A New Cold Storage Building

Although my layout is not complete it is at that stage where I am making changes to existing scenery and structures. I do not plan any changes to the existing track plan, however.

One of the latest changes is the replacement of a shallow relief warehouse with a shallow relief cold storage building.

When you first enter the layout room the straight ahead scene is the view block that separates the two sides of the peninsula. Along both sides of this view block are rows of shallow relief buildings.

Between a grain elevator complex and the recently modified Scheu Manufacturing Company was a single story, run of the mill warehouse of a tilt-up concrete design. This was a carryover structure from my previous layout, made from styrene sheet and shapes. Because the structure always was located at a high viewing angle I never needed to install a roof on it.

Shallow Relief Warehouse

 

I wanted to replace this structure with something more interesting so I measured the space and decided a Walthers R. J. Frost Ice & Cold Storage building would easily fit. Too easily. The long side of the building would leave too much space between its neighbors so I calculated that adding a section from the other long side would lengthen the building just enough to fill the space.

Lengthening R J Frost Building

 

Another issue was that I already have an R. J. Frost Ice & Cold Storage building just a few feet down from this area so the shallow relief version would have to be modified to look a little different from its brother. The solution came from a layout I had visited in Atascadero, CA.

Bill Obermeyer's HO scale Obermeyer Ranch Railroad has been featured on the last two layout tours I organized for the Central Coast Railroad Festival. Bill modified both the R. J. Frost Ice & Cold Storage building and the Walthers' Red Wing Milling Company by lengthening the structures and adding tile roof sections, among other modifications. I like the tile roof idea as I had done this with the shallow relief Elephant Packing House using Plastruct tile sections.



Bill Obermeyer's Model

 

So I added a wall section to my R. J. Frost Ice & Cold Storage building, added a small rooftop shed and a large air conditioning unit and I was in business. This building sits along a spur that doesn't quite reach the last two loading doors so I closed off these doors under the scenario that the spur originally was connected to the nearby main track but now it is connected only to unseen track in the other direction.

To make the tile roof standout I painted some of the individual tiles lighter and darker shades of the terra cotta acrylic craft paint I used. I had done this to the Elephant Packing House but this time the differences between the tiles was too extreme. I was able to decrease the visual differences by giving all the tiles a very diluted wash of the original terra cotta paint.

Differences Between Tiles Too Extreme

 

I don't have a company name for this structure but I probably will designate it as a branch house for a major meat packer. These were still common in my 1956 era.

Finished Structure

 

So what is a branch house? A branch house receives sides of meat and lesser portions of animals slaughtered in the major packing plants and further processes these for the local wholesale trade. Facilities for smoking meats and sausage manufacturing also could be found in branch houses. On a model railroad a branch house is a good industry for receiving meat reefers. As these were owned by one major packer or another, only one packer's reefers should serve a branch house.