# An Engine House for the Shawangunk Mtn. & Southern



## Bob Rich (Jan 4, 2008)

The management of the Shawangunk Mountain & Southern RR finally passed the bond issue to finance the construction of an Engine House. The final design calls for a building four tracks wide, with a length of 162 ft. (~8’ 1:1) at the end of the existing fiddle yard. 

At his juncture the foundation has been installed and the slab (3/8” Hardiboard) has been laid in place. In addition the track in the building has been installed on the slab floor.










The building itself is under construction at an off site location. Rumor has it that the building will be constructed in it’s entirety at this location and transported to the final location by the legendary sky crane, the “FIVE FINGER HELIOCOPTER”.
Here you can see that the walls are up on three sides and the roof rafters are being placed. The two inner rafters are notched to accept stringers the will keep the spacing between them correct.










Once the stringers were installed the roof framing was complete. The sub-roof has yet to be installed. Plans call for the sub-roof to be made of hardboard (Masonite with both sides finished). The sub-roof will be sealed on all surfaces and then a roll roofing material will be glued down with roofing cement ( actual roll roofing and roofing cement will be used).











The entire roof has been designed to tilt and will be lifted when necessary by the same legendary “FIVE FINGER HELIOCOPTER”. This will allow the sky crane to assist in re-railing any cars or engines. The Chief Financial Officer is under the impression that this adaptation is unnecessary, however the Chief Engineer and the Building Architect are insistent on the tilting roof design. Note the use of specially designed bracing between the ceiling rafters and the walls (metal shelf brackets) installed to maintain the vertical alignment of the walls with minimum reduction in overhead clearances.










Finally in this addition of the report we see that construction of the front wall has begun. It is interesting to see that the Building Architect has chosen to build the wall from the top down rather than the bottom up, as is the usual construction practice. This is not a new technique as the great dreamer Walt Disney used this idea many years ago in building parts of Disney World, CA. (And that’s the truththth. I remember the show they did on building Main Street, where the devised a method of laying bricks from the top down. Why it was necessary I can’t remember)










At present there are no windows or lights installed. These items are awaiting further design work by the Building Architect. However, he assures the management that with the modular design of the walls there will be no loss of structural strength when windows are cut in. The lighting issue is awaiting the removal of certain decorative lights (outdoor Christmas Tree lights) from the neighboring building. Man I hate taking down the lights after Christmas. These decorative lights will be adapted for use in the Engine House.

I hope you all enjoyed this little story about my project. Ideas for the design of this building have been freely stolen from other members who posted pictures of their efforts in building a train storage building. I greatly appreciate the free exchange of ideas here a MLS. Futher updates will be posted as progress warrants.

Regards to all, Bob


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## Engineercub (Oct 18, 2008)

*RE: An Engine House for the Shawangunk Mtn. & Southern*

Great job so far Bob ^^ 

-Will


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## Paul Norton (Jan 8, 2008)

Well thought out and cleverly executed. I look forward to seeing the finished building.

BTW: This is the second time this week I have seen pictures from North Carolina. You are green and I am green with envy. It snowed all day here.


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Looking good Bob. Now I need to get going on mine now that you got me hept up.


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

*RE: An Engine House for the Shawangunk Mtn. & Southern*

wow! great looking engine house! 

and to go along with the "Ontario" thread.. 

Shawangunks in North Carolina? 
whats the story there? 
are you originally from the Hudson valley Bob? 

(I went to college at New Paltz..) 

Scot


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## Terl (Jan 2, 2008)

*RE: An Engine House for the Shawangunk Mtn. & Southern*

Nice building taking shape. Building from the top down a very novel approach. My mind totally boggles at the thought of laying bricks from the top down? Why? Must have been hard to do. 

Terl


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## Bob Rich (Jan 4, 2008)

Thanks y’all for the words of encouragement. 

The arches now have columns under them and the outside has been painted “Barn Red”. The sub-roofing material has been acquired and will be installed tomorrow (I hope). The building will need another coat of paint before going outside. With the roof work and painting I’m not sure it will make it outdoors this weekend. However, the advantage of being retired is that I can work on it during the week also.




















Scot,

Yes we are originally from Orange County NY, Warwick to be exact. My wife got her Masters Degree in Art Ed at SUNY New Paltz. I would have named my GRR the Warwick Valley RR, however, there was a real WVRR and it was one of the predecessors of the Lehigh and Hudson RR. Since I knew a local fellow in Warwick that had a huge HO layout modeling the L&H RR, I thought it would not be nice to steal his thunder. So I named my GRR the “Shawangunk Mountain Railway”. When we moved south I didn’t want to give up the name so we negotiated a merger with a local line here the Rockfish and Southern. I probably should include Rockfish in the name also. What do you think? 
By the way, I have a son in Rochester, NY. We visit there once or twice a year in the nice weather. Maybe I’ll give you a shout when we are due up there and we could get together. On that same note anyone who is visiting the piedmont section of NC is welcome to shout out and stop by for a visit and operating session if they are interested.

Paul,

Even here in the balmy south the temperature does get down to where I can’t paint the building. Tomorrow is supposed to be one of those days. I don’t miss the snow at all, shoveling out at 03:00 AM to relieve the watch at work is an job that I definitely am glad to do without. I hope you had an opportunity to take pictures of your train plowing the snow at least once. I love to show these southern boys the pictures I have of plowing operations on the SMRwy in New York State. I haven’t gotten completely acclimated to the south, I still go out most days in shirt sleeves while the locals are in their winter coats.









Terl,

I remember (way back) when Disneyland opened in CA, there was a weekly show on TV by Walt Disney. When the park opened they had a special show giving a tour of the park and showing some of the interesting things that they did. One of those was building at least some of the Main Street buildings by putting the brick veneer on from the top down. I can’t remember why they felt that it was necessary to do that, but it wasn’t done for fun. The show definitely stated that they needed to do it that way. If someone were to dispute that information I wouldn’t argue with them. However, I wouldn’t agree either.








Further posts will reveal progress as it develops.
Regards to all,


Bob


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## snowshoe (Jan 2, 2008)

Bob
I sent you an e-mail let me know if you dont get it. Thanks


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## Richard Smith (Jan 2, 2008)

*RE: An Engine House for the Shawangunk Mtn. & Southern*

Very nice design. I like your tilting roof too. A very necessary thing for access and cleaning. That'll be an impressive structure when completed. 

Will you be facing it with anything?


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## Paul Norton (Jan 8, 2008)

Posted By Bob Rich on 01/08/2009 6:07 PM

Paul, I hope you had an opportunity to take pictures of your train plowing the snow at least once. I love to show these southern boys the pictures I have of plowing operations on the SMRwy in New York State.


We usually stop operating in late October as Saturdays mornings can be frosty at that time of year. Ordinarily we don’t have snow until the 3rd week of November, but this winter the witch of November came early. The following picture was taken October 29th.

 
Unfortunately we do not get 1:29 scale snow, so plowing would be a problem

 
This is Bellamy Station a couple of years ago buried to the roof.


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

Great design for an engine house--nice approach to the roof!


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## Bob Rich (Jan 4, 2008)

Shawn,

I got it and tried to reply yesterday. I resent the e-mail again today. Hope it gets there. Let me know.

Paul,

Yeah that was the problem with most snows we got in NY. 40 scale feet is tough to plow even at 1:20.3 with double headed Shays.








I am just as happy to look at your pictures as deal with it myself.

Regards, Bob Rich
Shawangunk Mountain & Southern RR
"The Road to the Ice Caves"


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## Bob Rich (Jan 4, 2008)

Lately progress has been slow on the Engine House/Train Shed. The weather has been cold, at least to cold to paint. After several days of below 400 F temperatures we had a couple of days approaching 600 F and I got some work done.









The sub-roof is now in place. It needs another coat of paint before I can install the finish roofing. This sub-roof is made of hard board and is painted with both an oil base primer and a Acrylic Latex flat paint. The next step will be to smear it with roofing cement and apply roll roofing in a single sheet for each section of the roof. This description may be a little deceiving. I plan to use one piece of roofing material for both sides of the upper roof section. So far I can still lift this building by myself, but once the roofing is applied I expect I’ll need some help to move it into position.









I also need to install another rail piece along the outside edge of the roof to act as a lifting point. I think the hard board will not take the stress of lifting the roof once the finish roofing is installed. 









This is a view of the interior that an engineer would see as he drove his engine in for storage or repair. Minus the floor and tracks of course.









The weather report here is for a week of warmer temperatures, so I hope to finish this enough to take it outside. Future plans call for interior lighting and some windows to be cut into the sides. I may try to do that in place, or not, we will see. For now I need to get the garage back to normal for a while before I tackle that part of the project.


I hope you have enjoyed this project so far. I borrowed liberally from other peoples ideas. I have a file of pictures taken from other posts on storage sheds they built. So thanks to RW Marty, Richard Smith, Axel Tillman, a fellow named Peterson whose first name I didn’t record and others whose names never got recorded in my files. I may steal some of your ideas in the future too.

Regards,
Bob Rich


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## Stan Cedarleaf (Jan 2, 2008)

That's quite a nice engine house, Bob. Easy access and a lot of storage.... Well done.


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## Bob Pero (Jan 13, 2008)

*RE: An Engine House for the Shawangunk Mtn. & Southern*

That hingede roof is a great idea for easy access.


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## Bob Rich (Jan 4, 2008)

Thanks guys,

I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I come from a long line of Ingineers. “Yesterday I couldn’t spell Ingineer, now I are one.” 

Actually it helped that my brother was down for the Christmas Holiday when I started the project. He builds Nuke Subs. We always end up doing some sort of project whenever we get together. Typical Tim Allen communication technique. Uh, Uh! Uhuh!















Soon I will be putting the final roof on. Then we will see if it can be lifted into position.

Regards’
Bob


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## Dr G (Jan 16, 2008)

*RE: An Engine House for the Shawangunk Mtn. & Southern*

Bob, 

Quick question on the tempered hard board you used for the roof--willl it survive outside painted? I am looking for a material for the roof of a wharehouse I am building to hold a few of my cars outside and I am shying away from plywood as it seems to seperate, and acrylic is mondo expensive. 

Thanks ahead of time.


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## Bob Rich (Jan 4, 2008)

Dr G,

The use of tempered hardboard is an experiment for me. That isn’t to say I have no basis for using it. 

One of the more experienced members of the club I belong to is an excellent builder of scale buildings and skilled a wood worker. He recommended that I use the tempered hardboard for sub-roofing. His instructions were to paint it on the under side and all the edges, but not to paint it on the upper surface. This advice was for using it to support scale cedar shakes held onto the sub-roof with clear silicon caulk/tub grout. He stated that the silicon caulk would not adhere to a painted surface for long. He did say that he had hardboard on some of his buildings for five years without failure. I do not know if he regularly repaints the underside of the hardboard, but I intend to ask him when I see him. 

I painted all surfaces of the hardboard for my installation. However, I am using roofing cement to glue down regular 1:1 roll roofing, not silicon and scale cedar shakes. I am hoping it will stick. If it doesn’t I can always nail it to the roof supports with lots of cement around the nail head.









It may take some time to truly test this roof installation. So if it fails in any way I will try to post the results. "Silence is Golden."









Regards,
Bob


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## Dr G (Jan 16, 2008)

*RE: An Engine House for the Shawangunk Mtn. & Southern*

Thanks Bob. Oh by the way--Matt is fine, no formalities here  
Interesting take on painting only the sides and bottom. The roll roofing you are talking about--is that the stuff at HD that is used under shingles on real roofs? I need something to simulate the tarpaper roofs on a modern warehouse. Let me know how the glue works over paint, Just need to figure on painting all sides--which is my instinct as well. One more question (yah right!) You mentioned an oil based primer and an acrylic paint--I recall that water based paint doesn't adhear well over oil (I recall a real problem in my last house because I foolishly put a water based paint over an old oil paint--peeled like a sunburned college student on spring break (now there is a visual). 

Regards, 

Matt


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## Bob Rich (Jan 4, 2008)

Matt,

Roll roofing is just the same material as regular asphalt shingles in a continuous roll three feet wide. It has a gravel surface on the top and a continuous three-inch seal tab along one edge. It is much heavier than the tarpaper used under shingles. I am not familiar enough with tarpaper roofs to know if it is the same thing.

As to the paint, I have always been told that the best combination for wood preservative effect is an oil-base primer with a latex topcoat. Generally, an oil-based primer penetrates the wood better than a water-based primer and the latex paint withstands SUV rays better than oil-based paint. 

The paint people at Lowes confirmed this for me. I asked for their recommendation on primer based on the best results not the best price or easiest clean up. They recommended that combination.

All primers have a rougher feel than finish oil-base paint. I think it is referred to as “tooth”. This allows the latex to bond better with the primer than regular finish paint. If you are painting over an old oil-based paint it is recommended that you sand the surface to rough it up. That helps the bonding of the new paint to the old. There is a product known as “liquid sand paper” that is supposed to do the same thing. I do not know how well it works.

Bob


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## Bob Rich (Jan 4, 2008)

The management of the SM&S RR wishes to announce that the long awaited Engine House finally has a finished roof. This milestone having been achieved the Company engaged the services of six of the legendary “FIVE FINGER HELIOCOPTERS” to place the Engine House on the foundation. With the addition of the roofing material the Engine House exceeded the capacity of two of the legendary “FIVE FINGER HELIOCOPTERS” to manage safely.









There is some further work anticipated for final completion of this project. Temporary (possibly permanent?) doors have been constructed to provide security from various wild elements (the neighbors cat). The management anticipates further work to commence once the weather warms up enough to thaw the paint. (It’s only 500 F out here what do you expect from a southern boy ?[transplanted Yankee to be accurate]) Unable to resist the temptation two of the SM&S’s Senior Hogers fired up their engines and moved them into the new weather tight facility.









The engineers report the facility meets all their expectations.
Further developments will be posted as they occur.

Regards


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