I'd been looking to add a feature to White Haven mimicking one of the automotive maintenance shops in town. (This all started when I decided to include the large retaining wall on the north end of town - see that blog entry if you want to see the origination of this effort). Currently, there's one on the corner of Towanda and Berwick Streets - it's really nothing more than a barn that's been converted to handle auto repair work.
I thought about maybe scratch-building something, but the area I have on my layout at the same intersection isn't going to allow for anything big.
Coincidentally, I'd been looking for engine maintenance shops like the one that's been converted to a library in White Haven. It's a stone building that used to house the helper engines necessary to get freight trains up from White Haven to Wilkes Barre. I couldn't find anything on the web, so I cracked open an old Walthers catalog and I ran across a company that makes buildings, but they're all made from paper! You buy the files online, and using your laser printer, you generate all of the parts onto cardstock, cut them out, fold them and glue them together. Cleverly, their company is called Clever Models, and one of their many kits caught my eye - it's a simple small garage, and on the side of it in faded lettering on brick was "Welding and Fabrication". I thought it would be perfect for White Haven. Another nice thing about Clever Models is that their files are really reasonable on price. For $4.95 I got the files and enough extras to build a nice kit.
One of the items that the company really recommends is a "gap-filling" CAA adhesive. It's a super glue that's perfect for joining cardstock and it really works well - but I didn't have any. I ordered a small bottle in early December and then the Postal Service imploded for Christmas and no one got their stuff on time. However, on New Year's Eve I did get my bottle. I was waiting for some stuff to dry on the Interstate 80 project, so I decided to try my hand at the garage. I probably spent 3 or 4 hours, and there were some growing pains and things to learn, but I'm really happy with the final result (added a genuine PA Inspection Station keystone to the side of it), and it fits really nicely in the space available on the layout. Eventually I'll add some hulks of cars and some junk and I think it'll work out nicely! Good little side project, and I hope to find some other Clever model products to use on my layout!
And it's a few weeks later and I have had some more fun with paper - specifically with another Clever Models kit - this time a small "company house". From the initial picture, I didn't think it would be much more complex than the Brick Garage, but I was wrong. Making steps, gutters, chimneys and railings from paper is a challenge!
This all started because the small off-white, green and maroon house in the picture above was impinging on my area for a road through White Haven. I needed a house that wouldn't take up as much room - hence another download from Clever Models. It was actually the second option I pursued - I had a Laser Etched Kit, another small "Company House" from American Model Builders. I put that one together over a couple of nights last week, painted it up and tried it for size, but it wasn't quite small enough and didn't have the bones I wanted for the parsonage next to the church. One of the Clever Models options for their Company House was a green lap siding (there's also a red, blue and beige asphalt siding that I may use for a house later and is really cool for this kit).
So, without further ado, here's a picture of the same shot from above, but with the new positions for the new additions....
.... and here's a closeup of what I'm now calling The Parsonage. Looks like the congregation might want to put a little bit more money in the basket - it's a little on the rough side.
Moving this a little closer to the church will now allow me for a full 2-lane road running north from Berwick Street. I'm going to be doing some road work in the next several weeks, so it's good to get this ironed out.
And here's a picture of the finished lot with the parsonage in place.
In the months that have followed completion of the parsonage, I've been a frequent visitor to the Clever Models website and have bought a few more items for White Haven. The first of those was a yard shed that I converted into a Treehouse (see the blog entry for "The Robinson's Treehouse". In that case I kitbashed using the main body of the yard shed and then added a supporting structure underneath and a balcony that ran around two sides of the yard shed.
I also purchased the 8' fence kit and used it to fence in one of the properties close to the track which you can read about in the "White Haven is taking shape" blog entry. I'm really starting to see the value of these paper kits from Clever Models. They are inexpensive, have a lot of character and can be adapted to a lot of needs. The other nice thing about them is that if you think you can build a better version of something you've finished you need merely turn on your printer and print out another copy and assemble it.
This weekend I also completed an oil and a fuel tank that will fit in nicely with the upcoming auto shop lot that goes with the first paper building I assembled (the brick garage).
Another nice feature of the Clever Models website is that after every 300 purchases made on the site, the creators add something to their "Freebies" section. One of those things is a small oil shed (which also has the oil and fuel tanks shown above. I decided to build that and put it on the garage lot along with the other junk. Picture below.
There was also a nice leftover from the treehouse project (the Yard Shed). It was a long bin in that kit which I thought would fit nicely with the original shop. Cut it out and glued it together. Photo below.
...and there's more fun with paper for the garage site. I decided that a trailer up on cinder blocks would fit right in with the owner. He's recently divorced and he's moved into the trailer. Clever models again has the perfect kit for that and I put it together over a couple of nights. Picture below (junkyard dog is on top of his house. I need to apply some more paint details to him):
I've also gone ahead and bought a brick building to be used as a substitute for the engine shed. (This blog is coming full circle - the original exploration for building kits was generated by my desire to see if there was anything out there like the White Haven Engine House). Clever had some engine sheds, but they were either wood or steel-sided (either too old or too new). I've decided that instead of storing engines to push freight up the mountain, this'll be a maintenance building for this section of the railroad. More on that as I get time to put it together, but it's a really nice model - bigger than any paper model I've put together to date.
And here it is on my desk - more or less assembled.
The kit gives you an option to add a shed extension on one side and a water tank on the roof. The space I have available doesn't work for the shed, and while I like the look of the water tank, the engineer in me thinks that there wouldn't be enough roof structure in the design to support the massive tank full of water. I like realism - the water tank was not built. I can see a water tank would be useful in the steam age, and there might have been one on site at some point, but not poised on top of the roof. Assembly took about a week. By far the toughest paper kit I've put together. I'm getting better, but as usual, I could probably now do a better job putting another one together after spending a week on this one. That's the beauty of these kits, though. I can always print out another set of parts and try to make a better one - all it takes is ink, paper, glue and time - I already have purchased the rights to print out as many as I want.
The Lehigh Valley Railroad sign I pulled from an old LV add - thought it was a cool touch. To give you an idea of the look and feel of the original engine house, I've included a current shot of it as the White Haven Library... You can see the LV (now Norfolk Southern) mainline on the left of the picture. I'd imagine there was a switch up to the left that broke out into five tracks, each which entered the building where there are now glass windows. Instead of locomotives, people enter now. As the story goes, part of the building close to the tracks was damaged by a derailment. I haven't found a similar structure, so the "brick machine shop" is going to substitute. I'll get a picture when I've cleared out the space I'm planning for the building
... and then there was the question of what to do about the I-80 vehicle bridge over the Lehigh River. I'd put in the abutments for the west end of the bridge way back last year during my development of the I-80 portion that runs just south of town. My plan way back then was to eventually add at least one bridge section to give you the idea that the bridge runs high over the river (which it does), but not necessarily have the full bridge shown. So, without further ado, the prototype...
Here's the west end of the bridge pictured just below it from the old CNJ (now the rail trail):
A couple of things to look at here. First, it's a pretty standard interstate highway bridge. A concrete abutment and then secondary abutments that jut out from that main structure to support a large I-beam girder on each side. There are also supports coming off of the girder that hold the weight of the outer section of the bridge. The girder is reinforced with vertical stiffeners. Where am I going to find a girder like that? Clever models had an answer. Although their girder is rusted, I love the look of their through girder bridge:
I'm not going to use their concrete abutment, and my plan is to join two sections of these girders together to create the span I want, cut off the curved ends, and then I'll put everything upside down and inside out! Instead of the bridge surface being below the girder, the bridge will be above and the angular supports will be on the outside of the bridge not to the internals. I'll also join the two girders on the underside with some sort of paper structure to show connectiveness. I'm planning on using a freebie that's also available from Clever Models.
Here's a picture of the two bridge abutments where I'll add the bridge section:
I'll also have to add a support on this side of the tracks - more on that in a later post....
I spent a week at Folly Beach in South Carolina with the family. My wife loves the beach and can't get enough of it. A couple of hours a day for me is just fine, thank you. So, I spent some of my time that week building my first of 4 needed girders (2 for the south and 2 for the north bridge (one for each two-lane highway)). Here's a shot at the completed first girder:
And here's the girder held in approximate position to support the bridge deck:
Once I have the four girders and the connecting assembly together I'll add to this blog entry....
And here's a shot of two girder bridge beams joined together with two truss structures which I got as a "Freebie" from Clever Models - they have a lattice girder assembly that I made a bit smaller than HO gauge (45% rather than the 55% normally used for HO from O), printed out and cut out. I plan to add two more truss joiners along the length of the bridge.
The bridge is actually shown upside down in this photo. I will flip it over and put "concrete" decking (probably a section of that sign I bought for the overpass above) and then jersey walls on the outside. Jersey walls are on order...
I did some paint touchups and added the underside detail that's provided with the bridge kit (had to increase the size over O-scale to get the right width...
I then turned my thoughts to the concrete deck that's going to sit on the bridge. The "For Sale" sign that I used for the overpass was too thin (I'm going to be looking at the open end of the bridge - I'm only going to show a section of the bridge), but then I saw a piece of foam board in the corner that works much better. I cut a piece to fit, but realized I now need to touch up the foam edges (I'm going to try adding spackle), and then paint the whole thing to mimic concrete. I finished talking about the finished bridges in my "Adding the Interstate" blog entry.
It's been about a year since I put in my bridges and we made another trip down to South Carolina to laze around on Folly Beach for a week. There were a couple of days when the weather wasn't so nice, and I'd planned ahead. Brought down a Clever Models Car Barn kit. I had visions of using this as a "tunnel substitute". There's a spot going through Hazleton where my trains enter the storage area. Right now it's a hole in the backdrop, but I thought I might be able to hide it by having the trains enter this car barn and they'd disappear into storage. Good concept, but there's one problem - the car barn isn't wide enough to accommodate the curve in the track there. Still like the car barn, so I built that. But I started to think about the portion of Hazleton I want to model and I needed some dingy looking industrial buildings. Bought two more kits from Clever (Silver City Factory and Plant #2). I'm in the process of constructing the Silver City Factory Flat (it's meant to be a backdrop building and it's only about an inch and an half deep. Here is is with the sort of finished Car Barn and an incomplete Factory Flat in some potential areas in Hazleton.
I'm getting better at some of the paper construction techniques, but experience is the best honer of those. A special shoutout to my buddy at work, Mr. (Dr.) Richard Kimball who bought me an OLFA Japanese hobby knife that works very, very well on the cardstock for these kits.
The tunnel is behind the shed in the picture above. From this perspective, the trains disappear behind the building, but if you're looking down the track, you still see the "tunnel" which I'd like to completely hide or disguise. And here it is below with the 3rd floor added.
I bought two more (Plant #2 and the warehouse). Both of them are really intricate kits and each took me about 2 weeks worth of nights to put them together. I bought them for this industrial area of Hazleton, and to help plan what else will work to hide the entry into the storage area. Alone, neither does the trick. Still trying to find nirvana, but here are a couple of shots of the new buildings in different groupings.
Here's a shot I published to "Big Blue Trains" recently with Plant #2 in the background. It's a community of model railroad enthusiasts. I'm getting a kick out of sharing some of my tips and learning a few new things.
...and here's a shot of the warehouse. Closeup shots bring out your best work or some neglect...
