With the left side of my L-shaped layout now getting more crowded, it was time to move on to another signature building. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Freight Station is at the center of the layout where the two legs of the L meet. I’ll place the building at the northern side of the block, leaving a good amount of space for a yard with two or three freight tracks.
The real Baltimore and Ohio Company Freight Station was constructed in 1913 and is considered one of the first large structures and certainly the largest of its time in New York built entirely with reinforced concrete slabs. The building is located at the north-eastern corner of the block on Eleventh Avenue between West 25 and 26th Street. B&O used the entire block as a freight yard and as an extension of the marine terminal across Twelfth Avenue. See a detailed history with photos on the Trainweb here.
Various owners have adapted the building to newer uses over time but the LPC required them to preserve it in its original design. Unfortunately, the vehicle repair shop that New York City Department of Sanitation built in the 1980s is now obscuring the formerly well visible south facade of the building. It is well documented through photos and drawings available on the Internet. A good source of information are my own visits of the site and photos. I also used my laser meter to get reference measures in some cases.
Selective Compression
The massive building is 362 ft long and 67 ft wide. It extends over about two thirds of the block between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenue. Connecting the freight yard to the Baltimore & Ohio West 26th Street float bridge across Twelfth Avenue required the remaining space. My shelf is only 25″ deep so I had to compress the building. I decided to keep the width and the number of floors (10) as well as the actual height. The structure has five sections. On both ends and in the center of the north and south facades, three (parapeted) pediments span over horizontally banded rusticated sections. They sandwich two smooth sections in between.
The proportions in terms of number of windows are 4:5:4 for the rusticated sections. The smooth concrete sections are 4 windows wide. The building is very symmetrical so any assumed or verified design on one side likewise applies to the opposite side. The only exception to this is the ground floor and the mezzanine. For them, the south side with the row of projected columns varies significantly from the loading docks on the north side.
I figured out that a 17.5″ deep structure with two rusticated sections of 4 and 5 windows each with a 5-window wide smooth section in between would give me a good enough representation. The only compromise I’d have to make is the longer smooth section with 5 instead of 4 window columns. I’ll definitely need that wider space for the lettering which I will also apply. Albeit shorter, the resulting structure of a size of 5″x20″ will still look very prototypical.
Not having an exact height of the building, I inferred it based on proportions on photos and drawings and reference measurements. For instance, I was able to take exact measure of the window and loading dock doors on the ground floor.
Approach
At first sight, the building looks simple – a rectangular block of concrete with some details. But even in N scale, the compressed structure is massive. There would be no way I could build the entire structure in one piece. My proven approach to build and add walls to an internal supporting structure would be difficult to apply this time. The design of the floors just varies too much. Also, the risk of minor mistakes invalidating a major portion of the structure would be considerable.
The different sections of the building gave me a good outline of horizontal dimension. I soon realized that the two massive cornices above the second and eighth floor also gave me a good way to vertically modularize it.
- The first and second floor or Mezzanine provide a base.
- The main body extends from the third to the eight floor.
- The ninth floor and the four free-standing penthouses on the roof would then cover the top of the building.
This will give me three layers which I can build independently. I’d just have to carefully design the connections between the modules through the cornices. I’ll start with the ground floor and build the other two layers on top. Both the second and eight floors have a large, projecting concrete cornice. I will use them to connect the vertical sections without a visible seam.
Base – Ground Floor and Mezzanine Construction
The B&O West 26th Street Station is nothing for the model builder who seeks to complete a structure project in a weekend. It starts with an open ground floor on the south side. Two freight tracks that enter the building on the west side and end almost at the other end of it occupy the southern half of the building. The very visible inside makes it impossible to just design the hull of the building. A prototypical representation would have to include the internal columns, beams, and interior walls. It would also have to include both the interior and exterior loading docks. They add quite a bit to the complexity of the construction, as a photo on the Trainweb shows.
The ground floor must serve two dock levels. The loading dock level on the West 26th Street is slightly lower than the one for the freight tracks. In reality, this was most likely achieved by slightly lowering the tracks below the street level. In my model, I simplified the design by allowing two slightly offset floor levels.
Design and Construction
The two tracks on one side and the street- and track-side loading platforms each use about half of the building footprint. My compressed building size gave me fourteen (4+5+5) bays that I’d have to build. This required me to build 13 combined wall/beam elements across the structure. These elements interlock with the two outside walls, a separator wall that enclosed the loading docks with the storage rooms and an additional row of columns and beams between the two tracks. The material is all 1/16″ MDF except the columns between the tracks for which I used 1/8″ basswood. For the windows on the mezzanine level I used .015″ laser board.
Even if the structure of the connected walls and beams looks complicated, it wasn’t so hard to design and build. The most difficult part was to assemble them in the proper sequence. At some point I had to assemble and glue the pieces together to have enough stability to add more details. Gluing too early would have prevented me from adding more details, too late would have added strain on the brittle parts by repeatedly assembling and disassembling them.
The tracks I built in the same way as the street level tracks on my layout modules. Code 40 Micro Engineering rails are embedded in laser engraved grooves in 3/32″ basswood. I just primed the basswood floor in grey spray paint just like the interior walls to make it look like a plain concrete floor. The protruded columns on the south side of the building appear more massive than on the north facade as they lack engagement with a wall. I used a layer of .024″ laser board to give the wall it the additional depth. I will have to add the two canopies on both the north side and the south side of the building once I’ll be done.
It’s not clear how the building was painted when it was first built. On black and white photographs it looks very bright as if it were painted white. Some later photos show some heavy weathering as if over time the paint peeled, laying bare the grey concrete. The building today appears to be painted in a yellow tinted beige. Some areas are a darker yellow as they must have been recently repainted. I decided to use the Woodland Scenics concrete top coat paint which I mixed with various amounts of Raw Sienna. The Woodland Scenics product provides a natural concrete-like texture even when applied with the airbrush.
Third to Eight Floor Construction
The six stories above the mezzanine are easier to build but they still have their challenges. The eight floor has again a large projecting concrete cornice that terminates it. I’ll use it to link the top to the bottom two layers. Other characteristic elements are the end sections with the rusticated walls. They look as if they were sculptured out of sandstone. They are cast in concrete, of course, as everything else on this building. Furthermore, a smaller concrete cornice above the seventh floor serves as a base of pilaster flanking the eighth-story windows. Those windows have stylized concrete keystones just like all windows on the ninth floor. All windows from the third to the eight floor within the rusticated wall section have scored concrete window surrounds.
Before I could start building the second layer I had to resolve one big challenge – the lettering across the entire building on all four facades.
Lettering
The original B&O Station building had large and well visible lettering on all four sides between the fifth and eight floor. They all showed a shorter or longer variation of the Baltimore & Ohio West 26th Street Station name. As I decided not to use decals for this and instead paint the lettering, I had to figure out how to best integrate it into the construction from the beginning. Adding the lettering after having cut the walls on the laser and after having painted the walls would be challenging. Even with proper calibration, the positions of the laser cutter camera and head do not precisely match. It would be hard to exactly position the lettering on the facade.
The only way to get around this would be to include the lettering in the initial cutting of the walls. But that meant that I’d have to apply a base layer of paint with the color of the lettering and cover it with masking tape before cutting the walls:
- I’d start with a sheet of MDF on which I lightly engraved the outline of the wall, the window contours and the lettering.
- I’d then prime the entire sheet within the wall contours and air-brush a dark grey layer of acrylic paint on the areas with lettering.
- When completely dry, I’d cover the painted areas are with 3M painter’s tape for delicate surfaces.
- The next steps would then be to engrave and cut the walls, windows and the lettering. To cut the tape I used a very light setting. Not only will it cleanly cut the tape but also cut a small groove that improves the contrast of the lettering.
- When laser cutting has completed, I would remove the tape around the letters, leaving only the writing.
- The final step is then to give the wall the final coating (see above).
- Carefully removing the masking tape covering the letters will then expose then the underlying darker paint.
A test of this approach turned out to be successful. I applied the lettering to three of the four walls, not bothering about the west facade. The method showed very little bleeding and if it did, I just accepted it as an imperfection that the prototype certainly exhibited too.
Facade Construction
As for my previous construction projects, I used several layers of materials to emulate the depth of the facade. A .015″ thin layer of laser board for the windows is glued to the back of the base layer of MDF 1/16″ for the wall. For the rustication, I used an additional .024″ thick layer of laser board with engraved horizontal grooves that simulate block joints. For the surrounds of the windows within the rusticated parts I used 1/16″ MDF as well. Since they are glued to the window layer which in turn is directly attached to the rustication, they project slightly above the wall, just like the prototype.
For the pilasters flanking the windows and the keystones above them on the eighth floor, I used another layer of .024″ laser board. For the cornices above the seventh floor that carries the pilasters, I also used 1/16″ MDF that I had to cut precisely.
The smooth wall sections are much simpler and without any ornamentation. The windows are small and simple and neither lintels nor sills are visible above and below the windows. To paint, I applied a coat of Woodland Scenics concrete top coat mixed with various amounts Raw Siena. The rusticated walls, pilasters, sills and cornices got a bit more of the yellow tint, the smooth walls a bit less.
Facade Assembly and Internal Bracing
While I built the facades facing east and west in one piece, I built the south and north facades in three separate pieces. I used a template frame to assemble the three parts and to get exact alignment. For instance, it is absolutely crucial that all parts sit snuggly on the cornice above the mezzanine. I made sure during design that the rustication layer would overlap enough with the smooth section in the center. Also, the tabs of the vertical walls lock with both the rusticated and the smooth section (see center photo above).
With the facade facing north now almost complete, it was time to work on the internal structure. As before, I needed to provide bracing to maintain the proper geometry of the structure as the long walls alone would not be strong enough. I developed a system of longitudinal and lateral internal walls that interlock with the floors. The fifth and seventh story get a partial floor. At this point I’m still undecided if I will glue the cornices on top of the mezzanine and the eighth floor to the lower or upper module. This will then also determine whether the middle layer will have an additional floor at the bottom or at the top.
In any case, these three floors connected with the walls will provide sufficient stability. Both floors and walls have tabs at the outside that connect with the exterior walls. The tabs are hidden behind the laser board used for the rusticated sections. Eventually I’ll glued them together but for now I just stuck them together with the tabs. Assembled and fitted on top of the base, we already get a good idea of how the building will look when finished. This is it for now. I’ll cover the remaining part of the design and construction for this structure in the next blog post.