Canton, Highlandtown and Fells Point - Compact layout

[wazzou]

No pics.

[wm3798]

Not sure why not... Same as the others... google pictures.  Can you see this one?



(Hint:  It's not on my layout!)

[davefoxx]

Yep, I can see that one, but not the pics in your previous post.  Do I understand that you are now building structures out of foam?  Does this mean we have a companion for Foam Depot that was replaced on the Seaboard Central 2.0 by the scratchbuilt SAL station but still exists on my daughter's layout?

[chicken45]

Not sure why not... Same as the others... google pictures.  Can you see this one?



Not your loco, either!
Thanks for sharing this cool shot!


(Hint:  It's not on my layout!)

[Philip H]

I can see them, but I have Google Mail for work so maybe thats why.  Haven't tried on my iPhone yet.

[wazzou]

I can see that one Lee.

[seusscaboose]

In Lee’s defense
It is his scene

He did the lake and the double track main in front

[OldEastRR]

No pics, ditto.

[wm3798]

For those of you who can't see the images, I guess you'll just have to break down and get a Google account.  I've got thousands of images uploaded to that platform, and I'm not migrating them for the likes of YOU! 

Here's an update on our latest real estate investment opportunity...  I hope you can see it.

Last week I showed you the foam dummy of a building I need to build to fill an odd shaped lot on my switching layout.


I spent some time this week drawing up a plan that makes sense for the site, which has changes of elevations on both sides.  I'm planning to make it a commercial printer.  I'm not going to have a rail siding to it, but I've got an old loading door on the track side as if at one time it did get served by the CH&FP.



This is the same view represented by the foam building.  The load out door on the back faces the tracks.



This is the view of the street side, note how the road slopes down from left to right.  In order to make sure the building makes sense as real estate venture, I laid out a logical floor plan demonstrating how the work would flow from the receiving dock, through the press room, on to a bindery and off to the shipping door on the side.  I also mad space for a passenger and freight elevator shaft, which is under the head house on the roof.



Street side looking up the hill.  The chimney rises from the boiler room on the first floor.  I havent' rummaged through my junk boxes yet to see if I have enough windows of the appropriate size in stock, but I'm probably going to use some Tichy castings that are close to what's shown here.  I may also just print them to size on acetate and use some strip styrene to give them some depth.



Here's a look down at the roof with the boiler chimney and the elevator head house.  I've also put a stairway up to the roof to add some interest.  These are details that a lot of modelers overlook, but I've always been a building nerd, and actually worked running an elevator in the Candler Building in Baltimore back when such work was available to a teenager... so understanding the guts of a building is important to me when I'm doing a scratch build or detailing a kit.  I've even made sure there's room for rest rooms on each floor, and a corner office upstairs for the boss!



This is the second floor, the main production floor.  The big bay door is the receiving area, so paper and other supplies are warehoused in the area with the wood floors.  The main press room is the area shown in tile.  The elevator shafts are in the middle next to the steps, so supplies can go down to a secondary press room and the bindery, then out through the shipping door which is under the roof at left.

With the big windows, and the prominent location at the front edge of the layout, I will probably detail the interiors and light the building to make it a nice crowd pleaser.  If I put half as much time into the construction as I've put in worrying about where the bathrooms go, I'll have a nice little scratchbuild!  On to the next thing...

[wazzou]

@wm3798  I've got a Google account and can see your most recent pictures posted just fine, yet I could not see the one's you posted previously.

 

[DKS]

For those of you who can't see the images, I guess you'll just have to break down and get a Google account.

I don't have a Google account (and refuse to get one), but I can see the images in your latest post. However, I cannot see them in this post: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=33399.msg550236#msg550236

Honestly, this whole can-see-can't-see-images thing is enough to drive a person to drink.

Wait...

[davefoxx]

@wm3798,

Can I talk you into a scar in the pavement/sidewalks near the RR crossing (embedded rails left in the street would be even cooler), evidencing the former existence of the stub track that once served the commercial printer building?  Maybe even model the overgrown subroadbed?  You don't even need tracks, and, instead, you merely model the evidence of what is left of what was once there.

DFF

[DKS]

Can I talk you into a scar in the pavement/sidewalks near the RR crossing (embedded rails left in the street would be even cooler), evidencing the former existence of the stub track that once served the commercial printer building?  Maybe even model the overgrown subroadbed?  You don't even need tracks, and, instead, you merely model the evidence of what is left of what was once there.

Excellent suggestion.

[wm3798]

I would love to do that, but the alignment of the "main" is actually pretty hard by the back of the building.  Given the already austere geometry of the curve, I can't really add such an embellishment at the back of the building.  However, I could build out the embankment on the aisle side of the track, and show some ghosts where the tracks would have been before the railroad acquired the plant's siding to build the new easement curve...

I had such a vignette at North Junction on the old layout...



The boarded up building on the right had some ties in the ground and some rusty relics of a loading dock.  This isn't the best shot of it, but it's one of my favorites of the old layout.
Lee

[wm3798]

Converted the plan to a drawing, printed it out, and cut out a mock up.  I've also had the sides printed on acetate so I can use the windows I've drawn.  I started rifling through the parts bin to see if I had castings on hand to do them, but the sizes don't jive with Tichy, and there's over 40 windows in the thing.  Paying $2 to have the windows printed on acetate makes great economic sense to this real estate developer!

I'll use some Evergreen strip stock to add some dimension to the frames, so they should look fine, plus give good visibility into the floor space.

More news as it happens.