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.

LA Warehouse District - Freight Car Storage

Something that I have been intrigued with for a long time are some freight car storageboxes that I saw Tim Warris, of Fast Tracks, make for his CNJ Bronx Terminal layout. These were eventually added to the Fast Tracks catalog and with the Warehouse District seemingly coming closer to reality I decided to spring for a pair. The freight cars I have "finished" all seem to be suffering vary bits of damage and they need to be properly stored. So I made an initial order of 2 FreightCrates (the HO ones apparently are only sold in pairs).

And so another birthday "present" has arrived:

I don't know why but for some reason I thought these were already assembled. I was a bit dismayed to be confronted with another box of parts. Now I just need to find some time to assemble them.

On a side note I'm still contemplating shifting the local of the layout from LA to Denver. While that would mean I would need to change out my two CF-7s for something else, the rolling stock wouldn't have to change much. It gives me immediate access to the area and a lot of material than trying to recreate the patch. I would lose the curved urban canyon which has proven to be hard to work into the layout anyway and gain the very familiar elevated viaducts that go over the railyards. The emphasis would change a bit, the three Denver streets involved would be Wewatta, Wynkoop and Wazee. Seriously how could you pass those streets up?