INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT - 4 - ROSBORO LUMBER-1

As I fill in the industrial base of Springfield, I have come at last to Rosboro Lumber.  Rosboro has been in business in Springfield since 1940 and is still going strong.  Rosboro occupies a large stretch of land on the north side of the tracks at Springfield and figures in many photos of the area.  

I took a number of photos seven years ago of Rosboro from the south side where a public road parallels the tracks.  This perspective matches operator and viewer perspectives of this area on my railroad.  Fortunately, I could augment these trackside views with an aerial view published in the Springfield Chamber of Commerce book I have used for other industries and a satellite view via Google Earth.  These will help as I develop some of the structures deeper into the facility, including the main saw mill and boiler house.

Main bow-roof loading shed at the east end of the Rosboro facility.

Rosboro loading sheds from the west.  The three stacks of the boiler house poke up from the middle of the facility.

Additional warehouse and loading sheds with another mill structure within its midst. The tall dust/chip blower is on the roof of this additional mill.

On my model railroad, Rosboro occupies a site within the turn-back loop at the end of the Springfield peninsula.  This is a very prominent location, immediately seen upon entry to my layout space.  Unfortunately, this means I must deal with curved tracks where the prototype features long straight tracks.  Fitting within the track curves and typically limited space on a model railroad results in an industry model that is more "inspired by" rather than a direct "model of."

Site for my Rosboro Lumber model.  This prominent location is at the end of the Springfield peninsula on my railroad.

I began my modeling effort with a representation of the long lumber loading sheds which parallel the mainline and span over one of the Rosboro spur tracks.  I was immediately faced with selectively compressing these sheds to something much shorter.  I chose to model three major components:  the large bow-roofed main shed at the geographic east end of the facility, the low covered loading shed over the rail spur alongside that larger building, and the clerestory roof structure at the other (geographic west) end.

I will be using more photo texture from Clever Models computer files.  I purchased their Texture Collection Vol. 1 for this project, using various wood siding textures.  http://clevermodels.squarespace.com/catalog-pg-25x/

I initially contemplated doing a simple foam core mock up, but quickly decided I could fairly easily face such mock-up walls with printed photo texture.  That led to my going directly to the "final" construction.  

Test fit of loading shed elements.  The bow-roof building is nearly complete.  The side loading shed roof trusses are laid out beside it and the larger roof trusses for the clerestory roof building have been assembled into a roof framework. This location test shows that chip gondolas can roll past the extended corner at the bend in the clerestory roof shed.

I will describe construction of the loading sheds further in a subsequent post.  Further posts will cover other elements of the Rosboro Lumber complex as I model them.  Although this post seems "incomplete" to me--I usually post on completed projects or structures--I recognized a need to show what I have been doing during the current challenging at-home time.  Roof trusses take a lot longer to build than I remember...