North Coast Railroad

[Dave Buchholz]

Mark, you hit exactly on the concept of the entire scene. "You" are sitting in the middle of Oswego Harbor. It's Fall, October 25 of 1951,(my birthday) with a storm coming out of Canada, across Lake Ontario.

It's a busy Fall harvest season along the North Coast. There are  plenty of fruit and vegetable crops in  orchards to the West, needing attention., The crops have to be brought in. Canneries are working around the clock at full capacity. The cold storage units along the right of way, will keep more fruit from spoiling until the canneries can process them.

Commercial fishing on the lake still has some time left before the fish go deep, and the cold lake becomes iced over. The tourist boats only have what is left of fall colors to lure more passengers. Soon enough, the only boats will be just personal craft for residents of the nearby shores, and islands. Winds will be the only thing making waves.

..... and the only noise will be my wife yelling " What the hell are you  doing in the basement all night AGAIN! You were supposed to be doing laundry!"

[Dave Buchholz]

Another modeler on this forum recently was building the Thomas York gas station. York had a certain genius about his products to use the same parts for many structures.
 
At some point in the past I realized that commonality and imagineered a new structure. This is a cut and past version of what will be the Sodus Bay Station. I have some work done to the actual model which is below that. I stretched the left building wider to allow room for a freight door instead of the people door. Obviously it has a way to go yet before it gets mounted to the cove  steam boat wharf, but  at least you can see the general direction of where the project is headed.

[friscomike]

Howdy Dave,

Nice kitbash project.  I see what you mean about Thomas Yorke structure kits.

Have fun,
mike

[GeorgeD]

Nice coloring of the stones, Dave.

George

[cuse]

this looks to be a great one. That backdrop is nuts! I really like the track plan and the vision of a little Shay dwarfed by those waterfront structures.

[Jerry]

Dave it's really looking great.  Glad you started it back up over here.

Jerry

[ACL1504]

Dave,

Great looking station and well done kit bash.

Tom 

[Dave Buchholz]

Thank for the compliments guys.

Cuse, most modelers use the theory of selective compression to make small areas look bigger. At some point I must have thought in opposition to that. Because I wanted the track and trains to be dominated by squeezing between the buildings, as if that was the only possible path.

A real railroad doesn't exist without product or people being transported. I wanted industries to exist, both big and small, but unified to example the commerce of the real area. Last count was about 60 buildings or structures of some type will be placed. The selection process includes the point that people live there, so buildings must support the residents that work those industries.

Years back, Malcolm Furlow taught us to think vertically. I tried to apply those lessons on the North Coast with tall structures, not just long structures. Currently Mark Dalrymple from down under also inspires me with how he crams so many things into  such limited space. Great stuff. (Or is it great stuffing?)

[GPdemayo]

Neat station Dave.....

[Dave Buchholz]

 few years ago, I was playing with a molding product that was reusable, similar to Composimold, sold at Arts and Crafts stores. Its good for very small quantities. It become liquid by heating in the Microwave, then poring it over the master part.

 Since using plaster or Hydrocal creates heat, it quickly destroys the detail within the mold. But being reusable you can always reheat it, and repour to create another, or other molds.

I used the process to create stone walls for the harbor area, which is seen below. The coloration process as process had several steps from primer, shadows, stone colors to finally moss at the water line.

In the center, you'll observe that is an actual  perfectly flawless rock.

 My understanding of its creation, was that it took GOD millions of years to create, but granted, he had to make enough for the whole universe. I didn't have that much time, and I didn't need that many, so I used Dental Plaster.  I will  probably catch Hell for it some day.

[robert goslin]

Great to see you posting again Dave.  Have always liked your work.
The above reminds me of Rubbles Station.
Yes, Tom Yorke has some great designs.  I scratchuilt copies of two of his designs on my Mexican layout and sort of kitbashed another, from some walls a mate scratchbuit from another design, and gave to me, which is on the layout extension.

[Dave Buchholz]

Rob. You are spot  on with your observations of it's origin.. It is a combination of two Thomas York kits. Both the Rubbles Station and Shortline Stone Station were kit bashed into one structure. The inspiration for bashing  came from an FSM kit.

I bought both kits from "Dr.Ben". He was kind enough to sell some additional parts to create it, including an extra wall to widen the  the baggage building and a tower cylinder as well. He even threw in a bunch of castings at no additional charge.

It will end up on the steam boat wharf in the what I refer to as the cove. Originally I was considering putting the "Highland Station" kit there, but decided the Rubbles kit bash looks better. It would seem to be  a structure capable withstanding the wind and waves coming in off the Great Lakes. The extended watch tower gives it more of a lighthouse impression.

Thanks for the interest

Fifth Dave to the Right

[Bernd]

Dave,

I remember you talking about that on the RR-L. Looks like great material for quick small molds.

Bernd

[Philip]

Great work Dave! My nearest fellow modeler is an hour away. Makes it a lonely hobby at times but I push on as you do also. It it wasn't for these forums and friends I'd get out.

Philip

[Dave Buchholz]

There is someone in the Rochester who modelers the same area, but in a different era and scale.  I'll be damned if I can track him down though.

I took a "short cut" to my son's auto shop today. Added about a half hour travel time, but gave me a chance to see some of what is left of real rails that once were the Railroad in my story line.

Before the Ontario Midland,... before Chessie,... before Conrail,... before the New York Central .... Before the DL&W,  It was the Rome Watertown and Ogdensburg. It's nickname of the section I model, was "the Hijack Line"  ( edit Hojack) although the story behind that nickname  has multiple variations (all of which claim to be correct version of course.)

Anyway. Back to the present.

 Interesting to see a diesel idling on the line in an area when there is several cold storage warehouses. I soon discovered why it was sitting there. It WAS pushing a box car into a siding."WAS" bring the operative word, till the box car took a detour through the siding switch because of the rails being iced. So the lead truck decided to split the difference, and was on the ground today.

From the footprints, shovel and re-rail frog, it looks like the crew went to lunch.

So keep in mind when our scale models go off the rail, sometimes prototypes are closer  than we realize.