Another Grain Warehouse

The Howe and Smallwood warehouse sits at the south end of the town. Adjustments to the ground level will have to be made before the building can be permanently installed.

Oakdale was a town with several warehouses for grain. After all, that was the major commodity carried by the S&C in the '90s. The Howe and Smallwood warehouse sat on the west side of the main line at the south end of town. On my model, that puts it across the tracks from the Oakdale Lumber Company. The prototype structure measured 50 x 400 feet which is way too big for the space I have. I cut the length down to 200 feet but left the width the same. This posed a dilemma since the benchwork was not wide enough to accommodate this width. I decided to slice off part of one side which would result in a model with one wall open. Of course, this meant that I had to provide an interior for the building which was pretty simple since it would be more stacks of grain sacks.

A trackside view shows the loading door and a window. The office door and window are on the building's end at the right of the photo.

   The open side also meant that I would have to construct roof trusses. Yesterday, I spent the afternoon building these trusses using a jig I built. It was not difficult except for the time spent waiting for the glue to dry so I could take it out of the jig. Thirteen trusses later, I was done and assembled them to the building and the way oversized ridge. On half the trusses, part of them would be cut off where the wall didn't exist and they would be supported by this ridge which wouldn't be visible once the roof was on anyway.

The partial roof trusses can be seen in this view. Now I need to fill up the place with grain.

   Today, I'm spending a lot of time casting up more grain sacks to fill up the warehouse. Some workers and hand trucks will be added to complete the scene and then I will attach the roof, shingle it and add exterior details.