Frisco Standard Station No. 1 Laser-Cut Kit Poll

A good friend of mine owns Kaw Valley Designs and he is interested in creating a precision, laser-cut model of the Frisco Standard Station design No. 1. Standard Station No. 1 was used in the northern part of the system per the plans in the 1993 All Aboard published by the Frisco Museum. The best example of this station is at a Lenexa, KS park at 87th and Lackman Rd.

I will assume that those who respond to my poll are interested in obtaining a kit of Standard Station No.1 My question to the group is "What scale would prefer?

Thanks. I will leave this poll open until April 15.

Rick

 

I was able to find this so-so photo of the original depot which was moved in the 1980s to the Legler Barn Park a few miles from its original location on the KC Sub. It has been restored and painted in a 1940s-50s paint scheme of gray with white trim. I will search for something a little better.

 

This is my model of how it looked in the 1970s. There has to be a photo of it in the 1970s somewhere . . .

 

Finally, here is a prototype photo . . . .

 

Sign me up for one

 

Hello Frisco Folks; I believe this depot has already been done as a laser kit. Blair Line has done a depot called the Gerald Depot which is a Rock Island depot. However, I have the standard plans for the Rock Island Depots and the plans for the Frisco Depots, and they both shared the same plans. One set of plans even has a "Accepted by the Office of the Chief Engineer; Rock Island Lines" stamp and the "Adopted by" stamp from the Frisco. A number of standard plans I have acquired over the years have dual stampings from the Rock and the Frisco. If you remember your history, the Rock and the Frisco were joined at the hip from 1903?? till 1913 and they had a lot of consolidation of services. All of the plans I have were dated in that same period...the Depots in 1906, 1907 and 1912. If anyone has different information I would like to hear it, I was thinking about doing an article about this kind of thing and would like to hear any rebuttals.

As a side note, another Depot that was done as a laser kit was the Frisco Depot No 2. It was made by Blair Line also and was of the Grandview Missouri depot and is the same as a lot of Frisco cold climate depots including the one I know well, the Ellsworth Kansas Depot. It was sold exclusively by Show Me Model Railroad company in Grandview Mo...just south of KC. Take a look and see what you think.

Dale Slechta

 

Has anyone ever thought about doing the metal building "kits" that appeared during the 60's and 70's for the more contemporary Frisco modeler? I mean, with all the o/w painted stuff out there, it would seem that a more modern offering might be just the ticket.

 

Dale,

Thank you for letting us know about the Blair Line Gerald Depot. I went out on the Blair Line website and took a look at it. It does resemble the Lenexa/Standard Station Plan No.1 plan but I noted a few differences.

The Blair Line website only shows the front and freight room elevations and most of the features are similar or exact. The differences I noted were

1. The freight door in the model appears to be made of planks laid out at a 45 degree angle. The Lenexa depot had a freight door made with two crossbucks for support. I will have to check the Standard Station Plan No. 1 to see for sure which door was used but I believe it was the crossbuck design.

2. The freight house window on the model is an eight lite window with a larger width and length than the Lenexa depot. In addition, the Lenexa depot (Std Plan #1) had either a 3 or 4 lite narrower window.

3. The pagoda hip ridges on the Blair Line model are accurate for the prototype depot until it was refurbished by the Frisco (60s?) and painted the standard light brown color. As per the photo provided earlier, the pagoda hip ridges were removed.

4. The roofing provided in the model appears to be rolled roofing and the Frisco prototype appears to be seal-down asphalt shingles. This could be changed easily with Micro-Mark self-stick shingles in green. The earlier prototype may have been shake shingles since the refurbished depot in the park has wooden shingles on it.

5. The back elevation of the model is close to the Lenexa prototype with the window arrangement but there is no freight door on the back elevation of the prototype. I will have to check the drawings but I don't beleive there is a freight door on the back elevation either.

I believe the angle bay doors and windows on the front elevation match very closely, if not dead on. The office side elevation of the model appears to match the Frisco prototype. The overall dimensions appear to be very close or the same. The chimney placement on the model also differs from the Lenexa prototype but that shouldn't be too difficult to change.

I have a set of the Frisco Standard Station Plan No. 1 provided by the former Frisco Museum and any model made by Kaw Valley would be based on that set of drawings. I will have to check but I don't remember any non-Frisco markings on the plans.

I became very familiar with the Lenexa depot when I scratchbuilt it in styrene and made some detailed measurements of the actual depot. I have seen the Frisco Depot No. 2 model and it is a close but not exact representation of the Lenexa depot. The Lenexa depot appears to me to be a dead ringer for the drawings of the Frisco Standard Station Plan No. 1.

In the end, each modeler will have to determine the level of accuracy that they want. Afterall, Rule 1 is always in effect. However, as a buyer, it is great to have choices.

For comparison's sake, here is the url to the Blair Line Gerald Depot site.

http://www.blairline.com/gerald/

If anyone has a photo of the Frisco Lenexa depot in the 1940s or 1950s, would you post it for us?

Ship IT on the Frisco!

Rick

 

Rick; On the Blair Line site...did you look at the bottom of the page for that Gerald Depot? They will supply you with the correct freight doors. Also, have a look at the Leeton Depot also on Blair Lines' site. It has a different freight door arrangement. On the Rock Island plans they call the doors like on the model kits "Tack doors". Musta been something special on the Rock. I kitbashed a couple of the Leeton depots before Show Me had the Grandview depot kits created. Fun projects that capture the essence of Frisco depots if you look at enough pictures.

Dale Slechta

 

Dale,

You are right about the optional Frisco crossbuck doors. I found that after I submitted my post. They look good.

The Leeton Depot adds a door to the freight room and has a larger window. If the kit has holes for both the extra door and window then it would be tough to fill them in and make it look good. Otherwise those would be big differences. If the kit has solid walls, then one would have a good shot at making it more accurate. The plans and the Lenexa depot only have the single freight door and a narrow 3-4 lite window on the side elevation.

Most modelers are good with some compromises but with today's technology I guess I am getting very selective. Living close to the Lenexa depot is probably no help either.

I scratchbuilt my 1970s era depot from Evergreen styrene and took my time. It was worth the effort but I don't want to spend a lot of time when I build my 1950 (gray/white trim) version. If Kaw Valley doesn't produce the Lenexa kit I will look into the Blair Line kits and see how I can "Frisco-ize" it.

Ship IT on the Frisco!

Rick

 

To add to the discussion, there is a photo of the Ellsworth, KS depot in one of the other threads.

http://www.frisco.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=6390&d=1234590417

Bob Hoover
FriscoFriend

 

For discussion purposes, has the thought came across to possibly consider doing a board and batten depot instead of one so similar to the Blair Line one? We have two depots so far, one being Leetown and the other being Blairstown which was two-story. There were numerous depots along the system that were the third kind. One that comes to mind is Beaumont, KS.

http://www.frisco.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=125&d=1127744489

Bob Hoover
FriscoFriend

 

Yeah, I got several pictures of this same depot that I snapped photos of every angle of including shots of every angle of the Northern Pacific caboose from 1997.