JK Tower drawings in the Archives?

NW Mailing List nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Thu Aug 27 15:39:11 EDT 2009


Michael: Use the "Search the Archives" link on the website home page.

In general, the railroad does not have architectural drawings for depots and
similar other than the 'standard' drawings which were used to define the
basic specification for the structure that was desired by the railroad. The
company that they hired to do the work would have created the architectural
drawings (if they used them) for that specific structure. Thus the
architectural drawings are not the 'property' of the railroad.

Also, detailed architectural drawings are a fairly recent development.
Large structures had them in the 'teens and twenties, but single story
residential structures and similar rarely had anything drawn up on them.

Now, there are exceptions to this.

Also, depots built around the turn of the century (most wood second class
depots) used the basic standard drawing but were built to the dimensions
necessary for that location, (bigger or smaller freight house section for
instance). They were built by a local carpenter crew who knew what was
necessary to make a successful wood structure. They likely never made any
drawings. The carpenters knew what to make by tradition.

(Huge numbers of stick-built residential homes built in the US up to around
1960 had little or no engineering or sophisticated plans. Carpenters
followed tradition and the very simple building codes then in place.)

Railroad bridge records are mostly a huge roll of a detail drawing of EACH
of the detail steel parts necessary to construct the bridge. This was so
that the railroad could fix or repair the bridge. There are rarely any
'assembly' or erection drawings of the bridge structure as the bridge
erecting company didn't use that sort of thing. They had a basic
cross-section of the bridge and an erection schedule. There perhaps is a
plot plan of the abundments and piers and maybe the drawings of the pier
concrete construction.

So, if you are seeking a nice "D" or "E" size drawing showing the whole
bridge assembled with a take-off list of the girder sizes used. Nope.

p.s. Do you realize how big the Coopers Bridge is? Even in N scale.....

One reasonable detailed drawing of the First Class wood and brick station
exists in the old N&W Standards book that the N&WHS used to sell. Do you
have one of those? This depot represents the Farmville depot, Waverly VA
depot and similar.

Gary Rolih
Secretary N&WHS


-----Original Message-----
From: nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org
[mailto:nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of NW Mailing List
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 6:38 PM
To: NW Mailing List
Subject: JK Tower drawings in the Archives?

Are there dimensional drawings of JK Tower in the Archives? Is it possible
to get copies mailed to me? I am trying to scratchbuild it for my Master
Model Railroader certificate and to win the structures contest in the
convention...now there is some bold talking...



Are there other structures with dimensions I could attempt to scratchbuild?
Hotel Roanoke? (Now that is just too bold, right there!) Seriously, perhaps
there is a list of structures like Coopers Bridge, etc. archived that I
could choose from.

Thank you,

Michael W. Shockley Mem #1689
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