River or sea side dock/station


OK here's my first tryout of the building in place with the rails. Its more restricted then I ever thought, but I think it will work anyway.

dockside_2.jpg


after I tried it, I noticed that I had to elevate more the base of the dock as it was very low near to the river base, now ita around 1" high, which will be perfect to build a dock side wall.

I still have a small problem though which I mentioned earlier in another post. the rail leading to this dock, passes under another line ( bridge ) but now I noticed that the clearance is too little, and don't have much tollerance to correct the spacing. I already lowered a little the dock platform (base) but the adjustment made was back to what it was when I placed the road bed. My next adjustment will be the upper line, but to lift up that line will mean increase the gradient, so I cannot afford much either. on the left side of the lower rail will be the river, so the only support I can place will be a mid stone support, as shown in above photo. The span of that bridge will be approx 9", can anyone post an idea of which bridge would go best for this place?

bridgeproblem_2.jpg



Kindly help
 
Maxitrains, I think you'll be fine with that bridge at that height. Just no high cube cars! You cna place those yellow signs on the sides of the bride with its height clearance, and farther down the line post a sign saying "Restricted clearance line, xx ft".

I'd think some sort of through girder, or plate bridge is in order. Atlas makes a number, but if the gap is too long, like suggested elsewhere, you may have to double bridge it. Put the first pillar right at the edge of the river. Its been done before, so it fits the prototype.

You know what might be cool? A through plate girder bridge over the tracks, and a deck plate girder over the river!

Through:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/150-885
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/210-1903
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/210-1904
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/210-19031 (Might be your best bet there, being a curved bridge, and making your own very thin deck)
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/255-80180
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2948

Deck:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/200-765
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/255-75501
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/255-75507
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3147 (this one will require allot of modification, but...)

There's more out there then just that, but I think they could look cool.
 
What is that track mounted on presently? If it's structurally strong now, you can glue some plate girder to the side like the ones Josh pointed out in the Walther's catalog. What is the pier that's upsteam from the bridge being used for? It's hard to tell from the picture but, assuming that's going to be supporting another line and it's close enough to the new bridge, you can build up another pier right next to it to support the two plate girders spans. The clearance isn't really a problem as long as you have warnings like Josh wrote. Technically, you should also have telltales hanging on both sides of the bridge to warn it won't clear a man on top of a car.

Now, that track running across the top of your dockside building looks like a real problem. Assuming I'm seeing it right, it appears that it runs right on top of the building with almost no clearance. That's something that no building codes would allow and no one would be able to work on the roof. If what I'm see is true, I suggest you lower that building by a story now before you start dealing with another bridge problem.
 
Hi Jim, as for the top track I have enough clearance, and its not on top of the building, its an optical illusion, if U see the following picture U will know why

dockside.jpg


The lower track curve is presently on some kind of curved bridge base, which as you say, I can attach a couple of plate girder sides and leave it as is.

The pier I have there is just for reference, since I don't have a shorter one at the moment to try it under that curve, there will be no other line there, its only the 3 you are seeing, Top curve, Mid curve and bottom crossing.

I will also place signs everywhere even at the previous intersection before the switcher enters the siding. :) I'm already picturing teh whole valley infront of me at the moment :)

Thanks guys, more ideas will be appriciated as well
 
Maxi, I see that optical illusion now. Please disregard my previous warning about lowering the building. :) Low clearance bridges are not unusual, especially when they pass over lightly used industrial traffic. I can't find a picture of one now but US railroads often used tell-tales to warn a man on top of a car that they were coming to an obstruction that wouldn't clear a standing man. The were like a telegraph pole with an arm coming out at 90 degrees over the track. The arm held pieces of rope cut to the length of a the minimum clearance so the ropes would hit anyone standing on the car and warn him to get down from the top of the car or lay flat and hope for the best. That would actually be more prototypical than a bunch of signs.
 
Its not a problem, it could ahve been like U said and brought it to my attention, so I thank you for that :)

As maybe U have seen I'm trying to model the building I will be needing for this place, and also need to print the brick wall facade, but my difficulty is how big should the bricks be, in the walther's model its hard to see since its a small picture, I counted approx 26 brick layers near a window, could that be possible?

In my country we don't use bricks to build so I don't have a clue on the bricks sizes used for construction, and I guess there are more then one type and size. Also the era in which that building was constructed could have been used different types as well. Can anyone give me a hint on what size should I look for so that I can scale down the textures for a better look. I'm not after the brick colour detail, unless that type of brick was made for a specific purpose.

building_4.jpg


This is the building I'm trying to construct

90973.jpg


Thanks
 
Maxi,
I'll give you some general brick guidelines. Brick aren't like lumber. They didn't come in standard sizes but there were common sizes. Facing brick like that structure would be made with were about 2.5 inches thick and 8 inches long. An industrial building would normally have 8 foot ceilings. Adding space for floor and ceiling joists, an average story was about 10 feet tall. Therefore, a one story brick building would have about 48 courses of brick.

Looking at your building, you have somewhere between 11 and 12 courses of brick next to the windows. That would make your window about 2.5 feet high, which is very small for an industrial window, since their main purpose was to let in light. The 26 courses of brick next the Walthers window would indicate a window about 5.5 feet high, much more likely in an industrial structure. Basically, while your brick look fine, they are really too big to represent common American brick. Now, does this really matter? How many people will be counting the number of brick courses you have in this building? It's up to you, of course, but I think what you have looks fine for a background building. If you want it to be more exact then you have to reduce the height of the bricks by about half.
 
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Thanks very much for the guidline, as U said, not many people will be counting bricks, and I'm not in to make it perfect, but at least I would get it close to what is real, and since I just made one print, I will adjust the brick size to have a better print.

Thanks.
 
Maxi, it's coming along better than I thought it would. The brickwork is fine for what you're doing. My thoughts now is that you are going to have to square up some of those windows. It looks like that first window is framed in wood. While that would work, it's not very prototypical and makes a small window look even smaller. I'd use some thin strip styrene for the frames, painted green to simulate steel frames. You're also going to have to come up with some way to make window glass. Warehouses usually had multi pane windows since it was cheaper to replace a small piece of glass than a bigger one. If you have a steady hand, you can use clear styrene and a straight edge to paint thin green lines on the windows to represent mullions. A green fine point marker would probably do the job.
 
Yeah Jim, I replaced and woeked out on the entire brickwork, and made it smaller infact it looks much better now. As for the window that was just a trial, I made that from match sticks, and the frame turned out to look thicker then it should be, as I was already thinking about using styrene for framing. As for the window panes, in the model picture they are sectioned in 4 parts, but as you said most of the large windows were sectioned in smaller parts, even though I think in the 40's not much of large glass sheets were produced and also as you said it was easier to change. My greatest concern is the roller shutter doors, as I'm still thinking on what material I should use to lighten up the job, instead of using styrene and have to stripe it all up with a marker. I still have to make the brick extrusions in between the building sections, but that won't be hard, I'll cut some wood srtips and cover them with the same brick work print I made.
 
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Here are some updates on my structure construction, for those interested :)

building_6a.jpg


I fitted in the extruding building re-enforcers with wooden strips, which eventually I will cover with same textured print, and added a solid wooden platform, which in these pictures is seen painted in photoshop, but later will be painted and weathered as concrete platform. I have another query though, that were warehouses roofs made of?

building_6b.jpg
 
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Maxi, that building is really looking fine. Why not paint that trim a contrasting color rather than cover it with brick? Most of these types of structures were concrete frames with brick curtain walls. The parts you have sticking out would actually be the concrete beams rather than brick so either painting them to look like concrete or painting them an accent color would be more prototypical.

For rollup doors, check out the ones at http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/541-1100. They are only $2.25 for a set of 2 and I think they'd look just right on your warehouse.

Flat roofs were made of tar and gravel. Some black latex paint with some light color ballast sprinled on the top would give you the look you want. Thisis how the tat and gravel roof looks on one of my buildings.:
RoofDetail1Small.jpg
 
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Josh, tnx for your comments, I will keep updating this thread


JIM, I donno about painting concrete colour, since I don't really know if in the 50's they were already doing that type of concrete frame buildings ( I don't live in US :p )

About the roll up doors they look really fine but Walthers item does not specify the sizes of the door and in my eyes I see it like wider thent he ones I need, if U see well my building, in every section the door is in 3 parts, well maybe I will change it to 2 parts, but surely I don't think that a roll up door was ever that big.

And also thanks about the roof material U gave me a good lead on it as I did not quite have an idea on how warehouses roofs were actually finished.


KEN: thanks about ur comment, I tried several prints before I actually found the right one.

I'll keep updating it till its ready :), and when its ready I have to hire some people to run it :) so then I think I'll create my account with Walthers to get some forklift and workers and some crates and boxes to put on.
 
Maxi,
Concrete frame buildings with brick curtain walls were built from the 1910's right up until about 1960. It's actually an older style of constuction that was superseded by steel frame construction with aluminum curtain walls.

Rollup door were, on average, about 8 feet wide for truck loading and 10 feet wide for railroad car loading. They were pretty big and your's are actually too small. Look at the width compared to the locomotive engineer in the MP-15. They had to move forklifts through those doors so they needed a good clearance. I think changing to two doors wide and using the ones at Walthers will give you a better appearance and make life easier all the way around.
 
Latest building update :) still needs work and refinement, but getting there, here are the pictures.

building_7a.jpg


building_7b.jpg


Kindly tell me if there's something which can be improved or changed

Thanks
 
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