Boring Stuff

 

Okay, let me point out that the next paragraph is hard to follow and clearly falls into the category of who cares. You might find interesting the paragraph after that about downsizing structures.

 

 As you can see by many of the buildings on my layout, I’m a big fan of Banta Model Works. Bill Banta makes his G/F structure kits to a scale that is half way between 1:24 and 1:20.3. That puts it very close to 1:22. Of course, buildings, doors and windows come in all sizes and shapes. For comparison, let’s say that the average commercial door is 3’ x 6’8”. In 1:22.5 that’s 1.6” x 3.6”. In 1:20.3 that’s 1.77” x 3.9”. Size difference in scale is .17” and .3”. That’s well within the range of commercially built doors in the 1940s. Speaking of comparison, the following chart compares the five scales that I use. For example; 1:18 is 9% bigger than 1:20.3, 1:22.5 is 11% smaller than 1:20.3, 1:24 is 18% smaller than 1:20.3. etc.

 

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Getting back to downsizing structure:

There are several prominent structures on the layout that have been downsized for one reason or another. The water tower in the photo below depicts a 30,000-gallon tank rather than the more standard 50,000-gallon tank that was very typical of those on the D&RGW narrow gauge line. Nonetheless you will note that the size of the water spout and the height the spout is above grade works very well with the K-27 tender. I down sized the tower for three reasons. I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time building it. A larger tower would have taken up more space than I wanted. I later decided that was a bogus excuse. Probably the biggest reason is that I had a water tower base and roof in my scrap box. Maybe at some point I’ll explain elsewhere on this website how I built the tower. I should at least point that the tank sides are coffee stir sticks. The support structure is redwood.

 

The Chamita depot presented a significant challenge. By the time I decided to build the depot all of the track had been laid and I didn’t have many options on where to put it. I wanted to make the depot approximately the size of the depot that was on the “Chili Line” in the village of Española. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the space to make it as long as I wanted. So, I compromised. I made it shorter in length and width. In retrospect I shouldn’t have compromised on the width. I considered reducing its height as well, but I wanted the doors and windows to be built to 1:21 scale and I didn’t want it to appear out of scale relative to the 1:20.3 passenger coaches. Because I compromised on the width the depot looks rather tall when viewed from the end. Check out the two bottom photos, 1:22.5 scale figures in front of the depot. work quite well with the downsized 1:21 scale structure. The sitting figure is 1:20.3. The second photo on the bottom of the page shows 1:20.3 figures on the back side of the depot. They also work well with the 1:21 scale depot.

 

My three-stall engine house is small but not downsized and it is the only structure currently on the layout that was built to 1:20.3. Had no choice. The CONCO gas station and the Army Warehouse are 1:20.3. The carriage shop, trading post, union hall, gun shop, and Tres Amigos Cantina were built to 1:21 scale. The Los Alamos Junction Depot, a modified Banta kit, seems to scale out at 1:21. Hmmm, wonder why? Photos on Structure page.