I live in Santa Fe NM and want to buy or model the actual Santa Fe NM Train Station here in town for my N-scale layout. Does anyone know of a kit or scale plans for the beautiful historic building? Thank you in advance.
JT
This should help:
Santa Fe had two stations next to each other. Just across the street from the ATSF station was the narrow gauge D&RGW station. This D&RGW Santa Fe branch was nicknamed the ‘Chili Line’ after the chili’s that were hung out to dry in some towns and villages along its route to Santa Fe. The narrow gauge dropped down from Antonito into Santa Fe. The D&GRW 3 foot gauge tracks ran down the center of Guadalupe street in Santa Fe. I have never seen this street running line modeled, though I am sure someone has modeled it, now or in the past.
In its later years, k-28 mikes were assigned almost exclusively to this run. The Chili Line was abandoned in 1941 and pulled up in 1942 as the war started.
Richard Hull
Assuming you’re talking about the ATSF depot which still serves the scenic railroad (as opposed to the old D&RGW/NMC depot which is now a restaurant called Tomasita’s), check out this link: http://www.andersenmodelkits.com/heinzwebermodels.html. Unfortunately, they don’t offer the kit in N scale, only O, S, and HO, but maybe they can help you with plans?
Chris
That is a Santa Fe standard “County Seat” Station. They were mostly built in Kansas, but a few in Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Eastern Colorado. NONE in New Mexico.
I will have to look up a picture and see what I can find in models.
My references for the Santa Fe depot in Santa Fe, New Mexico list the following:
prize-winning model of Spanish style depot, Santa Fe Modeler, 2nd quarter 1993 p.20
shown in track map of Albuquerque area New Mexico*'s Railroads* (Myrick)p.12
track plat of Santa Fe, NM New Mexico*'s Railroads* p.50, 12,113
photo of depot New Mexico*'s Railroads* p.6
scene, Coach,Cabbage & Caboose p.72
scene near depot in early 1920s Santa Fe Furniture and Automobile Boxcars_ p.26
story on Santa Fe NMex branch Trains Dec78 p.37
Okay, I looked through my references, and looked on GoogleEarth and in Google Images to see what the Santa Fe, NM/ Santa Fe Rwy/ Santa Fe Southern depot should look like.
Then checked model kits. The Santa Fe-style brick station from Walthers and/or Athearn is NOT it. There are a couple of laser kits for Santa Fe depots but they are WOOD, not southwestern adobe style. Walthers has a “Mission-style station” in HO that is a similar style but varies significantly from the specific prototype.
Your best bet, the Anderson Model Kits with the link listed above for an HO, S or O model- they “nail” it. (DO you use nails min adobe buildings?) But not in N scale. You might beg for a copy of their plans (might persuade them to make it in N but if they did, would take a long time to come to fruition. Find someone who has an HO kit and borrow it to measure and draw your own plans.
I tried Library of Congress/ American Memory/ Built in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey, 1933-Present. They have data, photos and/or scale drawings of 13 historic buildings in Santa Fe, New Mexico but not three depots. You might try a local or regional or university library in your area, in their archives/ local history section for unpublished scale drawings, etc.
Failing all that, you shoot pictures from all sides at right angles to the wall surfaces, measure major dimensions, doors, windows, etc. So N work requiring some precision, I usually draw oversize and then reduce to N scale.
Happy modeling.