Junction Farm (BESTTrains kits)

[deemery]

My big purchase at Springfield this year was a pair of BESTTrains kits:

The barn kit even comes with cows.

These will go on the hilltop across the farm bridge that I'm finishing (You can see the footer for the bridge ramp on the far right.)


The barn is designed so the bottom opens out at a lower level than the top, but that's OK for the intended location.  The barn has plaster cast foundation pieces.  I squared them up and then measured the footprint:

Then I constructed a wood template of the front and one side, including the proper height, to make sure I could fit it on location including the front lower level opening. 


Obviously if this is the final location, I'll have to cut a hole in the scenery.  But first I'll need to double check the top of the foundation to see where that ends up on the hill.


The footprint for the house is set by a plaster foundation casting.  It's a bit hard to see on the left side, to the left of the clamp.  I'll probably play around with the arrangement, including deciding if I'll use the annex from the BESTTrains kit.  It might not fit, or it might need to be cut down a bit. 

I'm not entering this in the winter build challenge, since at the rate I work, I probably couldn't finish in time.     

dave

[Mark Dalrymple]

These look like some really cool kits, Dave.

I think the Georgian home with extension will look fab if you can fit it in.  It might pay to think about vehicular access at the same time.  Looking forward to watching this one come together over the next few months.

Cheers, Mark.

[deemery]

These look like some really cool kits, Dave.

I think the Georgian home with extension will look fab if you can fit it in.  It might pay to think about vehicular access at the same time.  Looking forward to watching this one come together over the next few months.

Cheers, Mark.

When I did the plaster wrap, I kinda envisioned the road running in front of where the structure mock-ups are in the bottom photo.  The bridge over the tracks to the right is almost complete, so this continues the road up to the farm area.

The house definitely fits without the extension, but I hope I can figure out how to make use of those parts, too.

dave

[Michael Hohn]

The BEST display at the Springfield show offers so many temptations.

Mike

[Jerry]

They should be nice additions to that part of the layout.

Jerry

[PRR Modeler]

I look forward to these kits coming alive Dave. You may be slow but you do excellent modeling.

[Rick]

Dave, have fun building those kits and fitting them into the layout.

[deemery]

The BEST display at the Springfield show offers so many temptations.

Mike

Yeah, you can spend a small fortune on the castings alone.   Then, if you have any money left, you can walk next door and buy FSM castings from RailroadKits...

dave

[Zephyrus52246]

I'll be watching with interest as I have the barn kit in "the stash".  

Jeff

[deemery]

James Van Bokkelen and I swapped emails over the weekend.  He lives in a similar historic house with a barn.  My question was "what's the color history?"  He replied "Both this house, and the old house I grew up in, were painted lead white as far as I know.  I've seen no other color when scraping old paint."    So my approach will be to do the house in 'lead' white, and the barn in 'whitewash'.  For the barn, I've stained the wall siding pieces with HunterLine Driftwood, that's now drying under weights to prevent warping. 

On the barn foundation, the siding dips down to sit on part of the foundation.  I want that wall to sit flush on all the parts of the foundation, but the lower section was too high.  I clipped a (fresh) fingernail file to sand down that part of the wall.  You can see the line across that as the target mark for sanding.  I now have a good tight fit across this plaster casting.  (A conventional file wouldn't fit between the two outer edges of the casting.)


I went back to the location and asked myself, "How will the barn sit when the structure is actually level on the foundation?  Will I need to do any terrain adjustment?  To figure that out, I used my wood mock-up of the foundation and ran a level line against the terrain:

It's actually a pretty good fit.  The front of the barn (that plaster piece I worked on above) is represented by the piece of wood the level is sitting on.

So good progress.

add:  The foundation has been 'dug' for the barn:


dave

[Dave Buchholz]

I've often noticed that barns here in the Northeast, have a ramp up to one side and ground floor entrance on the other. My assumption has been the cows are housed on the ramp side, and the manure hauled away from the lower side. I would suspect the wagon is placed under a hole in the upper floor, and the droppings  shoveled or broomed down the hole to the awaiting wagon for field fertilization

[PRR Modeler]

Dave I don't think I've ever seen a full size white barn.

[ACL1504]

Dave,

Those look like nice kit and the location seems right. 

I'll be following along on this journey.

Tom

[deemery]

I've often noticed that barns here in the Northeast, have a ramp up to one side and ground floor entrance on the other. My assumption has been the cows are housed on the ramp side, and the manure hauled away from the lower side. I would suspect the wagon is placed under a hole in the upper floor, and the droppings  shoveled or broomed down the hole to the awaiting wagon for field fertilization

That's a particularly large space for manure...  It's my very vague recollection that the cows went to the upper level, and the lower level was used for wagons and other farm gear.

Dave I don't think I've ever seen a full size white barn.

I think I have, particularly one that was whitewashed.  But frankly, this barn is probably under-sized for a full-scale farm.  The instructions have prototype photos, showing it's painted white.  James' barn is also white, if I remember correctly.

dave

[jbvb]

Topic of barn designs came up on RR-Line once. My full-size "English Barn" was built with three bays, main door in the center one. Then another bay was added on the road end.  When my grandfather was in the butter/milk/eggs business, he kept his cows on the main floor, hay above it, silage in a wood stave silo opposite the main door and the manure spreader in the cellar, waiting for gifts from above. My barn was sheathed with shingles when I first recall it, painted very weathered red. But AFAIK it must have been built with clapboard or board siding, as shingles weren't plentiful enough for sheathing in the early 1800s.

Another dairy barn on my layout is a resin kit from Sylvan.  According to RR-Line members with farm backgrounds, this later style had hay on the main floor and in the loft, with cows in the basement and one door for people, another connecting the cows with pastures. Keeping the cellar passable must have involved strong backs and wheelbarrows