I would like to scratch build a small to medium station to handle both passenger and freight, freight house could be a seperate structure. Can anyone point me in the direction of some good plans to work from?
Thanks
wdcrvr
Certainly past copies of MR are a prime source.
Although the general form of stations is the same across the nation, certain styles are a better “fit” to certain locations, so you would likely want to find some plans for a railroad that ran through the part of the country that you are modeling. Santa Fe’s stations in California were rather distinctive, for example.
For the eastern coal haulers, here’s some sources:
The Norfolk and Western Handbook, The Virginian Railway Handbook, and The Southern Railway Handbook. All three are by Aubrey Wiley and Conley Wallace, from W-W Publications.
Chesapeake & Ohio Standard Structures by Thomas W. Dixon, Jr. from the C&O Historical Society.
These are all softbound books, containing many modeling ideas in addition to some station plans.
Bill
I’m not sure what style of station building you’re interested in but I have plans I prepared from photographs for a slightly compressed version of the second Santa Fe station and freight house built in Santa Ana, California. I believe these structures were built in the 1930’s and survived into the very early 1980’s. Both structures are fairly compact so I would consider the combined depot to be medium sized (14" by 4 3/4" in HO scale). The station alone would be small-to-medium sized (7" by 4 3/4" in HO scale). Construction of both buildings is stucco with clay tile roofing on the station. The north side of the station was revised a couple of times over the years and as my layout is set in the late 1950’s, my plans reflect the building during that era. Neither building was very fancy so both were easy to scratch build. These two structures must look pretty accurate because a former Mayor of Santa Ana totally geeked out when he saw them, and he was looking very close. Sorry I don’t have any pictures to post but if you’re interested, I could send copies of the plans and maybe even take a photo or two.
Another thought: Kalmbach’s softbound 1977 volume Railroad Station Planbook by Harold A. Edmonson (ed) is still available used from a number of sources at a reasonable price. Just search for that title to check for options.
Bill
Railroad Station Planbook (see articles) was my first thought too.
WDCRVR
Do you have a picture of a prototype that resembles what you want, or can you make a sketch of your station?
If so, then you really don’t need detailed plans unless you are modeling very specific buildings. You can create plans for your own buildings using simple math. Start by finding a single door on your sketch/photo. Single doors are usually 32" to 36" wide and 80" to 84" tall. Using simple math you can measure the width of a door and then determine how wide the wall is that the door is mounted in. If your door measures 1/4" in the picture and the surrounding wall measures 2" in the picture, then if the door is 36" wide the wall is 288". In other words, if the 1/4" door equals 36" (3ft) and the wall is 8 times the door width (2" divided by 1/4" = 8) then the wall is 8 x 36" = 288" = 24 ft.
Exterior wall heights are determined by interior ceiling heights in most cases, at least in simple frame structures. If your structure is a single storey and it has 10 ft ceilings, then the exterior walls will be about 6 inches shorter so the exterior walls will be about 9 1/2 ft tall. (This is not set in stone. These are very rough approximations). If your structure is 2 storeys then you need to add the heights of the ceilings for both floors plus the thickness of the second floor joists minus about 6 inches for the distance that the soffits sit below the tops of the walls.
Keep in mind that you are working in scale - if you are out by a few scale inches anybody who notices should be booted out of the house![swg]
Here is a simple rural station created entirely from scratch using a compilation of several images of similar stations. This basically came straight out of my wee brain. I am not trying to brag here! I just want to show that if you have an idea then you have a plan in the making.