This building - what was it marketed as?

I remember a thread months ago where it sort of came up (well, OK, I brought it up [:P]), but I couldn’t find any images on-line to illustrate it - until it turned up in a google image search I did for an unrelated topic - it’s that 2 story (second story all windows) brick building, with a base w/ molded rails in it, and 2 sliding doors at each end (low height), such that you could slide a flat car or maybe a low gondola (which I used to do as a kid) thru the building, but nothing taller. What was the concept behind it (general machine shop? Car repair shop?)

I had that building as part of my layout many years ago. It is not a two story building, the upper story is all windows (no floor) and open to the ground floor.

IIRC it was marketed by Heljan as a workshop.

I believe that Piko is now releasing the building in their line of HO railroad structures as the Piko 61101 workshop.

http://www.euromodeltrains.com/cgi-bin/search_gen.pl#

Its not intended to be a building that tracks go through. Its too small.

With its sliding doors and its open interior, I always thought a metal or welders workshop would be a good purpose. Something to put in a salvage yard maybe.

That Piko model on the Euro Model Trains website looks significantly different in terms of casting - for example, mine had the side sliding doors, the small square windows above the sliding doors, molded brick pattern sides, and of course the A frame crane which straddled the molded rails on one side. However, it does have the same pattern of windows/end doors it looks like. Repair shop it is, although a metal working workshop…hmm.

And I agree the end doors are too low for any realistic rail-car repair shop, but I ran track (brass) up to the molded base, and used one (Tyco) flat to push another (Lifelike) flat into the building (glued down w/ white glue so it wouldn’t shift - propelled by my all-purpose Pennsy 0-4-0 shifter & tender. This was way back when Model Railroading was fun…