would soon be chopped up and disassembled for scrap.

The HO model....

About a year or two ago, Brian Elchepp contacted me via a common Facebook group (Northwest Model Railroaders) and asked if I had any information about the Woodinville shack as he knew that I was modeling the same area as he was. I sent him my CAD model at the time and figured that he would just build the building when he had time. Last winter, Brian sent me another message asking if I could provide a little bit more information because he wasn't familiar with the Sketchup. As we started talking about the building, I mentioned that I could cut out the building with my mini table saw and mark the windows and door openings.

Big brother building compared to small building.

A month or so later, Brian Elchepp finished his version of the Woodinville MOW shack. The photo's that follow are Brian's (posted with his permission).

And his finished building.

Cutting out the HO version motivated me to figure out if I had space to model a version of the MOW shack to include in my staging yard that represents Woodinville. This little space at the edge of the staging yard between turnout throws might have enough space to represent a 40' long building that's 8' wide...

More to come on large scale version 2.0 in the next post.

Can’t wait to see more

I’m always interested in this little area and the branches. I made a couple runs there and never could figure out how it all the branches fit together. I like the photos you came up with. Do you know what the little building that’s west of the maintenance shed was? That’s a cool little building too.

Cheers,

Greg

Big Building?

Greg,

The bigger building in the left hand side was the old depot. It was a old baggage car from the NP. Not exactly sure when it was removed, but I'm guessing somewhere in the early BN era.

When I qualified on the branch we down the spur to Redmond. It was a trip. I'm trying to remember who the crew was, but the conductor was Paul Dempsey. Then we made a flying drop, where I got demoted to throw a switch and told to keep my mouth shut... I think we worked Renton, Woodinville and Redmond and barely made it back to Balmer before dying.

Made two other trips on the dinner train with Don Mitchell. He taught me the power of powerbraking when I hit the Wilburton Trestle a little over the 10.

(Greg and I hired out with BNSF together and went to engineer school together as well. He was 1 number above me and always bumped me from hoghead jobs!)

Reason and space for V 2.0

After Brian's successful build of the Woodinville shack, I got thinking about how and where I could incorporate a model on my layout.

At first I thought I could find a space along the outdoor layout space, but I realized that it wouldn't work for various reasons. I kept staring at the blank open space at the front of the staging yard. A few measurements later, I realized a 40' x 8' wide building could fit into the space.

But fitting something and having a reason for existing are two different problems.

Once again, I turned to the paperwork that I had found and started doing some more digging. I have previously known that the Redmond depot was manned and open in 1970, closed and boarded up by '71 and torn down by '72. 

I've been tentatively modeling 70-72 without trying to hard, but I found another clue that lead me building a model.

One of the late 70's- early 80's timetable indicated that the branch to Redmond (the outdoor portion of the layout) was block register territory. With block register territory, crews sign in and out of a block register book saying they had occupied the block (in this case its the whole branch).

I started putting two and two together and came to th3 plausible conclusion that once the Redmond depot was closed, the territory shifted train control methods from TT&TO? to block register? (I'm not 100% sure, but this seems the most plausible answer).

Taking a bit of modelers licence, I decided that the Woodinville depot (seen in the above posts as a old,baggage car) was most likely closed and torn down the same time as Redmond depot. But what building would house the block register book? The most reasonable answer was the MOW shack.

I knew from personal experience that train crews can have access to certain MOW buildings, or other shared structures so again it wouldn't be a complete stretch to use the MOW shack as the block register building as well (sometimes block registers can be as simple as a 4x4 post with a mailbox type box on top).

With this in mind, I now had a reason to build the MOW shack. As I thought about it more, my staging yard was a near replica of the Woodinville Yard (mainline, 2 passing siding and a spur). Why not have operators build their train (like the local would do exchanging cars at Woodinville) before heading outside to Redmond and Issaquah. My staging yard is a simple 4 track yard with a transfer table on the end for run around moves.

As I pondered all of this one evening, staring me in the face was a shelf occupied with railroad building junk right under the location of the Woodinville MOW shack. Not only could I have a building of the shack, and a reasonable prototypical placement but I could also have a place for train crews to sign in and out of the block register. The block register book could do double duty as well by being a guest book as both books typically have names, and dates!

Onto actual building next time...

I thought it looked strangely

I thought it looked strangely like a passenger car. I like the block register idea. I’d like to sign in to that register myself.

Version 2.0 Finally!

After figuring that I had space to build a cut away view of the MOW shack, I started cutting scrap ABS that I had laying around. 

Here's the build.

Since these photos have been taken, I'd transformed the building into a building that, well says I'm a BN station.

I still have the two garage doors to make, along with the front door, and install the slide glass windows and figure out a foundation for the rail area (I'm tempted to pull all the styrene foundation and use plaster to conform to the rail profile). But before I do all of that I need to reroof the building. I'm using 320 grit black sand paper, cut in 1' wide strips, then slicing shingle gaps using my mini table saw. These are then stuck to the subroof using doublesided tape. 

When I say reroof, I quite literally mean redo the roof I already did. I came back from camping and took one look at this roof and said, wow a really drunk roofer must have laid that roof. So I tore it all off, and have started over again!

Hope you have enjoyed the build so far. I'll post more detailed close in shots when the interior is all the way done.

Looks great!

I love the cutaway view. Cool detail parts too. 

Details

Greg,

Thanks for the comments about the details. I was trying to think general things a shop like this would have. Organized but also lived in. Maybe one day down the road when I run out of projects I can build a little speeder to go with the building.

I briefly lived in

I briefly lived in Woodinville and always thought the trackage in that area was interesting as a modeling idea since it had such a mixture of industrial, commercial with shopping areas mixed with some rural wooded spots.  Nice work!

If I ever get back into HO...

If I ever get back into HO, I would love to create a FreeMo module of Woodinville. But it could almost be a standalone layout with all the industries around the wye and the small yard (and the team tracks that used to be there). The likelyhood that I get back into HO is slim to none, but it's cool to think about a someday project! If I really had the room outdoors, I would love to model Woodinville.

The feed mill that was in the middle of wye was a really cool structure as well.

Craig 

Nice job Craig. The building

Nice job Craig. The building looks good.  Wont be long until we see the crew climbing aboard the plow there right?

So something like this?

or something along the lines of this as a Hyrail truck?

My 6 yld keeps asking me when I will get done with my snow plow... He keeps reminding me that I started it before he was born...

IE never ending projects

On a more serious note, the snow is moving up on the list of projects. I had to break out the slide glass for this project, so I might as well fix the never ending window issue on the snow plow as well. I've only redone the front end 4 or 5 times already, so what's one more time?

Another thought on building this....

Craig,

With such exquisite planning and detailed drawings, why could you not have it 3-D printed?

I mean granted - a lot of the fund is building it yourself, but there are those of us too lazy 

Thanks anyway,

Anton Bruce

3D printed

Well part of the reason is cost. The other part is size. Remember this is 3x HO, so the building is 16' long, by about 8" wide. If I had access to a printer, not even the side wall could fit in a single print.

BTW, I'm all for 3D printing of detail parts, but sometimes its just faster to build it.

Plis, the cost so far is $0. I've only used scraps and stuff laying around. Well, its not zero anymore as I had to buy 2 packs if sandpaper, so $5 total?

So I kinda got distracted...

I found a 1/25 scale pickup truck at Hobby Lobby while getting more RTV and resin... Well. The building is on temporary hold while the truck gets finished.

So then I had to make a decision on what to paint it... And thanks to my friends on Facebook, they pulled through with some great photos of a NP truck.

Why is it with my modeling I take 1 step forward on a project and then take 2 steps back? 

Regardless, once done it should make a decent scene with the Pettibone Speed Swing.

Garage doors and other details

I'm back working on this build and set aside the truck for now. I realized that the pick up truck was a nice distraction but it was starting to become too much of a rush job so I needed to set it aside to ponder some details that needed super detailing ( new side mirrors, maybe a working tailgate?) 

Roof is ready for weathering after I redid it. 

  Even a few older shingles...

And I started on the garage doors.

 Now that school is back into full swing, and I'm slowly getting back into the groove of teaching ( well all online) hopefully I can wrap this project up in the next few weeks. I always get more modeling time during the school year because I set aside a few nights a week to relax vs the summer when I think I have lots of "free time".

Slide glass

I'm not sure where I first read about using slide glass in this hobby, but I sure want to forget that article, blog, etc..

I recall Trevor Marshall on his Port Rowan blog talking about the learning curve of slide glass and well he's right. I'm now only messing up around 25% of the time vs, the 90% of the time when I first started a few years back.

Let's just say I'm glad I bought 200 slides a while back. Maybe the second hundred will cut better than the first hundred.

I’m 0-10 with glass slides,

I’m 0-10 with glass slides, I’ll stick with plastic ;D