Out in the Nevada desert at the turn of the century, most all of the engine houses and roundhouse appear to have been sheathed in corrugated iron. However it appears that out of the literally hundreds of engine house kits offered over the years almost all are all wood sheathed eastern designs. The only one I can find anyplace is the old Campbell Quincy Engine House which is one stall. Has any other company offered a simple two stall corrugated engine house in HO? I know I can always scratch build one but somehow kitbashing what I want is more satisfying to me. - Nevin
I know there was a company who made a two-stall corrugated iron engine house, made of real metal, not too long ago because I bought one of the kits back in the nineties. I model Minnesota iron ore lines, and many mining companies were owned by steel companies so could get iron and steel cheap, so built virtually all their buildings from metal. However I never got the kit assembled and right now I’m drawing a blank on who made it…[D)]
I think maybe around 2000 another company bought out the maker and offered it under a different name. Whoever it was offered a number of buildings in the Walthers catalogue each year. I’m thinking they were out in California as they offered things like Pacific Electric carbarn kits.
The closest kit I can think of are the one’s made by Pike Stuff with light blue corrugated sheet metal as siding. Maybe it will work for your needs…Chuck
Suydam kits were metal kits you soldiered together. They were sold to another company? They were out of CA.
I couldn’t find what I wanted so scratch built my two stall engine house with machine shop added to one side.
The company that makes the blue buildings in sheet metal? Can’t think of their name, they still make kits for engine houses, single and two stall I think.
Good luck,
Bob
Pike Stuff makes modern steel sheathed engine houses. The are nice but definitely about 60 years too modern. - Nevin
You can use that kit as a starting point and de modernize it to suit your needs. Might be easier than a total scratch build?
Bob
Alpine Division Scale Models makes those steel buildings.
http://www.alpinemodels.com/page/page/2762608.htm
They produce their kits in batches, so they don’t always have the same ones in stock.
Pikestuff.
http://www.rixproducts.com/pikestuff_listing.htm
These are a more modern style.
Why not build a wooden enginehouse from a kit, and sheath it with corrugated iron? That happened to 1:1 structures.
Alpine Division Scale Models now produces some (most? all?) of the structure kits formerly offered by E. Suydam. Here’s a link to their website:
http://www.alpinemodels.com/index.html
I see that their only current offering in corrugated metal related to the OP is an extra stall kit for a roundhouse: http://www.alpinemodels.com/catalog/item/2762608/2379869.htm. I assume that Suydam once produced a roundhouse kit in metal (Kit #8?) and for some reason, Alpine only sees fit to produce the extra stalls to add on to the original kit. Certainly, you could call or e-mail them to find out more. If they can’t help you get your hands on the basic roundhouse kit, then I also see several Suydam kits offered on eBay right now. A little patience might turn up an original kit #8 on that site.
Of course, this all presumes that you are looking for a corrugated metal roundhouse. If you actually want an engine house, with two or three parallel stalls, I don’t see anything like that offered by Alpine. Frankly, you may need to bite the bullet and go with scratchbuilding. I’ve done this before by building a basic box out of cardstock, styrene, or foamcore, then laminating corrugated siding to the box. For siding, I have used Campbell corrugated metal, I have made my own out of aluminum foil burnished against a sheet of Evergreen corrugated styrene sheet, and I have also used the corrugated aluminum colored cardstock produced by Alpione Division. All have worked well.
One more alternative you might consider would be to purchase one of the kits you mentioned for a wooden enginehouse that has the proportions you like, assemble it, then cover it with corrugated siding material. Face it, that’s what
I have a curious kit from something called Graham Farish which has a styrene shell over which–after cutting out the required openings–one would lay on printed self adhesive paper to make a trainshed. The one I found was for a wooden one but apparently they made one representing a steel trainshed.
The only other one besides the pikestuff version which, I think, one can backdate, would be to check out something like Clever Models.
That would be a good choice there as many western versions did just that as well—and you can use Clever Models self adhesive paper to cover the shell then.
Which reminds me----
PL:
They still produce the roundhouse kit, as well as many others not currently listed, but like many small MRR mfrs, they are a batch producer, and they rotate the kits into production frequently, depending on what they think will sell. “Currently out of stock” there doesn’t mean “discontinued”. They may have a catalog available. That’s why it’s a good idea to check with distributors, who may have some from the most recent production run.
In this case, the run of roundhouse kits sold out before the extra-stall kits did. 
I know that Campbell makes one.
You can use the thick gap-filling super-glues to put together. I also used some extra wood interior bracing. You can sometime find these kits at RR swap meets at a fairly good price as people buy these kits & then “fear” the thought of trying to solder them together. Now these kits have very little detail…I am using one as a Machine Shop & have made it longer by making it a backgound building using a section of foam board for the rear roof.
Years ago I built the Suydam roundhouse,with extra stalls ,What a learning experience lol seeing as I was not exactly adept at soldering It turned out pretty well I thought.
Dug around in my photo albums and found this picture taken in 1984/85, sure wish now I hadn’t sold it but maybe its still out there on someones layout doing what it was meant to do.
What I bought was a two-stall enginehouse, not a roundhouse. I don’t think it was Suydam. If anyone has a c.1995 Walthers catalogue you could check it out. IIRC it did come in a dark yellow box, about like CNW “English stagecoach” yellow.
Could it be CALIFORNIA MODEL COMPANY or something like that??
I was lucky enough to obtain a few of the Suydam/California roundhouse kits over the years. I have a few of the roundhouse 3 stall kits and also the 3 stall addition kits.
I am hoping to construct one roundhouse with addition one my main level and one day another on a planned upper level sometime in the near future.
These metal kits are a bit lacking in detail by today’s standards but you can add a lot of detail by replacing or making new windows etc.
Thankfully, these kits do not need to be soldered. The new metal glues work great.
I have been collecting a number of the Suydam metal kits and have been able to obtain most of what has been offered over the years. Especailly interesting is their metal sawmill kit.
A follow-up: A web search for California Model Company shows there was such a company, apparently at least some of their kits are now produced by Alpine. Could it be CMC was a link between the two - that is, maybe at some point California Model Co. took over making the old Suydam kits, and now Alpine has taken over from CMC??
BTW while looking I found this interesting store / website:
I believe Graham Farish was a British manufacturer of UK prototype scale stuff. I beleive they are now a division of Bachmann, who makes a fairly extensive line of UK OO and N products.
Builders In Scale is making a new laser cut wood 1 and 2 stall engine houses that looks really sharp. I have thought about buying one of those and covering it with corrugated foil. It would look pretty good. c the only problem is that the wood siding is really nice with nail holes and all and it seems a shame to cover it with the metal siding. - Nevin
I built my partially covered engine house for a Miami layout, but then never finished or used it. There was a Model Railroadernd book on engine houses and service facilities a I patterned this one after one that was in the book with some incorporation of a upper bunk house within the facility.
California Model bought Suydam which in turn was bought by Alpine Division. Any of their products may be found here and there under any of the 3 names.