My first structure

[railBuilderdhd]

I’ve started to paint my first structure and would like to know what you think of what I’ve done thus far. I’ve purchased a kit and have planes to convert this from a Townhouse to a warehouse for Fairbanks – Morse. They had produced engines back in the early 1900’s and I thought this kit look good as a warehouse and Fairbanks – Morse would be a company you my find located on a railroad shipping their parts all over the country.
Thanks for looking and letting me know what you think of my work.
Structures - Society Hill TownHouse

RailbuilderDHD

[Jim Krause]

As an amatuer with limited experience in weathering, I'll say your work looks very good. You have the aged brick down pretty good. I do notice a bit of shine on some of the brick but that could be due to the photo lighting. Dullcote should reduce that when you are finished.
The reason I'm not good at weathering is that when I built models for a living, the customers wanted their buildings to look new.

[UP SD40-2]

RailbuilderDHD QUOTE:
I’ve started to paint my first structure and would like to know what you think of what I’ve done thus far. I’ve purchased a kit and have planes to convert this from a Townhouse to a warehouse for Fairbanks – Morse. They had produced engines back in the early 1900’s and I thought this kit look good as a warehouse and Fairbanks – Morse would be a company you my find located on a railroad shipping their parts all over the country...
************************************************** *******************


RailbuilderDHD, NICE WAREHOUSE!

I live in the home city of Fairbanks-Morse , in fact, i work less then a block away from FM . My Grandfather, Great Grandfather, and a few of my Great Uncles worked at FM for MANY years, before, during, and after the FM train engine building years .

FM really had just three plants, and done all the shipping from those plants , i have no records of, or recall FM having ANY warehouses outside of the three plants .
SHIPPING from FM really worked like this:
CNW & The Milwaukee Road BOTH served the main FM plant. lets say on the West coast, UP needed pistons for the H15-44's they had, and on the East coast, New York Central needed new truck frames for one of their H10-44's, instead of the parts coming from a warehouse, they would have been shipped factory direct . the CNW & Milwaukee road would have took the parts directly from FM to those roads yards in Chicago, and since Chicago was the MAIN HUB of the Midwest, the cars would have been distributed either directly to the road that needed them, or to the road closest to them that ran into Chicago (just about all class one roads, and then some, ran into Chicago ).

The home plant is in Beloit WI., and is still going, building ship engines . the other two plants were in Erie Penn., and Kingston Canada . FM did have offices in Chicago. ALL three plants were HUGE, the Beloit plant for example was just over three city blocks long .

your warehouse does have "some" similarities to the Beloit plants offices .

though your FM "warehouse" is fictitious, I THINK ITS A REAL NEAT IDEA!!! , KEEP THE FM NAME ALIVE!!!

:deano: -Deano

[railBuilderdhd]

Thanks for the input on FM. I didn't know much about the company other than I ran into the name in one of those "remember when" booklets I was thumbing through when I was waiting for a table at breakfast the other morning. I found this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fairbanks-Morse-Warehouse.jpg to a photo of a company warehouse and that made me think this would work. You have provided me a lot to think about if I wouldn't want to be incorrect from the way the company worked. I was thinking a company as large as they are would have had offices and some warehouse space in cities all over the place. Guess maybe not from what you are saying.
I didn't find a lot about the company's history but it was broken into a few companies one being a scale co. The logo I found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fairbanks-morse_logo.gif seems to be for the scale company but I couldn't find anything else so I assume it the main company logo. Maybe you can let me know if you know or have anything from your family's history that would provide me the logo I need to paint on the building.

[yellowlynn]

I am sure Fairbanks-Morse has changed considerably, but I lived in or near Beloit for 15 years (1930-1945). My dad worked there all that time, and my mother, strictly a homemaker, worked there during the war years. It was WAY, WAY, over 3 blocks long, going from the old fire station in the south to nearly Henry Ave in the north, and from Hwy 51 east to a main street I forget. It was huge. I believe that most any type of brick bldg. would have fit in their layout.

Lynn

[UP SD40-2]

railBuilderdhd, in your first post you mentioned "engines", so thats what i based my answer on . the FM scale end of the business, now thats a whole different story .

Frankly, i don't know much about the scale end of the business , other then i think it was national, if not global, and they had different warehouse's/factories for that end of the business all over. they had service and calibrating Dept's., but where i couldn't tell you. they didn't make the scales at the same plants as the engines, like i said, it was a whole different thing. i think the scale end of FM is still going, as i have seen about three months ago a black box truck with white lettering that said: "Fairbanks-Morse Scales, sales, service, calibrating" on the side , no logo though, i think the logo was sold with the engine end of the business, which is now owned by Enpro. since the scale business was really its own entity, i doubt Enpro owns it now, like it does the FM engine plant, but i am only guessing at that .

Going with the scales end of the business makes your factory/warehouse real prototypical , as they were/are all over.
Don't get me wrong, as i DID state in the response to your first post, i REALLY DID like the idea of the warehouse, even when you just stated the engine end of the business , all i was doing was filling you in on how it really worked on the engine end of FM . FOR THE RECORD, FM still ships there engines out by rail! UP has the contract , its pretty darn neat to see those huge ship engines pulled out of the plant with UP's big loco's .

On the logo, as far as i know the logo you put the link to was FM's logo for ALL ends of its business, i know for sure it was the logo for the engine plants , that logo was even put on the train engines they made . i am pretty sure that logo has been sold and is no longer in use though .

I'm sorry, i really couldn't help you with the scales end of the business , my real interest in FM was from 1944-1963, those are the years FM made Loco's, and all of my relatives were working there at that time . i have literally TONS of records, files, and books on FM during those years, but didn't have any interest in any other products they made .

Lynn, WOW!!! , thats really neat!
My Great Grandfather worked there at that time, well past the time frame you mentioned too . you are right, the property is way over 3 blocks long, but i was only counting the factory space , with the parking lots, and unused property it was twice as big as the plant its self . hey, and don't forget the "Fairbanks Flats" , do you remember those company owned apartments on shore drive? some have been torn down, the rest are still there, but condemned . there is a committee RIGHT NOW that is trying to get enough money to restore one of the "Fairbanks Flats" apartment buildings .

:deano: -Deano

[railBuilderdhd]

Thanks for all the great info. To clear up what I'm thinking of doing is a warehouse for F-M that would be a shipping point for engines or any other parts they sold. Until Deano mentioned they only shipped out of Chigago I figured they did shipments from warehouses like I found in the photo. I didn't want to do this for the scale business F-M had but rather the engine business. After all, this was going to be a model for a train layout.
Well, now I need to rethink this as a F-M warehouse or other company. I am glad to hear the logo is the correct one so I can use it to paint on the building if I do continue with the warehouse being for F-M.
Thanks,
Dave

[Biased turkey]

Nice weathering job on that structure.
It's too bad that Deano rained on your parade when he mentions that F-M never shipped their engines from warehouses.
You could apply some modelling license here such as F-M had a warehouse ... in Canada for example.
I'm sure you'll find a good use for that structure.

Jacques

[railBuilderdhd]

Ok, I've done some work on the bricks and now I have some questions on what I've done. Take a look at the web site and let me know what you think.
http://rbdhd.t35.com/societyHillThouse/take2.htm
Dave

[RonP]

You did a good job on the grey. Its got that grimy city look.

[railBuilderdhd]

I've yet one more update based on the comments I got from others and the updated work can be seen at Structures - Society Hill TownHouse

Please let me know what you think,
Dave

[Ralph]

I like the weathering a lot!
Ralph

[RonP]

looks fantastic really brought it all together nicely. Now how did you do it ? (-=

[railBuilderdhd]

I'm near the end of what I'm going to do with the brick walls on this model. I spent an hour tonight looking for my colored pencils but that's a different issue I'll deal with later. What I would like to know is what can I do with the top edge of the walls on the top? Do I need to find some kind of edge to place on the top, any ideas would be great? You can see what I'm talking about here Structures - Society Hill TownHouse
Thanks for your time
Dave

[MadModeler]

Very well done!!!
Nice work on the weathering although the shine does show. Bit of dullcote should take care of that though.


Keep up the very good work!!!