Buildings for hicksville

[buzz]

Hi J3a-614
The track plan is very basic a loop with passing track and outside dead end siding on the left,
Two sidings inside just right of the center and a two road loco depot on the right hand side on the outside of the loop two hidden sidings at rear.
all on 4'6" x 4'6".
Have managed to keep it to second and third radius peco track
The main scenic feature will be a ridge with a road bridge on left and tunnel on right  town on ridge nowhere else to put it.
Behind which are the roundy bit and two hidden sidings.
As for period unsure but the freight stock is five old HO roundhouse kits for
the Devils Gulch and Helangon RR these look to be some where around thirty feet long that part of label is chaffed away but they are shorties so its pretty early in the piece or the RR is broke. loco is a Bachmann Smokey mountain 0-6-0 not sure if I chose the right one there and a red bobber caboose later a modern?? 4-4-0 is planned there is only so much that can be fitted in the small space can't find an early ugly diesel loco so its all steam.
Passenger stock have literally no idea yet that will be determined by length more than anything else short heavy weight combine perhaps or western style balcony coach and caboose.
Its more a capture feel than dead on thing very much learn as you go,
and hope it works out.
Its not LMS so its lets see what happens and what the US books and good people on this forum can tell me
Don't have a photo act so posting pics of bench work and whats made so far is a problem.
More junked than made at moment.
regards John

[Johnson Bar Jeff]

As for period unsure but the freight stock is five old HO roundhouse kits for
the Devils Gulch and Helangon RR these look to be some where around thirty feet long that part of label is chaffed away but they are shorties so its pretty early in the piece or the RR is broke.

The Roundhouse "old-timer" box cars, stock cars, and reefers are 36-foot cars, the shortie flat cars that can also be used as low-sided gondolas are either 30 feet or 34 feet, I forget which.

Passenger stock have literally no idea yet that will be determined by length more than anything else short heavy weight combine perhaps or western style balcony coach and caboose.

I presume by "balcony coach" you mean an open-platform coach, as opposed to one with an enclosed vestibule. If your railroad is all-steam and dirt-poor you could probably get away with just about any length old combine, left over from the days when the railroad was first built and still used because there isn't much passenger traffic. The Roundhouse "Overton" style passenger cars are 34 feet long. I believe the Bachmann old-time cars are 47 feet long. Those cars are based on prototypes built in the early 1870s, but the Virginia & Truckee Railroad of Nevade used similar passenger cars almost up till World War II (when the cars were sold to Hollywood for use in Western movies).

[buzz]

Hi Johnson Bar Jeff
Yes I mean an open platform coach just like on the "western movies"
Sorry slipped back into more familiar UK RR terms.
Have been offered a short Tyco old time combine just after finishing on here last night apparently apart from a missing brake wheel and shaft its OK.
Is this brand any good??
If it is who makes brake wheels and shafts as  detail parts and what else
would be easy to add??
Have no idea what the story is with this brand have had conflicting versions on them more bad than good.
regards John

[Doneldon]

buzz-

I was thinking -- make your tent buildings and then light them.  They usually didn't have any kind of window, unlike tents today, so you'd just have a glow.  It would be very easy to put some animation inside (what was moving wouldn't matter), add a little sound and you could have a dance hall, bar, bordello or whatever.  Use some industrial sounds and you have a little factory.  The sky's the limit.  Could be pretty cool looking.
                                                                                                         -- D

[buzz]

Hi doneldon
Interesting Idea must pass that one on to a friend doing an exhibition
layout.
Though I am not sure I want to know what he would do with it.
A yellow bright LED would be the light source  for that as oil lamps
give a yellow light.
I think LED's are a low heat light source??.
just the light and some interesting shadows could work as well.
I know sound is or will be the next big thing these days some sounds
are best left alone unless you know a movie sound man.
regards John

[ebtnut]

It was actually pretty common in the 19th and early 20th centuries for the undertaker to be the local cabinet maker as well.  The crafts needed to make caskets lent themselves quite nicely to cabinetry.  And making cabinets was steadier work than only being an undertaker in an area with a small population and not that many folks passed on in a given year.

[Joe323]

It was actually pretty common in the 19th and early 20th centuries for the undertaker to be the local cabinet maker as well.  The crafts needed to make caskets lent themselves quite nicely to cabinetry.  And making cabinets was steadier work than only being an undertaker in an area with a small population and not that many folks passed on in a given year.

Ah I always said I should have become an undertaker because they have a steady stream of clients who never complain but in a small town that might not be true

[Johnson Bar Jeff]

Hi Johnson Bar Jeff
Yes I mean an open platform coach just like on the "western movies"
Sorry slipped back into more familiar UK RR terms.
Have been offered a short Tyco old time combine just after finishing on here last night apparently apart from a missing brake wheel and shaft its OK.
Is this brand any good??
If it is who makes brake wheels and shafts as  detail parts and what else
would be easy to add??
Have no idea what the story is with this brand have had conflicting versions on them more bad than good.
regards John

Hi, John,

I think the Tyco combine would be fine for your layout, in terms of its length, although I don't know what the length actually is in scale feet; in length the Tyco old-time passenger cars are somewhere between the 34 feet of the Roundhouse "Overton" cars and the 47 feet of the Bachmann cars.    I don't think there is really much you can do with them in terms of detailing other than to weather them.

I've gotten several packets of replacement brake wheels for Tyco cars from Yardbird Trains. They can probably help you there.

http://www.yardbirdtrains.com

If the car doesn't already have knuckle couplers, it shouldn't be too difficult to change the couplers to knuckles.

[buzz]

Hi
All well an experiment with folded paper and cheap carp super market super glue seems to have worked and produced an I think sturdy enough pup tent.
A couple of plastic broom bristles or micro rod should work for the tent poles.
How ever I am not happy with the stark white far to clean appearance
Any suggestions for a water based ink and what color that I can thin right down and slosh over the paper to pre stain it before making the tent huts
proper.
I have worked out what seems a reasonable way of joining the framed canvas part to a timber false front for a combined store and accommodation version.
The question is what on earth stops the 16' high front falling back and crushing the store part of the structure.
I am working on the basis the tent hut part has a reasonable frame built
that will be part of a finished store if town stays around long enough.
Would it be wrong to give these type of huts in a USA context a corrugated iron roof.
That has been added when the store owner could afford it.
regards John

[Doneldon]

buzz-

Pup tents may be too small for the backs of buildings.  I suggest something more along the lines of a wall tent.

I can see why white bags might not make the most authentic looking tents, especially since we're talking about some place in the boonies.  Have you experimented with paper grocery bags? 

Whether white or brown, you can use any black liquid ink as a stain.  India ink thinned with alcohol is the classic but I've had good results with regular black ink, too.  Just be sure to put a little wetting agent in it, something like dish soap or alcohol.  You'll want to thin it a great deal, probably 20:1 for starters.  Experiment with it and see how it goes.  You can always add another dose or further thin your mixture.  You'll want seams and folds to be darker but that will happen automatically if you slightly crease seams before setting up the tents, and if you very lightly sand the areas which will be folded.  You might also want to splash some mud and crud on near the bottoms to represent dirt kicked up by rain.  Actually, a wash of dirt or mud might look pretty good on the whole tent, especially if you use white paper.  I think you should do your staining before fixing the paper with the super glue because the super glue will seal the paper and interfere with the staining.  (I'll bet that white glue or hair spray would also work.)

The false fronts were sometimes held up by a triangular frame on each end of the back side, inset just far enough so as to not be obvious from the front, or by building the frames of the buildings to come which were then used as the shapers for the tent in back.  They didn't have many purpose built tents in those days.  Most tents were actually (canvas, hemp or skin) tarps stretched over a frame devised on site.  In the case of the false-fronted buildings, the building frame was sometimes built and covered with tarps until the thing could be sheathed and have windows installed.  Things were done this way either because the builder lacked the funds to finish the structure or because the materials weren't available.  The false fronts were left in place even after the building was completed behind to make the structure/business look more substantial.  You can see this if you've ever visited a ghost town or a frontier town reproduction.

I can't see any reason why you couldn't have a corrugated roof with canvas sides.  I'll bet my eye teeth that was done for real, probably often.  Heck, that's what I'd do first if I could get the roofing panels.  A finished roof would provide much more protection than would solid walls with a canvas roof.  (Although many of our western national parks had log walled/canvas roofed accommodations years ago.  That was so they didn't need to construct a roof strong enough to hold out the heavy mountain snows.)  There's also no reason why you couldn't have part of a finished roof and a tarp covering the rest. 

You can just fold your paper tent where it meets the false front and hold it there with strips of lumber, with a little extra canvas sticking out along the boards.

How about a tear or two with some kids or perverts peeking inside?  This would be especially neat if the tent building is a saloon or cat house.

Good luck with your project.  I hope my ideas have been helpful.
                                                                                                     -- D

[Jim Banner]

Some absolutely excellent ideas.  I like the idea of a light in the tent and something causing motion, either shadows or actually moving the tent walls.  It has given me another idea too.  Ever seen the Nutcracker?  The scene where the clock face turns into a human face?  I have seen this done where the clock face is made of theatrical scrim and appears solid when lit from above.  But when backlit, all you see is what is behind the scrim - in this case, the face of a human inside the clock.  I wonder if that would work with a tent.  With normal room lighting, it would appear opaque.  But turn on an interior light, and like magic, you would be able to see the detailled interior.

I believe corrugated roofing has been around since 1854 and surely found its way out west.  It was cheap to buy and quick and easy to apply.  But imagine the noise in a hail storm!  Annealed aluminum pop cans run through a Frikrars paper crimper look good in large scale.  Definitely too large in H0, but maybe in 0 scale?

Jim

[Doneldon]

Jim-

I think your idea of tents like theatrical scrims is a super one.  The trick would be finding fabric which appears opaque when front lit but transparent, more or less, when lit from behind.  This is much easier to do on a 1:1 scale stage because the audience is at least tens of feet (okay, ten meters or more) from the scrim so they can't see the tiny holes which will allow them to see through when the lighting is right.  On our models the viewers are very near the scrim so the holes must be very, very small.  That's a problem itself, however.  If the holes are too small we won't be able to see through.  Also, we have to put something on the "outside" of the scrim so we have something to look at when it is front lit.  That potentially fills our little holes with paint, turning the surface fully opaque.

Conventional fabrics won't cut it.  (sorry)  Unless they are kept taught their very thickness will obscure the open spaces in the weave.  So what's needed is a fabric made of synthetic or tightly wound threads so they don't have texture.  This leads to the idea of mesh such as is used in crafts and as stiffenting, particularly in wedding dresses.  But that is too course.  There are, however, ribbons, sheer silks and more finely woven meshes which should work.  One possibility would be women's hosiery.

Finding hose which resemble the color of tent canvas isn't a problem so it doesn't need to be painted to be believable.  That means we probably can shift the light inside and see what's going on in there.  I can't help but imagine the lurid scenes which might be seen in a brothel but lots of other kinds of activities could be revealed, too.  Actually, this could also work very well over windows of regular buildings.  Lit from the outside, we have a darkened room with a screen on the window.  Turn on the lights and we see ...

Sorry about the long stream-of-consciousness post but I'm too tired to trim it out now. 

                                                                                                     -- D

[buzz]

Hi Jim
I don't have to imagine Hail on a tin roof I can tell you exactly what its like.
I have a tin roof on my house.
Don't know the brand name, but there is or was a very nice Aussie made corrugated HO aluminum sheet done.
I should not have much trouble over here finding suitable model sheet.
The local outline model railways regardless of State modeled would need large quantities of the stuff for roofs, fences, factories railway buildings
farm sheds.
Even for some rolling stock was corrugated iron bodies.
In some places the whole house was corrugated iron at one time.
I would imagine they would have been oppressively hot in summer and
and cold enough to freeze I think you know the rest in winter.
regards John

[buzz]

Hi doneldon
Feel free keep that brain storming
There are some very good and interesting ideas getting hammered
into some thing like a usable forms.
Any and all contributions are going to be of use to me or some one else
I think the stage trickery you and Jim are discussing is very interesting
Still think I will pass on sound 
regards John