The rules are... there are no rules. Middlesex Manufacturing Kitbash Contest

[Roger Holmes]

OK, got mine done last night just under the May 1 "deadline" for the contest with no rules.  Then took photos which showed a fine layer of styrene dust from last minute sawing that my eyes missed.   Looked like Chicago just had a dusting of snow which is ironic since my building sports a time/temperature sign that is perpetually stuck on 72 degrees!

That and my photo skills are awful and the weathering and brick colors looked gaudy in the photos due to the flash.  I'll try some more photos in the next few days.  In the meantime I'll suck on some  Lemonheads.  Hmmmm.......?

[Ian MacMillan]

I say we dismiss the deadline without prejudice!

[Roger Holmes]

What deadline?

[wm3798]

As it is written, so let it be done.  I'll have to wait until I build my next layout... the real estate I had planned for that got bought up by some squatters!

Lee

[randgust]

My 10 came on Monday. I'm waiting for my Christmas $ from mommy so I can buy more. I'm going to be building some huge buildings for the switching layout with these, and I can't wait! As you can see the new track plan is going to require quite a few mill buildings...not all shown.



It is a very nice kit, and I hope it stays a regular stock item. Great job Atlas.

Are you modelling the B&M region around Lowell?  That is "Middlesex County".   Your 'canal' kind of tips that off.  I've spent a lot of time up there working with NPS on the streetcar project.  I have a lot of building and track photos dating back now almost 20 years.  I have the original B&M track plan in the town, including long-gone stuff like a turntable inside a building to make a 90-degree turn on an island. Seriously.

One of the coolest things about Lowell is the fact that the railroad got there last, and they had to build between buildings, over canals, and in places worse than the B&O docks in Baltimore.  How they got some of the spurs in where they did (like the coal pocket spur diving over the canal and into the second story of a building for the NPS streetcar shop today) is a pretty cool basis for modelling.  This building does look like a typical Lowell/Massachusetts textile mill to me. 

PM or email me if you need Lowell photos, there's actually a lot left up there if you know where to look.

[Ian MacMillan]

Its actually a modgepodge of all my favorite mill towns. Mostly influenced by Lawrence and Manchester.

[randgust]

Well, at least I've been to Lawrence!

I don't think that most casual visitors to Lowell realize that the 'pocket' track by the Visitors Center is actually the remnant of a B&M spur into the mill building alley, that went up there for blocks - parts of the track are still in today.   A  #4 switch (think Peco SLH) and probably a 9" curve, over top of a canal bridge that's made of a nest of girders, then down an alley so tight that two coats of paint on a car side would scrape....

http://www.railwaypreservation.com/vintagetrolley/Lowell_2_sm.JPG

And this kind of thing - the coal pocket at Boott Mills (now the shops) was equally typical.  Just nuts.   Most people think this stuff was built for the trolley and it was all originally freight track. 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Hvd_S_bMTvQ/Tj9PpTzoFHI/AAAAAAAAB5c/y6wMEGhLJm0/s1600/nhp_streetcar_entering_boott.jpg

Dive off the street, curved trestle over the canal, dive into the building, coal unloading ramp inside for the original boilerhouse.  Made for a handy elevated shop track, all inside.

With that track plan and that building, man, I couldn't resist it if it were me.  I think that the rail service into these Massachusetts mill buildings is one of the great unmodelled areas that has just never been done, right up there with the docksides, the Milwaukee beer line, all of them.

[Dave V]

Change of plans!  I'm going to investigate what it would take to convert the Middlesex Manufacturing building to the old railroad hotel in Lewistown that stood beyond the station up until 1963...

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=247628&nseq=410

It will be some radical surgery and it will probably only capture the "feel," but worth a try!

[Philip H]

Dave,
Have you seen Randy Gustafson's hotel build thread over at TB?  MIgbht gain a few nuggets of wisdom from his journey . . .

http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?141734-Scratchbuilding-the-Commercial-Hotel&highlight=railroad+hotel

[Guilford Guy]

I finally got around to working on the three kits I have. Depending how they shape up I may have to order another one or two. In any case, I've been working on a creamery/structure to hide the continuous run connection.