Leadville Roundhouse

[Keith Hayes]

A while back the boys installed the smoke jacks on the roundhouse. Progess!

Studying the photos, it is clear that in addition to the six smoke jacks over the stalls and the several vents, there are also flues for roundhouse stoves.

A search of the internet yielded no suitable product in 1:64. Clint Crow has something in HO and O, but not S. SketchUp seems to has fixed the glitch in their software that made it not play well with Shapeways,  so I am back in business with 3d printing. I found a photo of a suitable stove in Chama, I think. I traced the profile,  scaled it so the top was about 60" off the floor and sent it off.

I am really happy with the results! These are for heating,  not for cooking,  hence the size. I added a sort of door,  but didn't bother with hinges as these will be in the dark.

I did have fun with the flue. The base is an oval which transitions to a circle in about 24" of flue length.

Now I need to make the stove pipes above the roof.

[Jim Courtney]

Here is a photo of  a stove in the RGS engine house at Rico c.1950.




Will the Sn3 roundhouse stoves be available at the Poverty Flats shop on Shapeways?

[Keith Hayes]

Jim, is that Como looking through the wood addition towards the North (and the depot in the glare beyond)?

That stove is scary close to what I modeled, even the flue! I may have to dry brush mine with a coat of grey.

I will consider placing these on the Shapeways site. In a moment of unbridled exuberance, I created a sprue with 10-12 stoves. That is a lot of stoves! The part turned out to be rather expensive, so if I do post this, it will be 5-6 instead.

Clint Crow has similar stoves in HO and O, so those of you in those scales should support CC Crow and order parts from him.  

(Oh, and sorry for the upside down picture. I took the photo with my camera lens closer to the surface for a more realistic point of view).

[Chris Walker]

Keith Hayes wrote

(Oh, and sorry for the upside down picture. I took the photo with my camera lens closer to the surface for a more realistic point of view).

Came out just fine,

[Ken Martin]

Here is a picture of a stove in the Leadville roundhouse taken in 2003.
I saw a similar stove in the Nevada Northern engine house in Ely, NV.
Ken Martin

[Jim Courtney]

Jim, is that Como looking through the wood addition towards the North (and the depot in the glare beyond)?

Actually, Keith, I imagine it to be the inside of the Dickey 2-track engine house. The very long shutter speed used to photograph the dim interior causes a bright glare looking outside to the south, and the water tank and coal chutes are lost in that glare.

But, if I squint, I think that I see Mike Trent just outside . . .

[Keith Hayes]

Nope, I think it is the wood part of Como recycled from Dickey. I spy three large openings on the far wall....

I was going to make a joke about Chris seeing the image in the right orientation, but that has been done.

[drgwcs]

Keith Hayes wrote

Nope, I think it is the wood part of Como recycled from Dickey. I spy three large openings on the far wall....

I was going to make a joke about Chris seeing the image in the right orientation, but that has been done.

Just thinking- perhaps you could submit that wrong way photo for "Narrow Gauge Down Under??"   

[Keith Hayes]

Progress?

One of thee final requirements to be completed for my Electrical AP is the installation of the turntable and roundhouse. Long ago I purchased a Diamond turntable and an NYSE indexing system. Jack suggested I use a PSE DSX to manage reversing on the bridge.
I built the roundhouse and turntable as a module and pulled this from the layout to wire the PSX, the various track leads and program the indexing system.

Today, I installed the track connecting the leads to the turntable. And I got the soldering iron out to connect everything to the track bus. Whew!

I turned on the track power and am able to run the 537 down the inbound track to the bridge, but now 5he bridge is not getting power. But I can turn the locomotive and the selected house track is live, so my to-do list is limited to getting power to the bridge.

Stand by and enjoy this image of 76 and 65 double heading into Leadville.

[Keith Hayes]

I should be working on the Leadville turntable,  getting the kinks out of it so I can really start running trains. But instead,  I started another kit, and needed to get out the airbrush to pre-paint some parts, and that led me back to the long coal and sand storage structures that lined the outbound track from the roundhouse.

I had already built these two smaller structures,  likely for sand and lubricants. These are constructed to fit the space and the dimensions are guesstimated based on similar structures on the layout.

The coal bin is about 30" long to fit under the remainder of the windows. This is all styrene with novelty siding and .010" square verticals. The whole structure was cleaned with alcohol and primed black.

I have been experimenting with pre-shading,  so next I used a business card as a mask and randomly sprayed boards white, sand and yellow. I also painted some of the verticals to provide some variety there, too.

To finish, I applied thin layers of brown and Rust. These are light coats to allow the previous work to show through. I also plan to model some damaged roofing, and want the roof structure to show through,  so I masked off some joists with Tamiya tape and sprayed those. I don't know about you, but paint ALWAYS creeps under my masking, and I tried a tip. I applied a coat of clear satin (gloss level makes no difference) to seal the edges, and it works!

Here are the three buildings mocked up in place. There is still much to do--roof, scenery work and some labels for each bin. I hope 537 will clear these so I can really use the outbound track!

I became aware of a model of C&S  locomotive #65, and the model arrived this week. That is the news from Leadville.

[Mike Trent]

Beautiful work, as usual, Keith. Thanks for the update. And congrats on the #65, I've never seen one of these, but I was involved in notes to the builder who produced it. I couldn't get Tom interested enough to do one in On3. We could have done #69 too. Not sure if they did a 69 in smaller scales, I had moved on by then.

[Keith Hayes]

We have been tuning up the turntable and have it working...at least enough for the MMR jury.

The Leadville bridge scales about 55'-0", a tad bit longer than the real thing. A Uintah Malley fits rather nicely.

Here's a scene we all wish Otto Perry would have captured.