[:D] WooHoo! I just found the two kits I needed for my layout that Walther’s had discontinued! They’re the “Ice House and Icing Platform” and the “Champion Packing House”. My layout would have to had massive redesign without them (of course it’s not built yet but…). Does anyone happen to have these structures built on their layout and would be willing to post pics? I would love to see the weathering and details done. Also, on the Ice House, it comes with an 16.5" (almost 200’ scale) platform - any thoughts on needing add-on’s?
Ray
No massive redesign needed. Just scratchbuild the structures to fit your planned layout.
Amarillo Texas ATSF icing platform, prototype pix, plans and HO modeling article, in Santa Fe Modeler 2nd Quarter 1989 p.12
HO ice plant with scale drawings including cooling tower Railroad Model Craftsman April 1970 p.40
or search Library of Congress, www.loc.gov, click on American Memory to search for historic prototype plans.
This does not seem to be my day for instant comprehension - and I was having troubles with your figures until I realized that you were talking about N-Scale. (Note: if you were not talking about N-Scale then you need to redo your calculations because, in HO, 16.5 inches is 112 feet; 200 feet, on the other hand, is 27.5 inches)
If I understand your question correctly you want to know if a 200 foot icing platform is long enough to gitterdun. That depends on what you wanna git dun. If you want a PFE/SFRD operation where you are going to need to ice a hundred or more cars a day to dispatch eastward during the fall harvest in the San Joaquin, it ain’t gonna be very big. On the other hand Bruce Chubb, on his old Sunset Valley, had a facility with a very short icing platform because his railroad didn’t need to move that many iced cars from this area. This is one of Bruce Chubbs rare moments of genius.
Somewhere in my files I have a photograph taken in the Fresno, California area showing a rather substantial ice house; my photo dates from about 1968; at the time that I took this photo it was obvious that this facility had been out of use for many years, but its easily 2000 feet long and that’s a cool 150 inches in N-Scale - 23 feet in HO, too big to really be practical in either scale, although I seem to rembember seeing one (almost) that big on a (HO) club layout someplace sometime.
A 200 foot icing platform would enable you to be icing five cars at one time; I’m not sure just exactly how long it took to ice-up a car but it seems to me a good proportion of the time would be spent waiting for the switcher to come and pick-up the loaded cars from and drop empties on the siding. If you could find a second kit somewhere you could kitbash this into a double sided platform and be icing ten cars at one time utilizing no more linear distance than you would with a single kit.
Did Walthers make the “ice house / icing platform” in HO? Any links? I may be interested in one.
Yes they did and if you are interested, I still have one. I inadvertently bought a second one not realizing I already had one in my stack of unbuilt kits (I think I have more structures on my shelves than on my layout). I saved it because I figured it might be useful as part of a kitbash someday. Before I’d sell it, I’d need to do a double check to make sure all the parts are still there. I don’t remember using any of them for other projects but somebody who would buy a second kit might forget a thing like that.
Yes they did. It is out of production and occsionally pops up on ebay. Figure about $30 for it. Figure another 20-40 for the add on ice platforms
Here’s a link to it- http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3049 still in production[:D] but the N scale one is discontinued.
bump, does anyone have these on there layout of pics of them !
thanks
ray