Auxiliary buildings With a name like Dunellen Coal & Lumber I couldn’t neglect the lumber yard. For the covered lumber racks, I used an Atlas Lumber Yard kit built with no modifications other than leav- ing the sign off the roof peak and filing the roof surface flat so I could apply masking tape tar paper. I did add addi- tional lumber supports so I could stock the racks with basswood dimensional lumber and 4′×8′ sheets of plywood. For the company office
I used a
Woodland Scenics No. 223 Gas Station. Instead of using the kit roof, I made one from .060″ sheet styrene covered with Northeastern paper slate shingles sprayed with Floquil Grimy Black. The office has a complete interior courtesy of SS Ltd. castings and the scale from a Woodland Scenics No.231 Trackside Scale.
No self-respecting company can be without a sign, so I made one. Once again I used the graphics scanned from the Old Company’s Lehigh matchbook cover. Using the Paint program on my personal computer, I modified it to fit an 18-foot wide by 11-foot high bill- board made from .060″ styrene sheet, four 18-foot lengths of 2″×8″ styrene strip, and two 9′-6″ lengths of 6″×6″ strip. Since I wanted the billboard to be lighted, I made posts from K&S ¹₁₆″- square brass tubing. After fishing one wire from Miniatronics Model 18-C03- 10 1.5 volt, 30 mA clear bulbs through ¹₁₆″ diameter K&S tubing and solder- ing the other wire to the tubing, I bent the round tubing into a gooseneck shape and soldered this into the ¹₁₆″ square tubing with the long wire ex- tending a couple of inches out of the lower end. I added a couple of Camp- bell or Miniatronics brass lamp shades that I had painted green with a white reflective surface to finish the lights. Part of any structure building proj-
ect includes incorporating it on the lay- out. After placing the silos, office, and
lumber racks on the layout base that I had painted dirt brown, I added real sifted dirt mixed with coal dust. After spreading this mix around, straight coal dust was dusted around the silos and truck scale. I ballasted the code 55 flex track siding with dirt, as it would not have been maintained on a regular basis by the railroad. Not too much grows in coal dust, so I went easy on green ground foam and foliage. The far- ther from the silos, the more green ground foam and weeds was added. The Woodland Scenics gas station kit
included a visible gas pump, the kind that had the large glass container that showed how much gas was going to go in a car or truck’s gas tank. I added it
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
so the company trucks could be refu- eled (and also because I would love to have a full-size one to fill up our 1954 Studebaker and 1930 Model A Ford). Speaking of trucks, my Dunellen Coal & Lumber Company has a fleet of 1933 CJ Macks from Lee Town and Alloy Forms. Yes, my layout represents Dunellen in 1953, but well-maintained, 20-year-old trucks that only ran around locally could still be in daily use. The lift body on one of the CJ’s is from a Jordan Products AC Mack kit. Populating the yard with a variety of figures completed the project. Most concrete block coal silos are now long gone, but there is no reason you can’t add one or more to your layout.
55
Combined coal and lumber dealers were once common. The office for the yard is a modified Woodland Scenics gas station with a scale (above), and the portion of the lumber yard visi- ble on the layout is an Atlas kit (below). Additional details that make the scene “ring true” in- clude the signs and vehicles. The model provides one more switching spot on the layout.
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