First, let me state that I think the N scale Walther’s built up turntable is the best thing since sliced bread and chunky peanut butter. There’s no way I could have faked my way to a model that looks or operates half as good as this thing does. It was worth every penny.
However, despite the fact that the roundhouse they produce to accompany the turntable looks fantastic, I think it’s a total rip off that you have to buy over $100 worth of kits to get a roundhouse that’s a halfway decent size. To my way of thinking, I’d rather pay $60 for 6 stalls in one package than $50 for 3, then $30 for 3 more, and $30 more for 3 more…
So, being a total cheapskate (despite the fact that I seem to be perpetually broke anyway) I’ve embarked on an ambitious scratchbuild using some sheet styrene I have and a bunch of Evergreen stock.
I did some more work on the round house last night, building the floor and installing the tracks.
There are two layers of sheet styrene making up the base, including the main foundation, then the wedge shaped sections between the tracks. I cut everything on a paper cutter to get the cuts as straight as possible. I added the inspection pits using Evergreen strip. I’ll add some steel steps into the pits once I paint the concrete.
The thickness of the sheet is perfect, I think it’s .050, which allows the .055 rail to poke just far enough above the surface that it looks flush, but is easy to keep clean without marring the soon-to-be painted surface.
Here it is in the context of the turntable and the rest of the Ridgely terminal. As previously noted, the roundhouse will be based loosely on the Elkins facility.
Great start, Lee! I also have a scratchbuilt roundhouse somehwhere in my future, though probably not for 1-2 years. I’ve collected a few old Model Railroader articles (from 1951, '56 and '81) that I plan to use as guides. But I look forward to following your approach and progress. Please keep posting pics as the project moves along!
BTW, since frugality seems to be at least one motivating factor for this undertaking, it would be interesting to find out what you expect this project to cost you, compated to the $100+ for the kits.
It looks like your a pretty good scratch builder so your under taking should be a lot of fun. I will agree with you that sometimes it feels like we are held at the mercy of the Walthers catalog but that is not really a fair statement. You can use just about any roundhouse kit for that tuentable. A Heljan perhaps of a CMR for example there are also many craftsmen kits that offer some really nice stuff. I built the Walthers Roundhouse in HO with two extension kits so I feel your pain. No sooner had I had completed it my wife found a bunch of HO stuff forsale on Craigs list near where we live so I took a ride to fine a treasure trive of great stuff left over from the former home owner/model railroader. I bought amonst other things a Heljan Roundhous and 130’ diamond scale turntable for $50. The guys work was inpecable and just the way the kit was designed it far exceeded the Walthers kit 10 fold. I then picked up 5 extension kits for $60 at a train show. There are a lot of options available other then Walthers
I have a heavily modified Heljan roundhouse (truncated to 4 stalls and shortened for a former, much smaller layout…) but the brick walls and arched windows just make it look wrong for my prototype and era.
The WM built large roundhouses, but skinned them mostly in glass and corrugated metal.
This is the look I’m shooting for, which is easily done with Evergreen stock. I’m making the windows by photocopying the 2-D drawing onto a clear transparency to put behind the larger sash frames.
be careful with the blasphemy. remember, MR and Walthers keep their shoes under the same bed. remember the simpsons episode where bart was going to get booted in the butt for a crime in australia? his mom thought it was a cruel punishment and was told “disparaging the boot is a bootable offense”.
Made some more progress tonight. I don’t have room on my current platform to include the warehouse building behind the roundhouse, so I’m in the process of adding a sixth bank of windows to the right side so it matches the left. If I ever get around to building Elkins proper, I can always edit it again. (I love styrene!)
I also got the tracks all wired in, and basically finished the foundation so it’s ready to paint. Pictures next time.
I have the HO scale version of the Walther’s turntable, with their roundhouse (I built the 9 stall version), and it has one feature that I’ve never seen before in a model kit, the wall sections have an inner and outer piece, giving brick detail to both sides of the wall. A bit more difficult to assemble, but since the doors are large and usually open, the side wall detail at least are noticible. Add a removable roof and interior detail, and Walthers has saved you the work of doing the brick detail to the interior.
That is a nice feature, but I’m not building a brick roundhouse![8D]
I’ll be working on the walls today, so I’ll post some progress photos when I get back to you later. Here’s the pictures of last night’s work.
First, I added the wiring to power the tracks.
You can see the channel I cut in the bottom layer of styrene at right. This shot also shows how I built the inspection pits. The black gobbledygook is the leftovers of the styrene’s original purpose as a sign.
Back topside, I covered the wiring channel with a 1" wide styrene plate, which will extend the concrete floor to the back wall. I used this as a guide to trim the floor to shape, ready to accept the back walls.
You can see those little wedge shaped bumpers, too. Not a prototypical look, but highly functional…
Freshly painted. I started with a coat of almond spray paint, followed by mists of grey primer, then a few passes with some grimy black and earth using the air brush.
Naturally, while cleaning the rail heads I scuffed up my beautiful paint job… So I went back over it with some washes, which actually help, I think… I’m debating whether I should bother darkening the web of the rails… maybe the black sharpie and a wash would work…
Next I need to run a jumper to power the switcher track (the short stall at the top), then I can more permanently install the floor and trim the tail tracks at the pit so it can get back into operation.
I may or may not get to the walls today… The dormer on the roof needs painting, and weather seems to be cooperating!
I’m complaining about the price because I think it’s excessive, and I don’t think they give you much in the basic kit. If it was $20 cheaper or came as a complete roundhouse, I would have considered starting with it and kitbashing. But 3 stalls doesn’t make much of a roundhouse, especially for $60. It’s like, here, buy a locomotive for $60… oh, you want wheels too? That’s another $60… I know there’s lots of folks out there who don’t have room for more than a couple of stalls, but those folks are called HO gaugers, where everything is too big in the first place![:D]
There’s no excuse for an N scale roundhouse to be less than 6 stalls. If someone needs a smaller round house, then lucky them! Lots of trusses and parts for the junk box.
By the way, I have the same complaint about the Atlas roundhouse kit, which is sold the same way.
Anyway, here’s the next phase…
I’m going to cut a slice of 2x to meet the profile of the overhang, and include enough space to extend the track outside the building to be long enough to hold the wreck crane.
Here’s some progress on the first wall…
I modified the wall I’d built last year to get the additional depth I wanted. I added a loading door on the side just to break things up a bit.
Here it is installed. I did the windows by printing out an image I did in my design program onto a transparency. The styrene frames were painted by hand, then I put the acetate transparency on with some clear gloss medium. Once that stuck them in place, I added dots of CA to cement them in for good.
I was just diggin’ the floors: the almond is a great base. I probably would’ve just gone with grey, but yrs looks fab!
But then you had to go and make a great wall, too!
I’ll have to remember about the printing on transparency trick (have a ton left over since my school got lcd projectors & got rid of the overheads).
The basic kit is a complete roundhouse, and the three stall size of both the basic and add on kits goes way back. Three stalls, even for a small roundhouse, was considered an absolute minimum. It would be a challenge to find any company that sells anything larger as a single kit. At one time Suydam marketed their roundhouse add on as one stall units, but quickly changed to a three stall kit, finding that it cost almost as much with the packaging and handling to sell a one stall compared to a three stall kit. I agree that $60.00 for kitbashing foder is high, but few people do extensive kitbashing on such kits, they’re usually built as instructed or with varying levels of added detail. Maybe in your world “there’s no excuse for an N scale roundhouse to be less than 6 stalls,” but forcing everyone else to buy a six stall kit when they only have room for three would seriously cut sales.
Actually your complaint about the Atlas roundhouse sh
The Heljan kit has always come in the desired 6 stall arrangement, unfortunately it’s a pretty Euro-looking building. I had considered buying one of them and just rebuilding the exterior walls, but the roof-line wasn’t what I was after.
McFunk,
I used CA to secure the rails, but there’s also a physical bond that increases the surface area for the glue to hold onto. Here’s diagram of what I did…
I used my fine tooth razor saw to cut a narrow channel at the edge of the finished floor that the bottom flange of the rail nests into to increase the stability of the track installation. Through painting and other handling, it’s held up pretty well.
Well, SNL was a re-run last night, so I stayed off my meds a little longer, and built some bones…
Looks like the iron workers have a little adjusting to do… I have to do the oddly shaped stall to the left, plus the short switcher stall, and cut the pieces to attach to the completed wall, then back out to the paint shop. Maybe this afternoon… The good news is that I found the rest of the window transparencies that I had printed, so other than figuring out the roof, I have everything I need in stock to finish the project.
My plan is to mount the frame to the floor to keep everthing stable, then build the roof so it can be lifted off for viewing/detailing/photos.
How’d that song go? “TV killed the Railroad Modeling star”?[:D]
Lookin’ very groovy! Is all this styrene Evergreen? I-beams and tubes?
Is it going to keep hanging over the edge (or is this your “temporary” service as you build in stages?)
If you’re not going to light it, you might want to check out this guy Rich C’s stratchbuilt: http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/album.php?albumid=559&pictureid=6969
he used a clear plastic for the roof, dusted it with flat black to simulate tar, but overhead light still gets through.
(Some other picts show it off better).
Groovy effect!
But I’m always a sucker for those hard orange industrial lights (more Romantic!)
Thanks for taking the time for the diagram and documenting all yr work!
–Mark
The sheet styrene (other than the corrugated sideing and brick sheet) is all from big signs I “liberated” from a trade show. (I was a vendor, I paid my fee, and after the show was over they were just tossing these 8" x 36" signs into the trash!)
I’ve got a bunch of orange LED’s, but they’re a little too orange… I like the idea of the clear roof… but I don’t have that material in stock, and I’m trying to this whole thing without expending any new pennies…
