Exterior Detail

With the majority of the work completed, or so I thought, I now got to work on the exterior of the building. This work included the truck and rail docks themselves, roller doors, windows and the features on the roof.

Roller Doors

I was rather proud of the design of the roller doors. I used a siding for HO scale that looks quite effective as a 60’s style of industrial roller door. The side rails were right-angle evergreen shape, with the flat toward the wall, the ‘door’ glued in place and then the flat of the right-angle glued against the interior wall. I made two doors to look mostly open (as no-one wants to open one of these roller doors more than you need to each day) and one door closed for a visual variety.

The construction of the doors is simple, yet effective.

On the truck side, one door is open for a forklift or hand-truck to come through, the other closed.

While on the rail dock side the one door is open and ready for business.

One of the nicest features of the model is that you can see through the building, and to a purposefully limited degree, around the rest of the inside of the transload area.

Windows

took a little thinking about. I did not like the look of the windows in the kit. Too many small panes for me. Modelling a building in the late 1970s to early 1980s I wanted to show the changes of time on the building. So I cut out several of the panes to make one large window upper and lower. Leaving one or two windows to show how they once were.

Looking from the rail dock side of the building most of the windows have been replaced with newer double hung, single pane windows. Some are still the original not having rotted out yet.

From the truck dock side, even more work has taken place on the windows. Only one of the double hung windows has the 9-light original in-place. This by the way is the manager’s office.

Roof details

I didn’t want the roof to be just a flat boring space. There’s a swamp cooler/air-conditioner for the managers, and a blower for the cross-docking area. After all the workers don’t need to have any relief now do they?

An SP building in the heart of Texas. So an air-conditioner is a must for managers working hard for the railroad. Meanwhile a blower pulls the hot air out of the dock area and the rest of the hot air back in to keep the workers cool.

Taken from the managers end of the building this time. The Walthers kits are quite nice.

Another view showing the roof outline from the rail side.

The blower has yet to have a grate put on it, that will happen shortly.

Walls

I wanted to have the walls show the effects of years of use, and repairs and cracked exterior plaster/render over the years. So I’ve added the remains as a part of the cleanup process. These areas will get a white-wash during the weathering phase.

Some squadron white putty to clean up the major gaps in the parts also double as the remains of stucco, plaster or render, on the building. They’ll be drybrushed during the weathering phase.

There’s a lot of junk left around the base of the walls, especially where the dock doors are. This will simulate the crud and grime that collects around the base of structures.

The rail side of teh biulding has less than the truck (road) side of the building. Most advertising was on the road side of these types of buildings.

Finishing touches

I get a little too addicted to details. It’s a problem I can live with. In this case it adds greatly to the finish of the outside of the building.

Electrical and water installed.

Of note, the secondary box abovce the main electrical has an interior panel box on the opposite side of the wall for the breakers inside of the building.