Photo 1.

The completed building is approximately the same size as the Ophir or Delores depots of the RGS, but it's more mid-western in style. I wanted something large, but different to contrast with my main line depot. The Tall Timbers Mercantile building represents a company that took over the old railroad station when the C&TT decided to relocate their main lines and construct a new station several years ago.

Photo 2.

Here's an angled view of the front side of the structure. The stone foundation along the front was carved into dental plaster that was carefully applied into a notched out portion of the Gator board and colored with acrylic craft paints.

Photo 3.

The back side of the building has only two small wooden platforms directly in front of each of the doors. They were made with strip wood glued to runners glued directly to the Gator board.

Photo 4.

In this close up of the stone work, you can see the darkened wash of shoe dye and alcohol that was carefully applied once the paint had dried.

Photo 5.

Instead of using the thin cardboard supplied for the roofing material, I used .060" styrene instead. Super 77 spray adhesive made by 3-M was used to attach the tissue paper roofing. Krylon Ruddy Brown primer was then used to color the tissue.

Photo 6.

The roof panels are removable in order to add interior lighting and details later. A second floor panel of untempered Masonite was set atop two square pieces of strip wood that were glued to the inner walls.

Photo 7.

A few extra pieces of styrene needed to be added to the underside of the store room roof section to prevent warping.

Photo 8.

Rather than use continuous strips of tissue for the entire roof, some rows were created with shorter pieces, then slightly overlapped with longer ones to complete the row. A thin dark line, made with Pactra Glossy Black paint, simulated freshly applied tar to seal the seam. The "tar" was also used on the 5-Minute Epoxy that serves as flashing around the metal chimney casting. The chimney is also secured to another piece of styrene with epoxy on the underside of the roof.

Artist's chalks were used for additional coloring and weathering on the roof. Black chalk was powered on a piece of sandpaper and then brushed on the chimney and roofing with a Max Factor makeup brush.

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Photo 13.

This series of photos shows the building set up on a posing stand out doors.

Photo 14.

This scene shows the Tall Timbers Freight House, currently located directly across the tracks from the passenger station in the town of Tall Timbers. As luck would have it, I'm not able to use the nicely carved stone fronted Gator board piece once the building is placed on the layout. Poor planning, I suppose. I had hoped to use this structure at another location with the Gator board resting at the same elevation as the ties. However, that would have place the platform too far away from the cars to safely load passengers when the building was an active passenger station.

Photo 15.

Here is the Tall Timbers Merchantile Building setting on it's newly found site. I already have a piece of 1/2" plywood in place so I'll just have to add foundation strips around the base of the building and construct a new platform for the track side of the building. The freight house will be moved to the site where I had planned to put this building.

Photo 16.

The final scene in this document was taken through the trees looking up toward the front side of the newly sited building.

I hope you enjoyed this photo tour of a new building for the layout. Since it's located close to the edge of the layout now, I'll have to get busy and add some interior details to complete the scene.