As my railroad “seasons in”
(roadbed and track acclimate to my basement), I finally have cleared enough of
the “critical” projects to begin working on the railroad scene. First up is some “urban renewal” in
Eugene. From very early on in the
construction process, I have had structure kit walls taped together and propped
up in appropriate locations for the downtown rail customers at Eugene. I have begun assembling those buildings into
their permanent form.
The first building tackled
was the Rubenstein’s Furniture store, just down from my Eugene Depot. I began with a Walthers Hardwood Furniture
kit, 933-3044. Walthers Cornerstone
structures often reflect Walthers’ Milwaukee, Wisconsin, location. Their structures tend to reflect larger
structures in older, more established cities.
My needs are more modest.
Although Portland has similar structures, most of Oregon was built in
the Twentieth Century and to more modest scale.
Even for Eugene, Oregon’s second largest city, most structures were no
more than three stories high. I needed
to cut down the Walthers kit from four to three stories. I also wanted to lengthen the building, as
Rubenstein’s was a major Eugene retailer—longer, not higher. Fortunately, the column and panel
architecture of the Walthers kit lent itself to cutting and splicing.
Walthers Hardwood Furniture
kit cut apart for removing one story and lengthening.
My Rubenstein’s Furniture
occupies a niche corner formed by a basement wall and the backdrop spine behind
Eugene. Indeed, the large structure is
intended to mitigate the visual impact of the wall corner and termination of
the backdrop. This location means none
of the rear wall is visible. I could use
both long walls of the kit to form the front (visible) wall while blanking the
back and rear side wall. I used the
second side wall as part of the back wall, as just a bit of daylight shows
through the corner windows.
I used large sheets of
Evergreen styrene to create walls and floors.
I also needed to extend the roof.
I removed the kit’s center entrance panel, intended as the main public
entrance in the kit. That still provided
four window panels to add to the five panels from the other long wall of the
kit. Floor support strips provided wall
stiffeners. I chose to add floors to my structure
for the visual effect. This structure
has very large windows, so various forms of view block are appropriate. I chose the floors to provide both view
blocks and building strength and alignment.
Assembly involved fitting the
pieces back together and generally following Walthers intended assembly. I installed one intermediate floor as I built
the structure to provide some strength as I handled the structure for painting
and window and door installation. With
windows installed, I installed the remaining floors and the blind end
wall. The roof was added and then its details.
A significant new material
greatly assisted me through construction.
Noted Southern Pacific historian and modeler Tony Thompson has been
singing the praises of canopy glue for some time. Tony uses it to attach painted surfaces and
dissimilar materials. This was my first
opportunity to give it a try. I am very
satisfied. I used Pacer Industries Formula
560 glue. This has the appearance of
white glue but is much better with adhesive properties on non-porous materials
such as the kit styrene. As the name
implies, it is marketed to the scale model airplane market for attaching
canopies to fuselages. It seems to be much
tougher than an earlier, similar material, Microscale KrystalKlear. It certainly holds large painted structure
pieces together well.
As I completed assembling my
structure, I found I needed to raise the foundation to the same level as the
track roadbed for the spur leading into the building. A bit more cork roadbed was glued down so
plate C boxcars can enter.
Furniture structure
foundation.
Though major assembly is
complete, I still have a bit of detail to work on, notably the water
tower. I partially assembled the tower
and gave it a generic paint job, pending a decision about signs and color or
weathering scheme on this device. I also
will need to weather the building and settle it into its scene, but that awaits
a more general project on the roads and ground treatments in the depot
area. For now, I literally have a
cornerstone of my Eugene downtown scene.
Rubenstein’s Furniture with
major assembly complete.
While I awaited glue setting
on the furniture store, I tackled another building in the Eugene depot scene—Pierce
Freight. Pierce Freight was a freight
forwarder, still active into the 1950’s and 60’s. It still showed on the Southern Pacific SPINS
diagram for downtown Eugene in 1977. I
chose another Walthers Cornerstone kit for my rendition of Pierce Freight—the REA
Transfer Building, kit 933-3095. This
kit already fit my three-story high goal, but it needed to be longer. It also occupies a sliver of space between
its track spur and the backdrop. I
needed to both lengthen the kit and cut down its depth. Once again, I created a blank back wall and
used the former second long wall to lengthen the structure. I chose to add two bays to the standard four
bays.
Construction was very similar
to the furniture store. The kit walls
were cut and spliced as needed. The end
walls were cut to the desired depth and the roof cut to that depth. Once again,
I needed to extend the roof, easily accomplished with more styrene sheet. The original kit has skylights that would be
split in the aft sections, but not at the halfway point. The extended roof could not use the trimmed
skylight pieces. Instead, I added part
of an elevator housing and a air conditioning unit on the new blank roof extension.
Freight transfer building
wall sections prepared for splicing.
Rough-assembled freight
transfer building
Rear view of rough-assembled
freight transfer building showing floors and extended and trimmed roof.
I chose to paint this brick
structure white, as that is what the one photo I have showing a piece of the
building indicates. I used Rustoleum
rattle spray cans for painting both structures.
They have quite a selection of paints, likely close chemical cousins to
the old Floquil line of hobby paint—owned by the same corporation.
Pierce Freight in place with
major construction complete.
I am happy finally to add
substance to my Eugene scene. I will
continue to flesh out the structures here and elsewhere around the layout.
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