Woodberry FCSME Module Construction Thread

[restocarp]

Photo courtesy of the Baltimore County Public Library

I am currently in the process of building a pair of modules for the club module layout of the Four County Society of Model Engineers (FCSME). The modules will represent an area of Baltimore City known as Woodberry and a specific complex within that neighborhood, the historic Poole and Hunt Foundry (pictured above).

I am terribly slow at these things, so I expect this to proceed at my usual snails pace. Case in point, I began the process of designing these modules in 2012. So....

Let's get started.

Matt

[ReadingBob]

Matt,

That's quite an undertaking.  This will be fun to follow.   

[restocarp]

Let's begin with a quick introduction of the club.
http://www.fcsme.org/
Four County Society of Model Engineers (FCSME) became a module club after losing its permanent home some years ago. It currently has over 40 members and exhibits a large layout, at mostly Maryland locations, multiple times a year. This year the club layout will be making an appearance at the show in Springfield. I will not be able to attend, but hopefully forum members will be able to check out the layout.

The club specifications are close to those of the NMRA, with some deviations. The time frame of the layout is August of 1955. The geographical location is limited to the area of Maryland around Hagerstown. My Baltimore prototype location is close enough to that location. Other modules have represented areas throughout Maryland and West Virginia.
I have been a member of the club since 2012 and this will be my first modules in the layout because I am S...L...O...W.

Next: my design process.

Matt

[restocarp]

Matt,

That's quite an undertaking.  This will be fun to follow.   

Yes it is. I have always tended to take big bites...

Thanks for following.

Matt

[ACL1504]

Matt,

I will be slowly following along.

Tom

[restocarp]

As I said, I began designing these modules when I joined the club in 2012. Among my many other interests, is a love of the history of tools and industry. I originally came across the Poole and Hunt company while researching historic tool makers of Baltimore. While Poole and Hunt never played a major role in the tool making industry, their terrific complex, still standing, seemed to call to me as a modeling opportunity.

The foundry was constructed in about 1853 when Robert Poole and German Hunt moved their operations from Baltimore out to the then suburban mill town of Woodberry.  The mills of Woodberry used the waters of the Jones Falls to power their factories. Most of the early mills were for processing grain. Later many textile mills sprang up throughout the valley. Poole and Hunt built a very large foundry and erection shops to fabricate and machine parts for railroad locomotives and railcars, artillery pieces, battleship parts, as well as some architectural metal work. The large cast iron columns for the US Capitol dome were fabricated in this Woodberry shop.


Poole & Hunt letterhead from my collection

After Poole and Hunt closed, the Balmar Corporation took over the premises. They were another very diverse fabrication shop, although, at this time, they were known for their line of tractors and similar equipment. Following Balmar, the property had several smaller tenants and was eventually redeveloped in the early 2000s. Part of the complex was lost in a deadly 1995 fire, but today much remains as artist spaces, offices, and a popular restaurant, Woodberry Kitchen.

My task is to reasonably represent this historic property in HO scale.

More in a few.
Matt

[GPdemayo]

Ambitious project Matt.....I'll be looking in. 

[restocarp]

Armed with my research I began to develop a plan that would represent the Poole & Hunt complex within the parameters of the FCSME standards. The first major hurdle was the relationship between the property and the railroad. The original mainline of the Northern Central Railway ran past the front gate of the factory. A spur entered through the gates and ran through the buildings. My first design attempts replicated this and drastically deviated from the club standards. Eventually I determined that the spur would have to become the mainline. A Sanborn map shows the relationship between the buildings and the railroad. This has been an invaluable resource for designing the modules.

All of my design work has taken place on Sketchup. It has allowed me to produce 3D scale models of the modules and really visualize how it should go together. After many versions and changes, here is where the design currently sits. This should largely be how the final modules look, although I am sure that I will tweak things as construction unfolds.

The most major change will likely be the amount of track. As I mock up the buildings on the actual modules, the trackwork may prove to congested. Also on the layout the outside lines run to the right and the inside rails run to the left. Given my available space and the way that the prototype buildings are laid out, the turnouts from the rail would require trains to enter in reverse. I'm not sure I  like this. My interests lie in model building and not operations, so I might be satisfied with just the mainlines running through, but sidings would be better, but they have to function well without clogging up the main. This is a conversation I expect to have with some of my fellow club members. You might think that after 5+ years I would have this figured out, but here we are. 

Next: Details of the plan.
Matt

[restocarp]

Moving from left to right on the above layout plan, the first structures, tucked down in the valley will be the Baltimore Rowhouses from last years Challenge.





The build thread is here. http://modelersforum.com/kit-building/walthers-row-house-kitbash-build-challenge-2016/

They will be hidden a bit by the valley and mainline, but they were destined for this space and will still be visible through the bridge. I feel like the topography is important here, both to add visual interest to the modules and to represent the actual elevation changes in the Woodberry neighborhood. The models are not the focal point, but are important to set the seen in Baltimore.

In reality, this space is pretty tight and I am going to have to get creative when it comes to scenery and elevation changes in this location.

Matt

[restocarp]

The next foreground building will be the Erection shop.

This will be open on the fascia side and utilize a Walthers overhead train kit. That kit will dictate the dimension of the building. The erection shop interior will be detailed and the mainline will travel though the "rear" of the building, just as the prototype siding does.


The Erection Shop is the large peaked roof on the left. The other brick building to the right will not be modeled.


The Drive-Thru. This will have to grow to allow for a two track mainline to tunnel through.

Matt

[restocarp]

The largest building on the layout will be the foundry itself.



This is built of a combination of materials including brick and stone. Much of the bulk of the building will be hidden by the small sheds and miscellaneous building that surround it. Because it spans the joint of the two modules, it will have to come apart. I have some ideas of how to build this quickly(for me) and light weight so that it can be transported separately.


This is the end of the foundry buildings. It will face the valley.


Various small sheds and auxiliary buildings surround the foundry. They will offer the opportunity for plenty of variety and detail.

The most prominent of those surrounding buildings is the ornate brick structure that once contained the cupolas(furnaces) for the foundry. It is now home to the Woodberry Kitchen restaurant. It will be a pretty challenging build, with all of those brick arches, but it will be a recognizable focal point for the modules.







Matt

[jerryrbeach]

Matt,
Jimmy Simmons' Monster Modelworks has several sizes of laser cut brick lintels that should make it easier to construct your buildings.  You might want to check out his site.

[restocarp]

Matt,
Jimmy Simmons' Monster Modelworks has several sizes of laser cut brick lintels that should make it easier to construct your buildings.  You might want to check out his site.

Thanks, Jerry. You are reading my mind, as those Monster products are exactly the ones that I have in mind for the Woodberry Kitchen structure.  Thanks for following along.

Matt

[restocarp]

So I spent some time this weekend fabricating a foamcore mockup of the large foundry building. I am now in the process of shifting it around on the modules to determine spacing. I will also mock up the Erection Shed, the Blacksmith shop, the Machine shop  and the Office, so that I can get a better feel for the scale and location of everything. But I ran out of foamcore...







Matt

[Janbouli]

That mock-up is a piece of work in itself, loving this thread Matt.