# New Engine House on the RGS East



## Big65Dude (Jan 2, 2008)

Actually, more like a refurbished engine house. Here's the story:

Last spring, my friend Clem O'Jevich, proprietor of Warrior Run Loco Works, obtained a couple of large scale buildings - a station and an engine house - I don't know where from. Both were well-built of quarter-inch plywood with hand-laid wood shake shingles, albeit unpainted and devoid of much detail. It appeared as if they were built to 1:29 scale because the doors were all a bit undersized for 1:20.3 scale. Clem gave the engine house to Roger Cutter to use on his *RGS East* layout because it is too large for his own modular set up and kept the depot structure. He asked me if I'd like to try to "spiff it up" a bit, which I did (more on that project will be posted in these pages at a later date.)


Roger then asked me to do the same thing for the engine house and so I've been working on it, off and on, all summer. Here's what it looked like, in place last spring, before I got a hold of it:









Pretty basic - just four walls and a roof without any doors in front.

This last weekend at Rog's live steam open house, we put it back in place and here's what it looks like now:









Everything, except the side door castings and the fire barrels, is scratch-built from styrene, brass bar, redwood and aluminum pop cans.









The smoke jack on top is based on the ones on the roof of the East Broad Top roundhouse in Orbisonia, PA.









It really fills out the yard nicely on the new "upper loop" of the layout.









Here's a more complete shot from above...









... and one from ground level. (That's Dave Kozak's A-frame turntable in the background.)









A shot of my (Accucraft) C-21 coming off the turntable...









... and now snuggly ensconced in the new engine house.









I only show this to illustrate the beautiful pastoral setting of Roger's layout in North Central Maryland. I'd enjoy visiting even if there weren't large scale trains there!

Well, thanks for looking. As promised above, I will post some pix of Clem's Warrior Run Station building, which I did some similar work on, as soon as I can take them. Stay tuned.


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## Richard Smith (Jan 2, 2008)

Gorgeous modeling and photos Jack! Thanks for the inspiration.


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

Now that's a real beautiful building! I love the roof details, specially the smoke jack, very nice! 
Looking forward to the station pictures already!!!


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Outstanding work Jack! AND the photos are awesome!!


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## PapaPerk (Nov 7, 2009)

Nice pics and nice shop! What track does the RGS East use? I like it!


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## Mike O (Jan 2, 2008)

Jack, 

Nicely done! Finishing is very good. The photos are extra sharp with good depth. What are you shooting? 

Mike


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## Big65Dude (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By PapaPerk on 04 Oct 2010 03:15 PM 
Nice pics and nice shop! What track does the RGS East use? I like it! 
Papa -

Roger uses Llagas Creek code 115 flex track almost exclusively. Mostly aluminum with some nickel-silver here 'n' there.


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## Big65Dude (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Mike O on 04 Oct 2010 03:29 PM 
Jack, 

Nicely done! Finishing is very good. The photos are extra sharp with good depth. What are you shooting? 

Mike 
Mike -

I use a little, hand-held Canon _PowerShot_ A710, usually just set on "Auto." 

I always take a lot of pix on the theory that "even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while."


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## blueregal (Jan 3, 2008)

"Neato" Regal


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## ConrailRay (Jan 2, 2008)

Jack, looks great! 

This is such a neat layout... basically elevated for easier access, with larger "scene" areas, but still has the ground/earth effect around it. 
Although temporary, I'm trying to do something similar to this (more like Richard Smith's layout for now). 

What's supporting the llagas track, anything? 

Thanks! 
-Ray


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## Big65Dude (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By ConrailRay on 04 Oct 2010 08:51 PM 
Jack, looks great! 

This is such a neat layout... basically elevated for easier access, with larger "scene" areas, but still has the ground/earth effect around it. 
Although temporary, I'm trying to do something similar to this (more like Richard Smith's layout for now). 

What's supporting the llagas track, anything? 

Thanks! 
-Ray Ray -

In most places the track just "floats" on a gravel (a.k.a. "crusher fines", "stone dust", etc.) ballast roadbed. This allows flexibility in that the configuration can be changed relatively easily and is also the most prototypical.









Here is a "long" shot of the upper loop yard area. This design approach for the layout is very much appreciated by us operators with creaky ol' knees 'n' stuff.


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Fantastic! Taking that plain building to what you did shows your imagination and skill. 

I've never seen "fire" barrels before. I assume they were full of water and if a fire broke out did they just break them open to drown the fire?


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## Big65Dude (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By jimtyp on 05 Oct 2010 12:51 PM 
Fantastic! Taking that plain building to what you did shows your imagination and skill. 

I've never seen "fire" barrels before. I assume they were full of water and if a fire broke out did they just break them open to drown the fire? 
Jim -

It stands to reason. With a wooden shake-shingle roof and a loco inside spewing sparks and hot cinders through the smoke jack - not to mention other locos out in the yard doing the same thing - a fire on the roof was a constant threat. (That's probably one of the reasons why corrugated iron eventually became so popular as a roofing material.)

Open top fire barrels (which were replenished, hopefully, with rain water) were placed on a catwalk along the peak and ladders were conveniently positioned to allow yardmen to get up there as quick as possible to fight fires before they spread. Sometimes, they'd just tip the barrel over above the fire to douse it or use fire buckets if they were available. I've seen this before in period photos and other models and I thought it would add an interesting feature to an otherwise rather plain-looking roof line. 

I did this pretty much from memory - I hope I did it right. If anyone else has any photos of this practice, I'd like to see 'em.


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

WOW You did a fatastic job on the building. It is beautiful 

JJ


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Jack, Thanks for the explanation, makes sense, another part of RR history that I find very interesting.


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## joe rusz (Jan 3, 2008)

Jack, that is one big structure! Bee-you-dee-ful too. Perhaps it will inspire me to start on a similar engine house, which mocked up in cardboard a couple of years ago, but have yet to build because I am: a) busy; b) lazy; c) afraid it's too big. 

BTW, did you say it's all styrene? Also, are the windows scratchbuilt?


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## Big65Dude (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By joe rusz on 05 Oct 2010 09:48 PM 


... did you say it's all styrene? Also, are the windows scratchbuilt? 
Joe -

The basic structure is built of quarter-inch scribed plywood, (see the first pic) but some of the major "add-ons" like the ventilation cupola, smoke jack and front doors are made with strip or sheet styrene. (The loading dock, office steps, catwalk and ladders are all bare redwood.) The windows were already installed when I got the basic structure (again, see the first pic.) All I did was add a window sill at the bottom of each, made from styrene strip.


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## GnTRailroad (Apr 3, 2009)

Jack, 

That is a really nice building! Those pictures you took really look great! Thanks for sharing. 


George


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## Ray Dunakin (Jan 6, 2008)

Wow, what a difference! Great work! Really makes me wish I had room for an engine house on my layout.


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## SE18 (Feb 21, 2008)

Gorgeous; I love your ideas of the tabletop floating track system; looks like it's on the ground and not on a table. The structures add to the realism. Great job! 

Dave V


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## San Juan (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By Big65Dude on 04 Oct 2010 04:16 PM 

Roger uses Llagas Creek code 115 flex track almost exclusively. Mostly aluminum with some nickel-silver here 'n' there.

You mean code 215 right? Code 115 wow that would be low profile


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## Big65Dude (Jan 2, 2008)

Of course I meant to say "...code *2*15 rail."

As the kids say: My bad!


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