Railroad Office Buildings


A

AL1

Shortliner
I attached two photos of what I believe are offices built by the SCL railroad.. The location is obvious on one of them, the other is Enterprise, Ala. I think these would make great modeling subjects, since full sized depots are large and difficult to scratchbuild.

Now if I could only find some blueprints for these..
 
I think you could scratch build one of those without blueprints. You can get pretty close to the correct size just by looking closely at those photos. A standard door is going to be 3' wide by 6'8" tall. That window looks to be about 3'x3'. If you notice in the second picture, the wall to the left of the door is about twice as wide as the door itself. So that would be a 3' door and 6' of wall. The right edge of the door is about at half the total width, so the building is about 18' wide. The wall height is about 8'-9'. The depth is too hard to tell from the pictures, but that can be whatever looks good.

Now all you have to do is scale it down. :D
 
GWT&P said:
I think you could scratch build one of those without blueprints. You can get pretty close to the correct size just by looking closely at those photos. A standard door is going to be 3' wide by 6'8" tall. That window looks to be about 3'x3'. If you notice in the second picture, the wall to the left of the door is about twice as wide as the door itself. So that would be a 3' door and 6' of wall. The right edge of the door is about at half the total width, so the building is about 18' wide. The wall height is about 8'-9'. The depth is too hard to tell from the pictures, but that can be whatever looks good.

Now all you have to do is scale it down. :D
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I thought I could easily scratchbuild it too, but I am a "rivet counting" perfectionist. :D I think I know a source for some blueprints.

Browsing around for a decent train order board, Tomar is the only company I see that offers them, and they want $50 for just one! :eek:
 
Frank, since you can take pictures of all four sides of the building, it really would be easy to come very close using Gary's estimating techniques. Both building look identical so building one will get you the other by flip-flopping the door and window. If you really want to get precise, take a tape measue and get the exact dimensions. Even as a rivet counter, being off a foot or two won't even be noticeable in HO.

Is that train order signal still in use next to that building on the right?
 
There's a lot of kits out there for small office buildings. Walthers, Life Like, Faller, Vollmer & many others.

Like Jim says, take a tape measure(1" to 1&1/4" wide) w/you & measure the size. The wider tape measure will stand up straight from the ground up to about 10 ft high on a non windy day.
 
I'm looking at some bldg's just like those up here. One can pack a lot of indoor detail in them---lights---etc.---now if only one can get interior measurements-----
 
Frank;

Those sure are small offices. Here's a couple of shots of a yard boss's "office" in the yard at Selma. The back is made of two boxcar doors, one end is plywood and the other is yet, another boxcar door of a different design from the ones on the side. What the "front" is made of, I do not know. To get a shot, I'd have to get on RR property. I will try to get more shots, next time I'm back home.
 
Cjcrescent said:
Frank, I meant to ask, what part of LA do you live?
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In the general area of Dothan.

And I plan on modeling these as soon as I arrange my layout the way I want it. I am leaning towards full interior and lighting. Since my layout is 70's era, I will also include the TO board, animated of course.

I think the square cinder block design is standard for SCL, but I haven't found any other examples besides the ones at Bainbridge and Enterprise..
 
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