W
hile looking over the October 2013 issue of RAILROADMODEL CRAFTSMAN, I noticed some-
thing in an article featuring the HOn3 modeling of Grant Knowles and his C&S Como roundhouse scene. The arti- cle was written by David Steer and de- scribed the steps Grant used to create his impressive roundhouse complex. Everything in the scene was meticu- lously detailed, but what caught my eye was a little structure that I thought would look right at home on my Sn3 Cimarron & Tall Timbers Railroad. It was a low, two level, corrugated metal covered rack erected to store long sec- tions of steam engine boiler flues. The four supporting posts appeared to be fabricated from individual pieces of lumber, probably 2″×8″ boards or planks,
laminated face-to-face with
spaces designed into each post for short sections of rail to be passed
MODEL PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
Scratchbuilding a boiler flue storage rack
A sturdy addition to a steam engine servicing facility/Tom Troughton
through. Every post had two sections of rail per level for a total of four sections each. The upper level appeared to be about 16″ above the lower one. I esti- mated that the flue pieces sitting on the upper rack would be about eye lev- el for a six-foot tall workman. The rail sections looked like they were about six to eight feet long.
Before actually starting on my S scale version, I needed to gain some knowledge about boiler flues and tub- ing sizes.
After doing some Internet searches for boiler flue pipe lengths and e-mails between several Sn3 modeling friends, I discovered that the flues between the sheets for K-36 engines were 16′-0″ long and those in K-37’s were 14′-3″. Because I normally run both types of locomotives, I decided to use 16′-0″ as the maximum length of my model flues. If the engine house crews needed shorter flues, they could cut them from the 16′-0″ pieces.
The roof over the rack should be slightly longer than the longest flue but somehow my model ended up being 15′-0″ long, probably because I was us- ing the 14′-3″ dimension. The accompa- nying line drawing was modified to cor- rect my construction mistake. Sometimes, shorter lengths of flue
58
©HART CORBETT: DURANGO, CO ; JULY 28, 1960
The author’s flue rack (top) is located next to the car repair shed. This gives the shop crew easy access to the flue pieces when they need them. The D&RGW flue rack in Durango (above) was large. Note the two measuring sticks leaning against the rack. One is horizon- tal and the other is vertical. Each is five feet long with alternating black and white sections.
tubes would be used to support the lengths of rail, but I didn’t include that detail in my version. The rack is about 8′-0″ high from ground to the peak of the corrugated covered roof.
All the stripwood used in this project was cut with a miniature table saw
and colored with a shoe dye and alco- hol stain solution. If further coloring was needed, a wash of Polly Scale Grimy Black paint and water was added with a soft bristled brush. To make the four supporting posts, I cut scale 5″×12″ stripwood from larger
JUNE 2014
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