Leadville Depot

[Keith Hayes]

John, I am planning on the small frame addition. The image above shows board and batten, which appears different from a Maxwell photo in Mineral Belt. I think this is an airlock to keep the cold 10,000 foot air out,  similar to Como.

Anyhow,  now the brick is red.

I got some scribed styrene for the soffit.  Any guess regarding the color? Light gray? Green? It is always so dark in the photos.  And what would the interior color be? A mustard as at Como?

[Keith Hayes]

Railroad Glory Days posted another historic image of the Leadville C&S depot:

The poster included the following, "Leadville, Colorado Depot in 1920. Herschell Woodward collection."

This does not yield much new information to me, except that the soffit at the overhang is awfully dark, suggesting it is painted olive. The roof sure looks to be in good shape.

[Darel Leedy]

Your depot is looking wonderful Keith. Too bad the front of it faces the backdrop though

[Lee Gustafson]

How about a mirror at a 45 degree angle where the wall and the ceiling meet to allow the front of the station to be viewed. You've done an excellent job that deserves to be seen.

Lee Gustafson

[Keith Hayes]

Stone!

[Keith Hayes]

Today I started installation of the platform. Platforms eat wood like crazy, and I really should order some more straightaway.

I always thought of the stone as a beige or grey, but photos show some pink under years of surface weathering. Mixing some beige and sienna yielded the right hue. Some pieces got a bit more beige, and random stones got a wash of gray. The windows bear on the stone, so the color extends into the opening. I painted the sides of the door jambs where the stone appears in section.

Mortar is my nemesis. Monster recommends Bragdon's weathering pigments.  I got some and it seems to do the trick. I dusted the pigment into the joints with a small stencil brush and set it with Dullcoat.

The windows and doors looked too dark and they got another coat of paint to lighten them up. East window has been numbered and sanded to fit specific openings.

The roof is fast approaching. I have a plan to use scribed styrene for the soffit. Not sure if the brackets get glued to the wall, or the soffit. Figuring out the dormers is moving up the to-do list.

When I started the project Darel suggested I not model the operators bay as it faces the wall: curious there is now a campaign to rotate Leadville. No doubt the view of the Continental Divide across the Arkansas would be grand. Leadville is about the mines, though, and the mines extended east towards the Mosquito Range. This also reinforces the sense of space as the scene extends uphill into the scene. Enterprising visitors will spy the east face of the depot, and I will know that it is there.

[John Schapekahm]

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[Robert McFarland]

Lots of good C&S photos on Ebay now including several of the Leadville Depot.Also a good one of C&S RPO 12 -and 1002!

[Keith Hayes]

For those of you who like to use wood, there is an article with many tips on how to use Monster Models brick sheet in the March 2016 Model Railroad Hobbiest. The example build includes use of a stone base, brick sheet, Monster's cornice and corner pieces and the brick arches. There are also some recommendations on rattle can colors for use on brick and stone. As usual, my timing was poor, because the author figured out a couple building methods I could have taken advantage of. Oh, well. Check it out, nonetheless.

One note--the brick arches at the windows are applied to the face of the brick sheet, which causes them to protrude beyond the face of the building. Check your prototype carefully. While this may occur on some buildings, it is far more common that the face of the arch is flush with the remainder of the wall: anytime there is a protrusion, that is a place for moisture in the form of snow to accumulate and after that only bad things can happen.

Also of interest in the same issue is an article on 20th Century freight car doors. Being of a narrow mind, I am not apt to go looking for prototype info in the wide gauge press. MRH has had some fine overviews of car types and this one places the Camel door and USRA refrigerator car hardware in some context. Impress your friends: identify a Youngstown door on their pike!

[South Park]

 I drive a similar era vehicle:



...  and in similar fashion to all my "old junk" interests, I have pushed
myself to learn a lot about the era.  One of the intersting insights I have
discovered regards the general understanding that flat tires were a MAJOR
headache for early automobile operators.  Mud was another.  What I never
made the connection on with these two was wooden boxes !

  See, before cardboard boxes, all crating was done with wood.  Wood, held
together with NAILS !  And what do we do with boxes that have delivered
their cargo ?  Why we dispose of them !  We might burn them, today we
often recycle the carboard, but back in the day, they were often broken down
and tossed into the deep, muddy ruts to provide "footing" for the horses or
wagons/buggies.  And none of this was a problem until pneumatic tires came
along.  Now those little box nails that did not bother horse hooves or hard
wheels made short work of letting the air out of those new automobile tires !

  So, there's your tiny tidbit of forgotten historical info for today !  

[Keith Hayes]

Getting closer.

I cannot put off the roof much longer.

[Keith Hayes]

One day during the 1950s, Jim Ozment wandered into Leadville and was kind enough to document the C&S depot and water plug:

His son Doug recently posted the image on Facebook.

Do you all suppose that is a sand house next to the water plug? Or lubrication?

[Keith Hayes]

After a very frustrating weekend trying to set up a DCC programming track with a computer and decoder pro, I opted to take a break and run some trains. Extra 75 west has just pulled in and is starting to switch it's train.

The fellow asking for directions now has a crowd.

[South Park]

  The direction-asker's car has inappropriately "chromey" wheels.  Hotrod wheels did not come
along for another 30 years or more.

[Jim Courtney]

Don't forget to add the clothesline at the south end of the platform, so the trainmen can air out their bedding!

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8c31646/

[Keith Hayes]

But of course, Jim! And I will work over those hub caps in time, SP.

[Keith Hayes]

After some thought,  I opted to construct the soffit upside down.

I lay out each segment and now am gluing up the parts. A lot of fit and trim and fit and trim...repeat...is ahead.

I will paint the soffit and brackets green when completed.

Once the soffit is done, construction of the roof and dormers can begin. I plan to use thinner styrene sheet for the upper roof. I am not sure what to use for shingles. This roof will eat up a bunch,  and there is the matter of the gutter strip just inboard of the fascia.

Grandt trim should do for the ridges, and I can fabricate the fancy ridge flashing from sterne strip and dowel.

[Robert McFarland]

When was the large sign on the end of the roof that originally said "Union Pacific Passr. Depot taken down?

[South Park]

  UP lost control of the line in 1896 and C&S took it over in 1899.  Probably 1896, but
perhaps if no one was "motivated", it might have lingered until the C&S arrived (?).

[Keith Hayes]

Robert...what SP said.

The model just gets "Leadville. "