FSM Brownsville Depot - 2021 Build Challenge

[Keep It Rusty]

Really love that you've furnished the inside. And so well.

Nice work.

[tom.boyd.125]

Swisstrain,
Welcome to the forum and your detailing of the station interior is very well done.
Tommy

[Zephyrus52246]

Beautifully done station interior.


Jeff

[swisstrain]

Ok, it has been a while.  Just when I thought work was letting up a bit, and I could make some steady progress, I was thrown a curve ball, and I had less time available than I thought I would have to post a steady build thread.  But nevertheless, I made some progress, just have not posted for a while.  Still 2021 though and will count for 2021 build challenge.  I am planning to document progress to date in a couple of posts over the next few days.

First off the first floor lighting.  I added a ceiling, with a circuit for four lights.  I installed a 12V "lighting bus" running parallel to my "track bus" around my whole layout, to which I plan to hook up all building lighting. When working with building lighting, I like creating circuits including 4 LED lights, since that lets me in most cases avoid resistors or current limiters (4 warm white LED's using approximately 3V each).  The below pictures shows the floor/ceiling with the circuit installed and lit, and a side view of the lit waiting room (note building walls are not yet assembled).







The final two pictures for this post show the first floor after assembly of the walls with and without the inserted floor.

[Opa George]

Beautiful work on this kit so far. I really like it.
--Opa George

[postalkarl]

Hey Swisstrain:

I test built that for George when it came out. It's A beautiful station when done. Your interior looks just grea. Keep the pics coming.

Karl

[S&S RR]

Beautiful work, and I love the interior detail. It's great to see you making progress, again.  Jobs sure can get in the way of modeling. We appreciate you sharing your build with us.

[tct855]

Hey Swisstrain:

I test built that for George when it came out. It's A beautiful station when done. Your interior looks just grea. Keep the pics coming.

Karl

Swisstrain,

           Special K is right, this is a cool station.  Karl built a beautiful model from that kit.  George & I even worked on making a quick adverstising test video to help sell the kit.  Joe Fugate from Model Railroad Hobbyist E-zine still shows the footage here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHDm1zeMH4w  I'll be following alone on this build as I know it will be awesome.  Thanx Thom...

       

[swisstrain]

Thanks for all the positive comments, sincerely appreciated.

Yes, this is a beautiful kit.  I bought it as soon as it came out, directly from George. Karl, I did see your build thread, and I am using some of the pictures that you posted as an additional reference.  Thom, I appreciate the link to that Youtube video, I remember seeing that at some point in the past, but it has been a while.

On to lighting of the second floor.  I decided on three lit rooms.  A kitchen and a sitting room for the living quarters, plus I wanted a "dispatcher" (or just some sort of an operator) behind the bay window.  I found this guy at Model Tech Studios, and he is just perfect.



In order to create a lived in interior behind the bay window, I needed to slightly adjust the bay though and make it a real "box", since per the kit, it just sits above the platform roof (e.g. floor is slanted upwards 45 degrees).  Here is the modified bay with my dispatcher. The visible "seam" visible from the outside where the additional triangle is attached to ensure that the bay has a level floor will later be hidden by the adjoining platform roof (the roof will need to be modified too and installed as two separate pieces instead of a continuous one).





For the other two rooms, I built some "shadow boxes", one with a simple kitchen interior, plus one that depicts a sitting room.  I like to make those rather sparsely furnished, just enough to create the illusion of an interior when looking through the window.  The furniture, the stove in the kitchen and the fire place are are 3D prints from shapeways. I will later complete the shadow boxes with a ceiling, and add the lights as well as a figure in each.





The last picture shows the second floor arrangement.

[tom.boyd.125]

 The interior you are adding is looking better and better as your build goes along.
Lighting it up will make it special too.
Tommy

[ACL1504]

Swisstrain,

Love the interiors, excellent.

Tom 

[Lynnb]

The build is coming along nicely, I really liked this kit from the day I saw it but always thought it would be too big for my layout. I like your idea with the liting.

[postalkarl]

Hey:

The interior looks just great.

Karl

[swisstrain]

Thanks for all the positive comments and encouragement so far.  Lynn, the kit is too big for my layout too, but my layout is really more of an excuse to build structures.  While admittedly, that makes the "layout" somewhat whimsical and makes it appear as bit of a caricature, I actually enjoy that aspect of it.

In the meantime, I made some good progress to near completion!

On to the freight shed.  I am a bit pressed for space, and I therefore decided to shorten both the freight house as well as the passenger shed by approximately one inch each.  I felt that was the maximum I could reduce in size without disturbing the overall handsome proportions of the depot complex.  Also since there is a diverging spur, I needed to adjust the freight platform to the curve.  The next couple of pictures show how that was accomplished.





The remaining couple of pictures show some of the detailing of the freight house.







I will post an update on the lighting and final assembly in the next couple of days, when I have some time.

[PRR Modeler]

It all looks great