1.
2.
1. The walls of the house have been assembled and the Gould storefront parts have been laid out in their final configuration. The two narrow, four-light panels to the left of the door frame will form the sides of the doorway recess. This same set of castings is still available, in gray, from Grandt Line. 2. The lower portion of what will be two interior walls have been cut away up to the top of the first floor windows. The storefront has been assembled with scale 6″×6″ corner posts from strip styrene at each corner. These help to bring the storefront to nearly the same width as the house, as well as ease construction, by making it easier to glue
3.
the sections together squarely. 3. The project is beginning to show it’s final appearance. The floor of the store has been cut from .080″ sheet styrene, glued to the house foundation, and the joint reinforced with scrap sprue. The storefront assembly will be used frequently during construction, but will not be glued in place until the very end of the project. The same applies to the front porch. 4. The four walls that form the store addition have been cut from Evergreen 7¹₂″ novelty siding, shaped and glued in place. Care was taken to cut and install the siding correctly, and not up-side down. Novelty siding can be tricky.
4.
the country, except perhaps in the Southwest. Very recently, when talking with one of my friends I mentioned the project and asked him if he might be interest- ed in such a model for his layout. De- spite many years of grandiose arm- chair plans for my eventual railroad empire, in reality, when the track was finally laid a few years ago it was for a small, 2′×16′ switching layout. As a result, I don’t have room for much oth- er than industrial buildings, not even a station, so I have resorted to building models such as this for my friends. My friend Ciro’s layout, the Richmond Harbor R.R., is closely based on the North Shore operations of the Staten Island Rapid Transit, and it will show- case many of the now long-gone indus- tries that once lined the railroad. How- ever, he does have some non-industrial areas, and this structure will find a spot there. I had thought to make the store a
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
hardware store, but then decided to make it a bakery, honoring my English grandfather, who was a baker. As to how an English baker wound up in business on the once predominately Italian North Shore of Staten Island, I have no idea, but that is what he did. This is a project that you can cus- tomize to your own specs. If you wish, you can copy my work, or you can turn the house 90 degrees, or make the storefront narrower, or wider, whatever fits your needs and available real es- tate. You can even model it with a mod- ernized metal-frame window front if you wish. It is, after all, your railroad. You might also want to consider the Bates Motel House kit, from Polar Models, originally issued by Aurora Models. This is a classic Victorian man- sion which many will remember from the movie Psycho. It is small for its type, and very well executed, needing only a couple of chimneys to be com- plete. Maybe you have one of the excel-
lent laser-cut house kits that are on the market and were wondering how to fit it in to your scheme of things. Well, turn it into commercial property. You certainly don’t need to do this project in plastic.
Getting started To begin, I gathered a few things.
First, of course, was the Lancaster Farmhouse kit,
which is done to
Walthers’ usual high standards. Play- ing with the parts I found that it all fit neatly, with no gaps and nothing need- ing to be forced into position. This is much appreciated and the way kits should be made. I also got out a sheet of Evergreen HO scale 7¹₄″ novelty sid- ing, placed my box of Evergreen strips at the ready on the workbench, and then rummaged through my parts box- es and bins until I found my stash of Victorian storefront castings once made by the Gould Company (I admit to having some very old bits and pieces
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