Leaning Shed — 1:87 Scale Paper Model

This is my design for a simple wooden shed that has seen better days. It is full-size for HO scale. On the layout, it will be propped up by some wooden beams. Feel free to copy it and share it.

The siding sheet is one I created from a photo of an old barn near my home, posted here for sharing. The doors, windows, and foundation are taken from Paper Creek's Randsburg Barber Shop kit.

Move Over, Sprue Cutters!

Sometimes, things just go my way. Or as my father might have said, "Sometimes Norwegian mule-headedness and a willingness to suspend disbelief can be mistaken for genius."

Earlier this spring at the annual contest of the Madison, WI chapter of the International Plastic Modelers' Society (IPMS) one of my paper models -- Uhu02's 1/32-scale Lunar Excursion Module -- won the "Best Real Space/Science Fiction" award, over several expertly done plastic models. A few weeks earlier, in a smaller contest at the EAA Museum's annual "Winter Flight Fest," the same paper model, in competition with some outstanding plastic models, won the award for "Most Complex." At both events, there were the usual "I can't believe that's paper" comments, and I may have lured a few sprue cutters over to "the Dark Side."

Sauerkraut Distillery - HO Scale, Scratch-Built Paper Model

Mrs. Schnebley's Sauerkraut Distillery is one of the customers of my HO scale Ceresco & Wolf River RR. The model is my scratch-built paper copy of a Bar Mills kit ("Sal Manila's Eggs"). I added the silos and the industrial chimney.

I used clapboard siding, corrugated roofing, and other texture sheets from Clever Models. The doors and windows came from online texture libraries, all laid out in Photoshop Elements®. The stone foundation is from the Randsburg Barbershop kit, a paper model by Paper Creek (no longer in business.) The sign comes from somewhere on the Internet. I will add a loading dock and steps when I decide where the building will be placed on my layout.

George Taylor's Randsburg Barber Shop kit is available as a free download in the Architectural section of the PaperModelers.com forum. It's a little gem with very nice textures. And if you're a paper modeler and you're not a member of PaperModelers.net, slap yourself, than go join.

Here is my kitbash of the barbershop into a small shed. Except for a few pieces of stripwood leaning against the wall, it is all paper.

McIntyre Marine - HO Scale Scratch-Built Paper Model

McIntyre Marine is the largest shipper in Scots' Landing on my Ceresco & Wolf River HO scale shortline. This the the building before I repainted the sign. I scratch built the model in paper, using photos of a FOS Scale Models kit, built by Vilius Bileisis. Vilius does amazing model work and his blog (http://viliussm.blogspot.com/) is well worth a look.

The stairs and railings on my model are made of scale lumber. Everything else is paper. The cutout in the roof fits around a wooden support beam in the basement of our 1865 house. (Someone suggested that I remove the beam. I dread to think . . .) I will add figures, freight dock details, and power lines when the model is installed on the layout. The building and its wharf will be among the first things visitors will see when they enter my "train cave."

Going Batty in the Train Room

Some years ago, my wife and I moved into a new house –actually an old house, built in 1865. I laid claim to half the basement and began construction of a model railroad.

First, I installed sheetrock to the ceiling and insulation to the walls in my layout area. The resulting ceiling was low, about six and a half feet, and made lower still in places by support beams and hot water pipes. I’m six feet tall, the ceiling was rather lower than that in spots, but this was the space I was given and I resolved to make the best of it. Generous amounts of foam rubber applied to pipes and beams helped to keep my skull intact.

Above the sheetrock, in a corner of the layout area lived a small family of little brown bats who were spending the winter in the rafters of the basement. With just a half-inch of plaster between them and me, we, by necessity, came to a gentleman’s agreement that prevailed most of the time:  I wouldn’t bother them and they wouldn’t bother me.

I say most of the time. They were a disreputable bunch. They would get rowdy now and then, and they could make a lot of noise, especially when they’d been drinking. If they put up too much a racket, I would bang on the ceiling and shout a few insults at them. Sometimes that would quiet them down. Just as often, they would reply by squeaking insults at me. And their insults could get awfully personal.

Occasionally, one of these miscreants would scramble over to the un-sheetrocked part of the basement and drop down for a few snap rolls and split-S’s around the basement, just to show off. I would acknowledge its aerobatic skill with some fairly colorful comments, while my two young daughters hid under the layout. Or maybe it was my comments that sent them into hiding. I’m not entirely sure.

If the little aerobat got too close, I’d threaten it with my tennis racket. If that didn’t work, I would retreat upstairs and watch “Making Tracks” reruns until the little villains sobered up (the bats, not my daughters).

At their worst, the bats would sit above the sheetrock over my head and tell dirty bat jokes, rolling around, scratching, giggling, and snorting, and using the most gawdawful grammar. It was disgusting.

Of course this is all pretty typical for bats. I never met one that could stay out of mischief or write a decent sentence. Well, maybe one. There was a long-eared bat I met once in Amarillo, Texas, but that’s another story.

When spring arrived, the bats moved out and I patched the crack in the foundation that was their front door. It’s a lot quieter in the train room now, except when I set my workbench on fire with my soldering gun, or when a locomotive derails onto the basement floor. At times like those, I’m kind of grateful to the little hairballs for all the colorful language they taught me.

Octagon Workshop - HO Scale Paper Model, Scratch Built

My latest paper model project is a stone octagon workshop in HO scale. It started with a scale drawing by Harold W. Russell, from the October 2017 issue of Model Railroader Magazine. The "Illinois Stone" texture sheet, shingle texture sheet, modified windows, and roof hatch are from Clever Models. Creating this model took a lot of work over the better part of a week, and it's far from perfect. The effort gave me a deeper appreciation for the work of people like Thom and Dave at Clever Models. Thank you, guys!

"Every Model Railroad Should Have a History"

I read somewhere recently that every model railroad should have a history that gives it a reason to exist and real work to do. The following history is fiction, the backstory for my HO Scale Ceresco & Wolf River Railroad. The  geography described conforms only loosely to the actual geography of Wisconsin.

History of the

1867 to 1947

 The village of Ceresco (“Sĕ-RĔS-kō”), named for the Greek goddess Ceres, was founded as a utopian commune in 1846 by Fourierites from New York. They built several mills on Silver and Crystal Creeks, established a  school and post office, and in 1854, founded a teachers’ college.

By 1850, the utopian spirit had faded and the members divided the assets and became individual landowners and business owners. With the arrival of the Waupun & Ceresco RR from the south in 1858, Ceresco became a major shipment point for grain, flour, milk, and other farm products bound for Milwaukee, Madison, and Chicago.

By 1867, Ceresco was a thriving agricultural community of mills, small factories, and a prosperous main street. That year, six local businessmen applied to charter the Ceresco, Wolf River,

The first rails were laid from Ceresco in the summer of 1867. Winding its way around glacial moraines and extensive wetlands, the line reached Scots’ Landing on Partridge Lake, in 1872. From there steamboats of the Glencoe Navigation Co. plied the Wolf River, supplying the lumber camps and sawmills, and bringing finished lumber, shingles, farm products, venison, and furs to the railhead. The railroad shortened by a week or two the time it took for products to reach markets to the south – products that used to travel by steamboat to railheads in Oshkosh and Fond du Lac.

The Great Depression of 1873-1887 saw the failure of many short line railroads. The Ceresco, Wolf River, & Lake Superior struggled on through the 1870s and even managed to lay about 20 miles of track from Scots’ Landing in the general direction of Ashland. But by 1878, the line was in receivership.

A group of investors from Madison joined with mill owners on the Wolf River to purchase the CWR&LS for about five cents on the dollar. They kept the line running with one aging Porter, two sagging boxcars, and a ramshackle coach combine, hauling mostly farm products and mail.

The return of prosperity brought with it a flurry of railroad building and expansion. The CWR&LS directors sought investors to extend the line to Ashland, but other railroads and moguls with deeper pockets beat them to it. In 1889, with the writing on the wall, the directors re-chartered the railroad as the Ceresco & Wolf River. The line succeeded modestly for several decades as a small fish in a large pond, upgrading track and equipment, and serving camps, mills, and farms through its terminal at Scots’ Landing and its few miles of track north of there.

In 1901, the directors purchased the Glencoe steamboat line to become the Ceresco & Wolf River Railroad & Navigation Company. World War I increased the demand for lumber and farm products, and the line did well financially until the Crash of 1929. In receivership again, the line was absorbed in 1933, by the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, which continued to run it under the Wolf River banner as a shoestring operation.

By then, the largest customer at Scots’ Landing was McIntyre Marine, a producer of marine engines and hardware. A warehouse at the landing transshipped farm products, wood products, and furs brought in on the steamboats. And the line’s combine and gasoline speeder carried the mail and passengers to points along the line.

When the United States entered World War II, the mills and factories of Ceresco and Scots’ Landing turned to war production. Traffic increased dramatically on the Ceresco & Wolf River. The C&NW provided additional motive power and rolling stock to help meet the demand. An 0-6-0 tank engine and an aging box cab diesel switcher pulled short trains over the 45-mile line.

At the current time, in September 1943, the line runs two or three trains a day from Ceresco to Scots’ Landing and back, exchanging cars with the C&NW and Milwaukee Road at Ceresco. McIntyre Marine, Cape & Armstrong Warehouse, Wolf Brewery & Distillery, Armstrong Woolen Mill, and Mrs. Schnebley’s Sauerkraut factory are the largest customers along the line. Scots’ Landing has become a busy little market town, and the railroad also serves the many small businesses there. From near Timid Falls, a short three-mile spur leads to the Turntail Brewery, maker of the popular "Scorned Woman Ale."

The future will not be kind to the little short line. A modern state highway will reach the Partridge Lake communities in the summer of 1946, and trucks will take away take much of the line’s business. A major flood in April 1947 will destroy the railroad’s aging wooden covered bridge over Dribbling Creek, and, rather than replace it, C&NW directors will abandon the line north of Dribble. The rails from Dribble to Scots’ Landing will be torn up and sold for scrap.

  

Local farmers will rally to keep the line running on the remaining 27 miles north of Ceresco, but it won’t last. With track and equipment in poor shape and modern roads paralleling the line, the last Ceresco & Wolf River Train will roll into Ceresco on August 1st 1947.

In 2007, the former Ceresco & Wolf River roadbed will be converted to a recreational trail, with a new wooden pedestrian and bicycle bridge over Dribbling Creek. It will become part of the national Rails to Trails network.