LA Warehouse District - Building a FreightCrate from Fast Tracks

I'm still waiting for the ends for the interior box of the one of my FreightCrates but I figured I could build the one that I have everything for and see how it goes together.

I followed the directions and started with the top. As suspected with hardboard tops and bottoms of this size there is a it of a warp to those big pieces. Nothing out of the ordinary and it was fairly easily dealt with. I did have problems with the top, mostly because I tried to glue the whole thing up at once rather than work my way around. Certainly no fault on Fast Tracks part. The only thing I would call out here, and it is certainly obvious, is that anything white facing (and I'm not sure what its coated with) will be on the outside and any "unpainted" bits are going to be on the inside.

The bottom is a bit trickier because of the locks that hold the lid in place. Really you just have to make sure that you keep that area free of glue and it goes together quite nicely. Figure about an hour to build your first Crate and 30-40 minutes to build the second and any subsequent ones you might have.

I have been continuing to mull over a change in location for the LA Warehouse district. The more I delve into the Denver LoDo district the more intrigued I have become. A big plus is that its easily accessible and most of the major buildings are still there although they have been renovated and converted into other things. Changing to Denver would allow me to anchor one end on Cherry Creek so I could build a couple of bridges and of course use the infamous Denver viaducts as scenic dividers. The trackage I'm focusing on at this point lies south of the Denver Union station on Wynkoop and Wewatta streets. In these areas vehicles and the railroads shared the street so there are some quite chaotic looking pictures out there. Pictures of the area do seem few and far between so I'll need to do some serious digging for photos from the 60's and 70's. I'm trying to dig up the Sanborn Insurance Maps for the area as well, but but DPL doesn't have them in digital form yet so it looks like a trip to the main library is in order.

With the bubble wrap in place this is a seriously tight fit. These freight cars aren't moving.

Locked and loaded, ready to be moved and stored. The only thing missing at this point is the two little tabs that glue on the top. You can just make out one of the locations just to the left of the FreightCrate name on the box top.