I decided to add lengthwise interior walls to reflect the actual floor plan of the second floor of the depot, as shown in the previous post. These also serve as a view block for sightlines through the building. These were just made from styrene, and I chose to leave an open door between the living room (behind the bay section) and the kitchen behind it. I painted them a yellowish brown color.
Next I turned to the roof. Because I wanted to make sure the peel-and-stick shingles would lie as flat as possible, I decided to shingle the roof before adding the rafter tails on the underside of the roof sheets. That way, I could press each roof section under weight to ensure the best possible adherence of the shingles.
The first step is to mark pencil lines on the upper surface of each roof sheet, using the template in the kit instructions as a guide. Though tedious (the kind of procedure I don’t do all in one sitting), this is straightforward. My next step was to airbrush all the sheets of shingle strips the SP depot roof color, Moss Green (Tru-Color no. 154). Be sure you paint the shingle side, not the backing side, as was also important in the sheets of Light Brown depot trim strips. (I confess I had to go back and repaint a few, after failing to make sure that the correct side of every sheet was painted the first time.)
Shown below are three of the roof sheets with pencil lines for shingle alignment, and one sheet of the airbrushed strips of shingle material. (You can click on the image to enlarge it.)
Next I started applying the shingles. Like the task of penciling in the alignment lines, this is a pretty tedious process, though with care it goes smoothly. I did not do over a quarter of any of the roof surfaces at any one sitting, thus preserving my desired happy demeanor. And after each session, I did press the roof pieces having new shingles under weight, and found that this did keep the roof segments flat. The photo below shows some completed and partly completed roof segments (some edges are not trimmed yet).
Note the roof piece with square holes for the chimneys (you can see this same piece in the first photo in this post, with locations penciled in). These locations are measured from the kit directions, and match the flue locations shown in the floor plan of the second floor (previous post, cited at the top of this post).
Once the roof pieces were complete, I added the rafter segments underneath. This went rapidly and easily. I then set about fitting the first floor roof around the building. I immediately discovered an interference. Trim piece D-3, on the second floor wall above the freight room, though located as needed to accommodate the attic windows above, prevented a close fit of the roof pieces to that wall of the building. I carefully cut across the vertical boards on this trim piece and gently pried it free of the wall. I figured I can fit it to the final roof location once the roof is installed.
But once that trim piece was removed, attachment of all four pieces of the first-floor roof went well. The kit directions warn of complications here, though I didn’t really encounter any (except for that misfitting trim piece). Next I turned to the second-floor roof, which I was making removable. As I have done elsewhere, I simply cut styrene “formers” to the roof pitch angle (readily available on the gable walls of the second story) and attached them with canopy glue, along with 1/8-inch square styrene blocking, one strip on each side of each former. For the moment, I ignored the roof over the bay section.
But as soon as the roof structure you see was done, I glued on the bay roof and added a small styrene former inside it, just like the ones in the main roof, above. Note that I omitted rafter ends on what is the back of my model.
Below is the completed model. The freight dock is very nice, though not a great shape for my space, and I may build a new one. Looking at photos of SP depots, particularly CS 22 depots, in Henry Bender’s book (Southern Pacific Lines Standard-Design Depots, Signature Press, 2013), you quickly discover that there were hardly any two freight docks alike, so I feel free to create whatever fits my space best.
Note that the trim piece D-3 above the freight room roof has been re-fitted.
This depot is a great SP structure, and we all owe tremendous thanks to American Model Builders for creating it. Most of it goes together easily and accurately, and though I wouldn’t recommend it to a beginner, I enjoyed the build and found it went quite well. It will be the centerpiece of my town of Santa Rosalia.
Tony Thompson
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