LA Warehouse District - Setting the Scene - Practice Bujilding

I went ahead and ordered the DV Ros & Co. Building from ITLA Scale Models. Its basically a smaller practice building flat with a blank backwall. Just to explore their kitbashing possibilities I added in two Bricked Modular Wall Kits, one for the side and one to replace the kit's blank wall. Just taking a quick look at everything I'm pleased with the purchase and the delivery out of Canada was pretty quick as well. Here is a quick look at the components:

As it comes in all sealed up in plastic

Instructions are pretty straight forward

I have read through the instructions on how the brick is painted and I'm not sure I'm a fan. I liked the latest ones from Monster Modelworks but until the sale finishes off I can't get to those anymore. I'll have to see if I wrote down the steps in the blog the last time I worked on the brick factory.

The DV Ross building components. Again pretty straight forward and it looks good. It doesn't have quite the detail that Monster has on their brickwork but I'm not convinced that its really necessary in HO scale either.

The modular kit to replace the back wall

Certainly looks like it comes with everything you need.

And the modular kit for the sides. I could either swap these out with the existing walls or add them and get a square building. Still mulling the possibilities on that.

LA Warehouse District - Setting the Scene - Starting off

I have the track plan pretty much complete at this point. I did a variation that added a couple of more sidings but decided against it in the end. I'm not sure how well the original is going to work and I figured there really isn't a reason to make it more complicated, so I discarded that. I'll show off the trackplan when I finish making it pretty.

In the meantime I decided that I needed to set the scene a bit so I'll be constructing a few buildings to get a feel for how everything is going to look. Since I have the dimensions on the Monster Modelworks factory I started with that. I'm rather pleased with this quick little effort so I'll continue on with that as I try to break through my block on the Sledgehammer diorama.

Make a fold together model. Had to think about the little two story section on the left to keep it as simple as possible.

All folded up, not to bad.

And my initial thoughts on location  for this building.

Dressed up with a little brick paper from Clever Models.

LA Warehouse District - More Potential Warehouse Buildings

I spent a little bit of time working on the Sledgehammer project but not enough to really record at this point. Right now I'm just trying to get back in the zone on that particular project. But in the meantime I could distract myself some more with the LA Warehouse District.

I flipped through the entire selection of Walther's Cornerstone series buildings and I found a few more that will probably work well, but I really wanted something with more character. Quite frankly I'm really missing Monster Modelworks at this point. Hopefully someone bought that business and it will be coming back soon. But in the meantime I found another company with a similar product in the pages of Model Railroad Hobbyist, ITLA Scale Models. They manufacture lasercut MDF buildings with all the brick character of those produced by Monster. On top of that they are very configurable so a single building can be built in multiple configurations. They are a bit on the expensive side and they don't have the plethora of extra bits yet but I'm intrigued enough to order their "starter" building and give them a try.

Here are a few photos off their website ITLA

This is one of their modular panels.

Could be built as a 4 walled structure or as a low relief flat.

The Allstate Manufacturing Company. Shown here as long low relief flat or configurable to be build in either a left or right hand "L". The long side would still be low relief.

Extension D, can stand along or be added to the All State Manufacturing building for extra length

A set of three low relief buildings, that allows you to swap the locations of the buildings within the group on the integral foundation.

LA Warehouse District - Potential Warehouse Buildings

I was browsing through the few HO kits that I have and deciding if they fit the "look" that I would like to achieve with the LA Warehouse District. What I have are two kits from Monster Modelworks (if you know who bought this company and when they will re-open let me know).  Those are both in, they have the brick detail that I like and is at least reminiscent of the brick buildings that make up the "Patch". The other four background kits I have are from Walthers and I'm on the fence about those. I would probably be better off utilizing the Woodland Scenics modular brick panels (or is that DPM, one of those guys anyway). I want that older turn of the century brick era brick work that has survived into the 70's. Maybe what I need to try is Mindheim's photo building technique.

I think the only real issue here is that door locations. Those aren't even set for 40' freight cars, let alone 50 footers. Going back to Lance Mindheim philosophy what is important is the number of spots available on a siding. Ideally doors would be set at a distance apart that would allow a freight car to be spotted directly in front of it. Now based on age you could see doors set for freight cars running from 30' up to more modern lengths. My thought would be that doors could be set for 40' freight cars at a minimum as there was still a good mix of both 40' and 50' lengths in the 1970s.

I love this building, now I have the incentive to actually finish it. The only flaw is that a viewer will not be able to see the back side of the building. That could be corrected by setting it at an angle rather than parallel which would probably be a good thing in the long run. I'll have to explore that possibility next, especially since the back section will be dead straight.

I have this one, but I'm not thrilled with it, the look is a bit to modern and there is not nearly enough brick. And for its length it only has two car spots. This seems to be pretty common with these Walther background kits. At least this one has 3 options for the length.

This one is better, and with the height it would make a nice view block, extending well above the eye level of the layout. Again it suffers from only have two car spots when it could easily have accommodated three.

I really like this one, for some reason the covered unloading area really appeals to me although there is nothing like it in the original "Patch" area. But style wise it would fit and there were covered areas like this in the area that were rail served. Has two spots and its about the right length for that.

This is a nice little building but it is long enough for two spots and only has one. Most of the Walther kits seemed to be designed for truck traffic than rail traffic sometimes.

LA Warehouse District "The Patch" - Variant 2

I spent lunch working on the Osterweil design this time with #5 turnouts. Not only was I able to get everything to fit in the 8' length (barely) I was able to add an extra siding on the left side as well. The issue with that siding is I don't really have a good lead to it and would have to use Industry Siding C (which I can't increase in length) as a lead. Based on that, I'm not sure its worth adding. Leaving it off would also allow me to condense the depth to about 15". Now that I know I can make something fit with the #5 turnouts I can play around with the design a bit and so what else I might be able to do.

Variation 2 which allows a bit more separation of the turnouts and quite a bit of room to work with down in the lower right.

LA Warehouse District "The Patch" - Starting Over

I definitely have to many projects spinning around in my head. Sometimes I just need to take some time from one project and visit another, however briefly, just to clear my head. In this case I'm working through some issues on the Sledgehammer project and ended up cleaning up the workroom and unpacked a box of 50' boxcars for the LA Warehouse project, which, of course, got the wheels turning. While my first option would be to build the C&N first, that project has to many obstacles to overcome at the moment. The least of which seems to be getting my hands on at least one Bachmann 2-8-0. Which leads me back to the Warehouse District. One of the rooms that I had my eye on has been converted into a pottery room complete with pottery wheels and that hobby and model railroading do not mix! Where else might I be able to shoehorn a model railroad into the house?

I wandered into our "library" (a converted bedroom) and realized that the long wall actually does not have any book shelves against it. Just a tall dresser and the futon. After a brief discussion with my wife on how it could be done and how to make it look more like a long bookshelf I received permission to move forward! I decided that if I limited the length to 8' and the depth to about 18" I could build the Patch there but it would be without the signature brick canyon look or the curved entrance between the buildings (so probably can't really call it the Patch at this point). What I did decide to do was go back to a plan in Model Railroad Planning by Scot Osterweil. I have looked at this one before and I think it was originally published in Model Railroader magazine even before 2005. It reminds me a bit of Lynn Westcott's Switchman's Nightmare design.

First thing to do was modify the design a bit. The originally is designed for 40' freight cars and just about everything I have accumulated to this point is 50'. It was also built with Peco small and medium turnouts and I'm figuring to use Atlas Custom code 83 at this point from an availability stand point. Most of the track is going to be covered by "concrete" since that much of the brick canyon look I can replicate so how good the track itself looks will be almost irrelevant. I also elected to flip the plan so that the "yard lead" was on the left side rather than the right, this will make better use of the space as it will put the staging cassettes on the window side. 

I decided to start with #6 turnouts first and see what kind of length that would require. While I have more than 8' available to me, I want a good portion of the rest for the staging cassettes, that makes the 8' length hard limit. Depth at 18" is variable but probably can't go more than 20" deep. Height, at least, is not an issue. I downloaded #6 turnout template from the Fast Tracks website since those are designed from NMRA standards and can figure that it will at least be close.  Using the #6 turnouts and maintaining the siding capacities as listed I exceeded my 8' limit on length,  so the #6 experiment has come to an abrupt end. The next iteration will use #5 turnouts.

Getting there, I reduced the full size Fast Tracks template to fit my scale, a 75% reduction and it worked like a charm.

And finished. The top siding needs to hold 3 50' freight cars and needs about 9' to work. If I fudge the depth a little bit (really is any parameter that set in stone?) I might be able to work in another siding on the left side but that would create a situation where a siding has to be emptied before the other siding can be switched. Maybe I can work in a crossing to make that work.

LA Warehouse District Project - Two Potential Plans

I have been messing around with paper, pencil and compass again and I managed to work through the block I was having. First I decided that no matter what else I needed that single signature scene that attracted me to the LA Warehouse District in the first place which was the CF7 emerging from between two buildings with almost no clearance on either side (and there are warning signs to that affect!). Based on the space the only real spot for that was on the left side of the layout (quite appropriate actually) and I used that to determine where things should end up.

I have found two plans that appeal to me quite a bit. The first is Keith Jordan's version of the patch and the second is Scot Osterweil's Industrial switching layout. I modified the Osterweil plan to accommodate #6 switches and 50' cars and placed it more or less in the area of the real Patch. Jordan's plan was much easier to deal with as it is a representation of the prototype. I also discovered that I had both of these plans in a special issue from Kalmbach called "How to Build Small Model Railroads" published in the winter of 2014. That made referencing the two layouts quite a bit easier. Each plan also appears in an issue of Model Railroad Planning; the 2005 edition for the Osterweil's plan and in the 2011 edition for Jordan's Patch.

I'm sure I will dink around with this a bit more but for now I feel like I made some progress.

Based on Osterweil's Industrial Switching Layout

Based on Jordan's Patch Layout. The issue with this is there is room for lots of foreground buildings but that would make it difficult to operate but I would get even more of that "brick canyon" feel.

What's on my plate

I'm thinking about making this a regular Friday post, something that will help me keep my projects in order and on track and maybe actually finish one or two of them before the end of the year. A couple of these do have real deadlines so that might help me stay on target. I'm going to sort of list these in a priority order, of course that is subject to change without notice.

1) RPG characters, finish. These are for my every other Saturday game. There are only six of them, you would think this was a slam dunk kind of thing. 1 Female Gnome Battlemage, 1 Male Dwarf Barbarian, 1 Male Dwarf Cleric (NPC, currently being played by someone interested in joining the group), 1 Female Human Rogue, 1 Male Human Cleric and 1 Male Elf Paladin. These only have to be tabletop paint jobs and are likely to see rough use. I would like to have these done for the next game so I have a week at this point.

2) SAGA Norman army, get started. These are the Perry Miniatures which are all prepped and just need to be mounted for painting and primed. I want to enter these in the army painting competition for Genghis Con XXXIV in February of 2013. So they are to get my best efforts. There are 87 miniatures here so I do need to get moving. I think rather than my normal assembly painting style I'm going to paint these up by SAGA points which should let me concentrate on just a small set of figures at a time. So 4 mounted Knights, 8 armored Spearmen, 8 Crossbows, 12 Archers or a single character. For the characters I plan on mounted and dismounted versions of the warlord plus a couple of small character vignettes.

3) SAGA Norman army, repair and touch-up. These are the Gripping Beast Miniatures which make a fine wargame army. Unfortunately some repair is necessary after they were returned to me. I have some new steel lances on the way to replace the cast pewter ones so those will become more survivable (and slight more dangerous to your opponent since they are actually quite sharp). I found some Gripping Beast crossbows to replace the two missing ones and I'm going to take a shot at sculpting a couple of tails to replace the missing ones on the horses (I think there are two missing tables). A little touch-up work after that and this will be an army to be proud of on the battlefield.

4) 15mm British Napoleonics, re-base and paint.  After initially being very enthused about the LaSalle rules my group has kind of soured on them. Although others may disagree they just don't have the right "feel" to them. It has nothing to do with the weird turn sequence either (I have several games I enjoy that have weird turn sequences), its like the armies are just to generic and don't really seem to behave the way you expect them to behave. I can't really explain it better than that. So I'm mounting these up for Napoleon at War. This will let me use them for Napoleon's battles as well. The bases are a bit larger than Napoleon's Battles but pretty close. I have remounted one infantry unit (74th Highlanders, non-kilted) and started another last night (88th Connaught Rangers). These are mounted on six stands of four for a total of 24 figures which means I have 8 figures left over from each LaSalle unit I rebase. I'll have a bunch of extra center company infantry after I'm done so I guess my British infantry force is going to get a significant expansion which means I'll need more command, grenadier and light infantry minis to fill them out. Of the six stands one is grenadier, one is light, one is command (2 flags, an officer and a drummer, this counts as center company) and three center company stands. Each unit also gets two little skirmisher stands. These will be filled out mostly with regular light infantry but I'll do a proportion of them as rifles as well. Hopefully this will be the kickstart I need to actually get the artillery and cavalry done as well.

5) 15mm ACW, finish. I just need to get the union cavalry done for this army. Its never been a high priority since the union side rarely has cavalry and I have some older stuff that can be subbed in.

6) 28mm WWI USMC next unit. This has always been a side project so I'll fill it in a unit at a time as I feel like it. I have everything I need for this army now, including a couple of little FT-17s for support.

7) LoTR Helmingas finish. Originally this was going to be a display/tournament army that would have taken place last month. Unfortunately that tournament was cancelled when the organizer moved to the other side of the state for work. I have almost all the pieces for this one, the infantry component has been started and I think I have most of the cavalry component now. I'm missing two characters Eomer and Erkenbrand to finish off the army. I do intend to finish this army as I enjoy the game. There will probably be re-newed enthusiasm once the Hobbit is released.

8) Legion of the Damned 40K, acquire. This is a truly long term project and again is meant to be more of a display army than anything else. I have slowly been acquiring Legion of the Damned miniatures, both older and newer models to create an army. Now of course its not legal as an army but I'm not letting that stop me since I don't actually intend to play 40K with them. This will be a highly converted army and some of the ideas are still gelling while I acquire the various components (the cheaper the better!).

9) Genghis Con XXXIV entries. Its never to early to start on competition entries. I have all the components for my diorama and construction and painting can commence anytime now. I haven't decided on which individual piece I'll do, but I'm determined to have at least two entries in the competition this year.

10) Danish TYW in progress. Another display army for me, currently no one is playing so I don't feel rushed to get it done. My enthusiasm waxes and wanes on this one, however, I do want to get some work done on it to see my painting style mixes with the oil-wipe technique.

11) ATSF "the Patch" general work. Although construction proceeds at a snails pace it does slowly move forward as I work on rolling stock, motive power and the occasional building. The first priority there is to finish the brick freight house that I started. I found the clerestory windows that I misplaced that I need for the roof so I can get back to construction on that.

I think that's a reasonable accurate list at the moment. Of course its going to change on a whim, as other miniatures surface. I'm pretty sure that I have pirates and cowboys hidden away in drawers that would like to get painted. I'll probably add those to the list after I get my ships from the Laser Dreamworks Kickstarter and I get a look at the buildings from Battle Flag and Sarissa Precision.

So what's on your plate?

First Look Monster Model & Laserworks The Brick Freight House

I have been waiting for this package to arrive since the middle of May. Of course that's no reflection on their ability to ship its just when I pre-ordered this one. So waiting was necessary this time around. This is one packed box full of cool wood products to build, of all things, a Brick Freight House. Laser cut and scribed components and two booklets of building and weathering instructions. This should look great on my version of the Patch and I'm looking forward to diving in and putting this one together. In fact I might be putting some stuff aside to do just that. I'm haven't done a building kit in a year or so, and I'm really looking forward to putting this one together.

The Box Top

The Instruction books

The Contents Unveiled

F

Check out the serious detail on this brick!

Railroad Backlog

So yes, my trains are suffering as well. Currently one half of the ATSF Patch district has track layed but not wired. I need to figure out a way to keep the two hollow core doors tightly together. I was making good progress on rolling stock but I ran out of the Sergeant couplers that I was using. However, just last week a box  full of couplers arrived so I have no more excuses about not getting the entire fleet finished up. Its not like I have hundreds of cars, its more like 10 - 12. Oh and I would have swore that the two beer cars I got from Exact Rail were 50' and the are actually something over 60'. I'll probably just go ahead and sell those off or trade them.  I have five ATSF Reefers that need to be weathered as well as the two CF7s. I have four background building kits to get me started on the rear portion of the layout and a lot of grandiose plans in my head. Once the layout is up and in place and the track thoroughly tested things should move right along. Unfortunately I have way to many hobbies and I can't seem to give any of them up.

The other layout is in mothballs at the moment. That is my turn of the century Colorado and Northwestern RR. I'm unhappy with the track design so it came down for the time being so that it doesn't frustrate me. There are about 30 box cars and 20 short gondola cars for that along with 3 2-8-0 (Consolidation), 1 2-6-0 (Mogul) and a two truck Heisler (that really should be a three truck Climax but that was way outside of my price range). I also need to acquire a 2 truck Shay but I'll see how I feel about that.

Another Boxcar Ready

I managed to get a little bit done tonight. My competition pieces for Genghis Con are ready for primer now. One of them gave me a bit of trouble tonight, but a little green stuff went along way tonight. Since they are competition pieces though I won't be putting them up on the blog just yet. The Marines are also ready to be primed as they will be my "let's relax" stuff. What I really got done was another freight car for the railroad. Again I think I'm going to go back and add some more weathering, it just feels like to light a hand again. Maybe once I get track up and running and a structure or two I'll feel better about how they look.

Track Laying has Begun!

Part of the whole reason for this blog was to try and keep up with my model railroading which had definitely been the poor cousin lately. Well tonight I finished laying the track on one half of the layout. The pictures are awful but at least I accomplished something and the freight cars are rolling through their paces just fine. Maybe tomorrow I'll actually run one of the CF7s!

The Patch layout design, ATSF

I think my layout design has pretty much reached its final form. The design itself is taken straight from the prototype location in Los Angeles and features the railroad alley between 7th Street and Industrial Street between Alameda and Mateo.  The focal point to this area for me is the curved entrance between two brick buildings (that dates back to at least the 1920s). This features a three way turnout in the middle of Mill Street. This area is known as the warehouse district to the natives and the Patch to the AT&SF crews that switched freight cars in and out of the area. My version is set in the mid 70s, during this time it was definitely on the decline as far as rail served industries were concerned. In my world it gets to be as busy as I want it to be. Many of the original structures are still present in the area although a number of them, like Nabisco, have been turned into loft style apartments. Here is the trackplan that I developed:

Model Railroads

I have two model railroads that occupy my time, although I admit that model railroading has become the secondary hobby for me.  The oldest railroad both by date and concept is my version of the Colorado and Northwestern (C&N), a narrow-gauge railroad that ran from Boulder, Colorado to both Eldora and Ward CO. It was known as both the Switzerland Trail of America and the whiplash route. My own version is actually standard gauge rather than narrow gauge as I discovered that my favorite parts of the hobby did not involve building freight cars from scratch or from kits. The setting for the railroad is Gold Hill CO on the line between Boulder and Ward set in about 1904. My newest railroad is the AT&SFand moves us much farther forward in time to 1975 or so and is set in the warehouse district of Los Angeles, more specifically an area known as the "Patch". Keith Jordan's model work and Robert Smaus' pictures captured my imagination and so my version of the patch is coming into being this year. I'm hoping to start laying track and building structures in the next few weeks.

This is an archive photo I think I pulled from the Los Angeles City Library. The large building in the center is the Walnut Exchange building. The building with the pyramid shaped skylights is Phillips Poultry and across the street from Phillips Poultry is the area where the track curves in between the two brick buildings. The Nabisco building would be in the direction of the bottom right of the photo. In this photo a steam engine is between the curved walled buildings.The main area that I'm modeling runs parallel to 7th Street between the Walnut Exchange and Phillips Poultry. The entire area is known as the Patch and there is a lot of it that you can't see in this photo. The street in front is 7th Street and the cross street is Mill Street. The other street running parallel to 7th Street is Industrial Street.