Company houses

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hi,

I’m considering scratch building some appalachian mining town company houses. But I would need some drawings/plans for them so as to get some important dimensions and so on. Anyone knows of a site where that is available or have any other links with good info of these?

Thanks,

Magnus

2

Try here:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/archives/avery/greene/html/subs/NYDA89-F641.html

And scroll down a bit on this website

http://www.buffalocreekandgauley.com/STRUCTURES/DUNDON/BradleysHouse/BradleysHouse.html

Branchline Trains, American Model Builders, and City Classics are among those that offer company houses in HO by the way.

Dave Nelson

3

Rix makes some small houses that are just about spitting images of the mill company houses where I grew up. It’s not a mining town, but similar.

Edit

Link didn’t work. But you could try street images on googlemaps for Lockhart SC.

4

All you need to do is think simple, four walls a couple of widows on each side and maybe a porch with clapboard siding. I used Evergreen clapboard siding for exactly what your doing and smooth styrene covered with light grade emery paper to make it look like a cheap roll roof. Railroads were now for their extravagance when it came to housing their employees but spent it all on themselves instead.

5

Thanks for the links and sugestions. I’m gonna see if I can find some clapboard. Anyone knows of any MRR magazine with drawing in them?

Magnus

6

There’s two that I have in my library: RMC November 1982 issue has one made of clapboard with a porch, and Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette March/April 2006 has a narrow one, same construction, from the Mount Union brickworks.

7

I did a search on Walthers for company house (a couple of ‘company’ items also slipped in)
http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?category=Structure&scale=H&manu=&item=&keywords=company+house&words=restrict&instock=Q&split=30&Submit=Search

Shotgun houses are also common in mining areas
http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?category=Structure&scale=H&manu=&item=&keywords=shotgun&words=restrict&instock=Q&split=30&Submit=Search

These may give you some ideas. Evergreen Styrene and Northeastern make clapboard sheets in styrene or wood

8

Like Allegheny, I took this same route with 4 company cabins I built. I just drew up some sketches after looking at a few pictures on the web - trying to get something that felt like the right size. I cut out the sketch to fold into a sample to see if the size was right. I did want a single story, simple cabin as opposed to two story houses like some companies built, so these were pretty simple and easy to consider an experiment.

I made these from scribed basswood with stripwood for posts and railings. The floor and roof is photo mounting board with some basswood stiffeners. The porch floor is a slab of siding attached to the front. Windows and doors are commercial. Roof material is masking tape cut into long strips and slit to look like shingles. Other than the doors and windows, all 4 houses probably cost 5 bucks - so if it turned out badly I could save the doors and windows and start over.

Here’s a shot of them in place. I made a template to drill the holes for the pilings. Oh - one other commercial part - the stairs! I think it’s from Plastruct, with basswood posts and stringers. That was after several attempts to make stairs!

Projects like this are great for scratchbuilding.