Yesterday, Brad Slone stopped by and visited for a couple of hours and brought some models to show me. His model of the Rolla depot is outstanding and I did my best to get him to leave it here as I will have to build east out of Newburg soon. Being selfish, he took it home with him. He also brought his model of Bunkhouse trestle from the FLW branch. Another beautiful piece of work. He told me how many NBW castings he used, but I forgot. He also brough along his scratchbuilt 44 tonner in blue and white and his spot engine. We got busy playing and I totally forgot to take photos. He said he would. As usual, they were great pieces of model work. We had a great visit and hopefully can do it again now that he knows where I'm hiding.
Terrific! Brad's Rolla depot model brings tears to my eyes - I spent a lot of time there during my MSM days, and after, watching the Frisco. Wow! He did the old place up right. Three of those bricks in the depot platform are now in my back patio here at home. I went in that door to the left of the bay many, many times to talk with the station agents, to bug them for Frisco stuff, or now and then, to even buy a ticket on #4 to StL. Well done Brad! And the Bunkhouse trestle! How long did Brad work putting that together? Very nice! Ken
Both are very impressive, but that trestle is unbelievable. Will it be installed in a layout or is it a portable module?
For Brad--Terrific model! It's the PERFECT size for modeling! Most commercial kits and model magazine plans are for little dinky (usually run down and junky) brachline stations OR the other extreme, the huge, expensive, forty track "union depot" model kits like Walthers offers. Could you give a brief synopsis of your techniques and the materials used? Did you build from plans or photos or both? Your modeling is admired and appreciated! Thanks, Tom
The trestle model makes my teeth itch. Even the ground elevations look right. And it makes me rethink trying to model it myself. Intimidation or what? Brad - get a BIG basement & good luck on MMR.
I would like to take credit for the look of the models, however I have to admit it's just Don's photo ability! The trestle took the most time simply from the fact that I would work on it until I got board. You can only drill and insert NBW castings (4000+) for so long till it gets redundant! From photo's I estimated the elevation at each bent to get the over all profile, I now have drawings go figure! Eventually it will go on a but I probably won't go to as much trouble on the remaining trestles. The depot structure was fairly straight forward styrene construction with a few changes concerning the exterior finish. It was built using plans and photo's, many of the views of the depot came from the Lost Missouri Depot website. Without photo's from that website and copies from Jack Forbes it would have been very difficult to model the backside. The two main things that where done in addition to standard construction techniques was first I cut a thin strip of V groove styrene and glued in on top of the lower brick work to represent a soldier coarse. The second thing was the stucco. For this I brush painted the areas that where to be stucco, while the paint was still wet I sprinkled very fine rock dust into the paint. This for the most part give me the texture I desired, maybe a little coarse in places but acceptable. To get a consistent color I then airbrushed the stucco area with Floquil foundation. I appreciate all the comments and would like to say what a great host Don is and what a fine modeler he is along with a dictionary of Frisco information. He's posted photo's of only a fraction of the work he has done. As far as leaving the Rolla depot, I did consider a trying to negotiate a trade for a second 4500, but I thought it might be a stretch! Thanks again. Brad
Brad--Is the Lost Missouri Depot website different from www.missouridepots.com/ ? "Missouri Depots" doesn't seem to have any Rolla photos?? Thanks, Tom
Brad's great Rolla depot model is giving me the "bug." Are there plans for that depot in any of the FMIG or museum publications? Were there any other Frisco towns with that depot configuration? Thanks, Tom
Brad - Superb, superb. Can't add much to the superlatives already here! I will say that, if you have photos-in-progress of one or both (preferably both) of the projects, send 'em to Richard Napper, along with any write-ups you have. I think they would make a great-write up for a future edition of The Meteor e-zine. And, kudos for convincing Don to allow the 44-tonner onto his property. Best Regards,
Sorry for the delay in responding it is usually the evenings before I can post much. Attached is a floor plan of the Rolla depot, I scanned it in Adobe so you should be able to zoom in for the dimensions. As far as any other similar Spanish mission style depots the only one that comes to mind off the top of my head is the one at Popular Bluff and last I knew of it was still in existence. Let me know if you have any trouble opening up the file, thanks again for all the kind words. Brad
