Missouri, Kansas, & Texas Railroad along the Missouri River by Cathead - 1/87 (HO) scale - model railroad with steamboat

[Canute]

Good idea, bracing the walls of this kit. I brace walls in wood, plastic, plaster and resin. The bracing increases the available gluing area, along with the obvious strengthening. 

Yes, Blair Line makes some nice kits. Is that house the start of the "wrong side of the tracks"? 😄

[Keith Black]

11 minutes ago, Canute said:

Is that house the start of the "wrong side of the tracks"? 

 Hey, get off my grass! 

[Cathead]

1 hour ago, Canute said:

Is that house the start of the "wrong side of the tracks"? 😄

That's pretty much where that phrase comes from, right? The fact that railroad lines so often divided communities and helped create distinctly different districts based on income, class, race, etc.? Certainly I'm using that as a subtle visual cue here.

[Cathead]

OK, it's been over a month since I updated this, past time to share the small bit of progress made. This will be two posts; the first one covering the latest building.

 

This one is a small laser-cut kit from Berkshire Valley models, which I modified to fit my scene. It's meant to go against the backdrop next to the scratchbuilt Inman & Sons, but the kit is deeper than the space I have, so I needed to chop some length off the kit version. Below, you see the original roof & floor with the walls shortened to the length I needed.

Assembling the walls and floor after airbrushing:

The fancy false front, built up of thin layers of laser-cut wood, pre-airbrushed to different shades. And one of the side walls with light weathering.

I wanted a basic interior for this one, even though it's a backdrop building, because the front windows are so large. Since this sits right behind the depot, my vision is that this is a basic trackside eatery/bar serving passengers, train crews, etc. So for the interior I mocked up a few tables and a bar. These aren't painted yet in the photo below.

And here are a couple shots of the finished building, with strong light so you can see into the interior. I did just enough for the shapes to be visible and hint at their purpose, I don't intend to light this internally or otherwise go overboard. 

This is roughly where it goes, behind the depot. This will also get its own base, and there will be a planked sidewalk running in front of both buildings, since we're still in the muddy-street era of American small-town architecture. You can see examples of these in the historic photos.

In later years this would be considered a diner, but that word hadn't come into routine use in 1900. Instead, this would probably have been considered a tavern, and that's what I'm going to go with. I don't have a reference for a real name in this case, so I'm trying to decide whether to go with the generic Rocheport Tavern, or come up with something more poetic or creative.

 

In the following post I'll cover a scenic development.

 

[Cathead]

I also solved a long-standing scenic issue. I really haven't been satisfied with the color of the dirt/gravel roads in town, but hadn't found a solution. I want them to have the same grey/tan color as the surrounding bedrock, but still look like fine material. Railroad ballast is roughly the right color, but too coarse and uniform. I've played with other purchased scenic ground covers but none are the right color or stand out enough from the surrounding terrain. I finally hit on the solution, literally, by accident.

 

I had collected some chunks of limestone from along the real right of way, intending to crush them for coarse rock debris at the base of the bluffs along the right of way. But as I was hand-crushing these samples, I realized that the limestone was actually powdering quite nicely in addition to forming coarser rubble. So I made a point of finely crushing some of this material, then sieving it out to separate the rubble from the powder. The latter was perfect for spreading as extra-fine road material and also had just about the right color (of course!). 

Here's what the new road surfaces look like. The right grey/tan shade, similar to but distinct from the railroad ballast, and finer in texture. Also stands out from the surrounding land without being too bright.

A few more shots at different angles:

 

I'm definitely pleased with this and it's infinitely renewable with just some healthy exercise effort.

 

You might notice two more foundations in the shot above; I built them to match their intended buildings, glued them down, and then worked scenery material up to blend them in. This gives me somewhere to set buildings without having to be super-careful about working wet scenery material right up against carefully built wooden buildings. Here's a closeup of the elevator's new foundation.

 

I'll do most of the rest of the buildings this way too. Doing this lets me move forward on some scenery work I'd been holding off on, until I got foundations properly in place.

 

Finally, here's a fun update showing the arrival of a late birthday present.

Although I'm obviously focused on 1900, this line was operational into the mid-1980s, when trains were very different. I'm also a fan of the MKT's late-era yellow and green paint scheme, and as a geologist would very much enjoy running modern(ish) coal trains one day. So a late birthday present was an MKT SD40-2, which the railroad specifically purchased for unit coal train service. These never actually operated through Rocheport, because (a) the railroad didn't haul unit coal on this line and (b) the track wasn't up to standard for these large 6-axle locomotives. But I'm indulging myself in some alternate history so that, down the road when more mainline is completed, I can watch MKT coal trains roll through here. Given that the Union Pacific tracks on the other side of the river still host unit coal trains to this day, I feel quite justified in this little departure from reality.

 

It's also pretty fun to be able to see 80 years of railroad history nose-to-nose! And as this unit is also sound-equipped, it adds quite the different tone to the layout to hear a loud diesel blast and engine rumble in contrast to the shrill whistle and gentler puffing of the steamers. I should acknowledge the Katy Railroad Historical Society here, which worked with the manufacturer to produce a special limited run of Katy-specific diesels for members to purchase, including this one.

 

It's a fun twist, and all of these hobbies at their heart are supposed to be fun. I hope you had fun reading these updates, and thank you for your patience with my intermittent updates.

 

[Keith Black]

 You had greater success with your material coloration issue than I did, Eric. Great looking road surface in both color and texture. 

[Canute]

This scene looks great, Eric. I like your adding the tavern interior. Will you do up figures? The differing sizes and colors looks spot on. Love your work.

[Cathead]

Ken, no figures in the tavern for now. It's too obscure and figures are expensive. I'd rather feature them where they're more visible. I left the roof detachable so I can change my mind someday.

 

As for the differing colors, that actually raises a point I left out but can address: thinking about the color palette for different parts of this scene. While buildings in this era could certainly be colorful, I wanted to think about how to compose the scene in a way that would influence viewers. For example, I already talked about three subtle "zones" of town; the prosperous west side (no buildings yet built), the workmanlike depot area (most buildings now built), and the lower-income southeast side down along the floodplain on the "far side" of the tracks (one building now built).

 

Another part of that is choosing colors. If you look carefully, you'll see that the buildings in the depot area all share a compatible reddish-yellowish-grey palette. This was quite deliberate as it ties them all together in a district. I didn't want, say, a bright blue building clashing with other buildings there and standing out. Since the depot was set as the railroad's yellow/green scheme, this also sets the non-railroad buildings subtly apart from the depot while still not clashing with it. Inman & Sons stands out a little, but not in a clashing way that it would if it were, say, light blue. 

 

My intention is that all the "far side" buildings will be an even more muted dull white/grey/raw wood palette, to emphasize their lower-income status and again to help that district subtly stand apart (and emphasize the transition between it and the depot area).  Whereas the prosperous west-side district will have brighter colors (clean white farm houses, redder barns, brighter-colored storefronts, probably some nice blue). So you have this visual transition all the way across town in both design and color palette of structures that helps subtly tell a visual story about the economics of even a small town. Just to be clear, as I reread that sentence, I don't mean that in a political way, just in a "that's how it really was" way and I think it makes the scene more interesting by dividing it up into mini-scenes that both the viewer's eye, and the trains, pass through even in this little diorama.

 

The final point is that, since this is set in late fall / early winter, too many bright colors would contrast with the general muted end-of-season color palette. So I'm making all sorts of behind the scenes decisions to help the entire scene "feel" right, not just look right.

[Canute]

Good planning, Eric. The railroad owned structures would all share the same palette. Private structures here were mostly brick, showing some prosperity. We had a number of camps around the area for the Low County area around Charleston, SC to leave the mosquito ridden, hot and humid dwellings for the cooler, drier mountain air in the area. Some hotels were quite posh. Most are gone, but some camps still operate over the summer.

 

[Rik Thistle]

Eric,

 

Good new building and gravel innovation. Keep 'em coming.

 

I was wondering if the smoke stacks would cause any discolouration of the wooden buildings and tunnel entrance.

 

In the UK, due to coal fires to heat homes, power industry and railway lines/junctions, many UK cities with stone buildings were almost black in colour...it was very bad. In the 1960s or so steps began to clean up those buildings. Lungs were a different matter ;-(

 

Richard 

[Cathead]

Richard,

 

There was certainly smoke staining on the tunnel and I included that in the weathering, though gently since this layout is set shortly after the tunnel's opening.

 

As for buildings, there's no evidence of that in contemporary photos, and I'd say it's a non-issue in a rural small town like Rocheport. No major industry, buildings not crammed together like a big city, only so much train traffic on a single mainline, relatively small 1900s engines, many houses still heating with wood, etc. 

Edited November 1 by Cathead

[Cathead]

Ken, there were some brick and stone buildings in Rocheport but they were in the core business district set a few blocks back from the tracks, so not visible on the layout. If you go back and look at photos of the general setting I posted early in this log, you'll see that pretty much everything within a couple blocks of the tracks wad wood. 
 

And yes, MK&T buildings will share the same palette but the only other one in this town is a small shed I haven't built yey.

[Rik Thistle]

Eric,

 

I should have looked back at your tunnel pics in post #78.... the smoke staining is obvious.

 

Yes, agreed, an open countryside, rural town is much less likely to suffer from smoke staining.  

 

Richard

 

 

[Cathead]

OK, here's a fun little mini-building project. A few years ago, the official newsletter of the Katy Railroad Historical Society had a modeler's article on building a simple railroad coal shed. These were used by the Katy to store coal for use in stoves/furnaces within small railroad buildings like depots, offices, or workshops. Like most railroads, there were official designs for exactly how to build these, so the article shared blueprints and an example of a model built in 1:48 scale (larger than my 1:87 scale).

These would be located along a spur, where a gondola of coal would be spotted. Coal would then be shoveled into the hatch in the back, filling the shed. When coal was needed, a worker could open the front door and shovel it out. This had upper and lower halves for obvious reasons.

 

I decided that one of these would be the perfect addition to my version of Rocheport, since the depot has a stove. A coal shed isn't clearly visible in the photos I have, but I decided I don't care. It's another place to spot a car, adding operational interest, and it nicely fills in an empty zone near the depot, a place you can see several sheds (just not a coal shed like this one).

 

Here are the four walls laid out, using scribed siding and extra strips for the outside bracing. Figure for scale.

Assembling the walls with a magnetic jig:

Walls, roof, and floor assemblies, with the thick beams the whole structure rests on. These are stained cherry, scraps left over from my NRG capstan and other projects:

Painted in the proper corporate yellow/green scheme (same as depot), assembled, and weathered, with tarpaper roof (front and back views):

While I was at it, I built a small outhouse to go nearby as these depots didn't have indoor plumbing in this era:

And here are the final two buildings on the article photo:

Here they are installed on the layout. I'm pretty amused at the genius of placing the outhouse right across the tracks from the stockyard:

I like how these extend the "railroad property" zone a bit to the east (right) with their coloring.

 

And here's the classic historical photo showing a few sheds east of the depot; I'm just shifting their exact location and purpose to suit my needs, as most model railroaders do:

This was a fun couple nights of work and fills in another small spot on the layout. I've been doing some scenery work, too, but am not ready to share it. This, at least, shows you that I've been doing something!

 

Thanks for following along.

[Paul Le Wol]

A fine job on the buildings Eric. The tarpaper and weathering look great.

[Keith Black]

 Those are great additions, Eric. The layout is slowly filling in. About how many more buildings do you think you'll be adding? 

[Cathead]

2 hours ago, Paul Le Wol said:

A fine job on the buildings Eric. The tarpaper and weathering look great

Thanks! I do think they turned out well, too. 

1 hour ago, Keith Black said:

About how many more buildings do you think you'll be adding? 

Approximately 8-10, not including little things like outhouses. Rocheport's a busy place. Loosely speaking, the upcoming list includes:

• 2-3 upscale business-district-type storefronts
• 1 nice town house
• 1 smaller/rougher house
• 1-2 barns
• 2 other "rougher" business buildings
• 2 small ice houses 

Most of these are will be laser-cut kits, which saves a lot of work. I'm happy to scratchbuild when I need a distinctive structure but many of these are quite well represented by existing products. The ice houses and one of the barns will definitely be scratchbuilt because they represent specific structures I can see in photos that no kit can adequately simulate.

[Rik Thistle]

Eric,

 

As Paul and Keith have said, those are two very well done additions to your layout. Good stuff!

 

The more I read of your build, the more I understand why folks build model railway scenes....there are so many different and interesting aspects to it. 

 

Richard

[Canute]

Nice details Eric. It's getting a lived in look. 👍

[Cathead]

Here's another way to answer Keith's question about remaining structures. Most of what I need to add is on the west side of town, shown below. Circled are three distinct ice houses and the Spanish-style barn that I'll be scratchbuilding. I won't be adding the large brick mill along the river because there isn't room (you can think of it as being in the aisle). Otherwise I want to represent the general sense of that main street crossing the tracks behind the circled barn, so will use a variety of storefronts and nicer houses to do that, as well as adding a smaller farmhouse and possibly a second barn to capture the general sense of smaller farms on the outskirts of town. But I don't feel the need to exactly recreate every structure, so I'll be using reasonable kits for most of those.

 

My philosophy on scenes like this is that, rather than try to recreate everything perfectly, it's better to choose a few distinct signature structures (depot and elevator on the east side, ice houses and Spanish barn on the west side) and let those scream "Rocheport" while the rest capture the feel of the place. And since I'm compressing a half-mile-long town into less than ten feet of layout space, this is a sensible way to do it since it's by no means a complete re-creation anyway.

 

Hope that makes sense!

[Keith Black]

 Eric, I see a telegraph pole in the photo (great photo by the way), are you planning on running telegraph lines? 

[Cathead]

Great question, Keith. There were indeed telegraph lines along the right of way. In the photo from the west (marked up above) you can see them dimly on the north side of the tracks. But most of the time, they were on the south (river) side of the tracks, as you can see in the view from the east posted earlier (the curve near the depot), and this photo from along the river just west of Rocheport. So they must have crossed over once somewhere near the tunnel, then back over again somewhere before the depot.

But having them mostly on the river side, especially along the narrow corridors between river and bluff, is a problem for me. This makes sense for the railroad, as there wasn't really room along the bluff side of the tracks, where the rock faces almost literally overhung the rails. But if I added these accurately, they'd be on the aisle side of the tracks, making access to the right of way rather difficult, because anyone reaching in (to uncouple cars or even clean the rails) will find the telegraph lines in the way, and all but guarantee a damaging interaction sooner or later.

 

If this were just a diorama, I would definitely add them. But as an operating layout, my instinct is not to, because I think they'd be in the way. Regardless, they'd be just about the last thing I would add, as they'd also get in the way of any other scenery work, so I don't have to worry about it for now. They get filed away in "maybe someday final detailing". 

 

Again, great question, and a good example of how an operating model railroad forces somewhat different thinking and decision making than a static display model.

[Keith Black]

 The poles I see in the photo run along the track that goes through town. I'm not familiar enough with the layout placement to know if these would fit into you scheme?

[Cathead]

Yes, those are the ones I agreed you could see on the north side of the tracks in town. But the problem is, they cross over to the south (river) side at either end of town and stay there along the river in either direction. So if I ran those north-side lines through town, what do I do with them at either end of town? It'd look ridiculous to just truncate them, but if they cross over they immediately get in the way and beg to be damaged by errant elbows.

 

See if this map/diagram helps. Remember that the aisle is in the river, so anything on the south (front) side of the tracks is directly in the way.

And I can't just keep them on the north side because there's not enough room between the bluffs and the tracks either to the west and east; the rock faces are right up against the track. Remember, this is what it looks like for long stretches of the mainline along the river:

 

The telegraph poles/lines (now gone) would have been on the far right of this photo, along the riverbank, where they'd be in the way of a god-like hand reaching in from the river!

 

Does that help?

 

[Keith Black]

 I understood why you couldn't run them along the river but I didn't realize that where they crossed from town to the river bank it would be that noticeable if they didn't continue.  

[Cathead]

The biggest problem spot is near the depot. They're north of the tracks to the west/left of the depot, but south of the tracks to the east/right of the depot. Review the photos above. So I'd have telegraph lines running through town, behind the main line as viewed from the aisle, but then they'd stop all of the sudden by the depot (or cross over in one of the busiest areas for people to reach in). I just think it'd look strange to have a telegraph line ending right in the middle of town near the depot. Plus, even run along the backside of the main line, they'd still interfere with people reaching back into that siding that runs along the grain elevator and behind the depot.

 

Plus, I'm thinking longer-term about the plans to extend the layout in either direction. As a standalone diorama it might be fine to have the telegraph lines just in Rocheport, but when the tracks extend west and east beyond this scene, it'd be bizarre to have no further telegraph lines other than those in Rocheport. And I'd have to then extend the lines in front of the tracks in either direction, doubling down on them getting in the way.

 

It's a fun discussion, but for now the core point is that even if I did decide I wanted to string them (never say never), it's virtually the last thing I would do and there are so many other ways to spend my time on this and future scenes that it's just a very easy thing to set aside and not deal with.

[Balclutha75]

I spent several hours last night and this morning savoring this thread, and I'm only on page 3! Glad you decided to share this project with us, Eric.

 

The very early discussion about grain silo doors to nowhere sent me down a rabbit hole for a while. This was especially after I looked at my own photo, taken last month, of Big Boy 4014 steaming past a tall, circa 1915, silo in Ault, Colorado. (A Unique Little Town). Sure enough, probably 40-50 high on the south side, are two doors, one above the other, going nowhere. Closer inspection revealed a steel girder protruding from the roof directly above the doors, clearly a spot where some rigging could be hung to access them.

 

The online discussion I found turned up several possibilities, as you guys did here, but nothing definite. Still a bit of a mystery to me. I realize this is an old hat discussion, but I found it all quite interesting.

 

Thanks again Eric, I look forward to continuing through the log!

[Cathead]

Thanks for joining us! Better late than later. I do much enjoy all the different complex directions model railroading takes one, mentally and artistically. Ship building does too, just in a different way.

[Balclutha75]

Thanks Cathead, glad to be following along. Indeed what you said, and this intersection of ships and railroads is a powerful combination.

 

Since I described it above, a photo is worth a thousand words, hope you don't mind. The steel girder is circled in red. The mystery of grain silos.

 

Edited yesterday at 06:00 AM by Balclutha75

[Cathead]

Lovely photo! That girder, and those doors, especially look like equipment access to me, the way they've lined up vertically with a hoist-support beam above. This was how machinery was hoisted up and into various floors in many buildings. 

 

Here's a classic older example from Missouri, at Watkins Woolen Mill State Park (from the park's photo gallery, though I've been there many times). Look at the vertical line of access doors, overhung by a roof extension that housed support beams for whatever pulley system was used to hoist machinery to all the mill's different floors.

 

As discussed earlier, the commentariat convinced me that my elevator's doors weren't equipment access given the way they're not lined up and don't have any hoist housing above them. But the style of access door shown above is super-common in mills and similar industrial buildings and it's worth recognizing.

 

So glad to have you following along!

Edited 19 hours ago by Cathead