Amoskeag Northern - Conrail Portland (PRO&C) Line Engineering Thread

[eric220]

Ian - Very interesting catching up on the layout thread, and in particular the ski resort discussion. I plan on including the mountain house from the Keystone ski resort in Colorado on my layout, along with the base of the Argentine, Peru, and Packsaddle I lifts. Of course, all served by a PRR station right in the base village. The resort even has its own siding to take delivery of food, fuel, and supplies.

[Pomperaugrr]

A little 1:1 modeling in the layout room today. The workshop area of the layout room is a mock up of your typical New England textile mill and today I was able to get the "upper floor" floor planks installed. I also started mocking up the 7x7 beams which "support" the upper floor. Half brick will be on the walls.

That is going to be an awesome workspace.  Ian, you are a machine!

Eric

[davefoxx]

If that's supposed to be the floor boards upstairs, then why the exposed nail heads?  "Watch your step on the second floor, folks!"    Seriously, that looks really nice, Ian.

[Ian MacMillan]

Ha. Don't worry they will get filled in!

I'm doing some pondering on the bricks right now. The ones I am looking at are about $50 for 7.3sqft. Even though this is still a small space its turning out to be very expensive...even if I only brick where I have open wall space. I'm trying to see if my brother, who works for Allied Building Products in Anchorage, can get them cheaper as he carries the brand I want, and have them drop shipped here.

Another posibility I had looked at was using bead board. Beadboard was also common in the mills, especially in the Stone and Pacific Mills in Lawrence. The downside to this at this point is that it may give off a railroad depot feel, as the B&M also heavily used beadboard in their stations. I'm trying to weigh it out for now. I still may end up going for the brick, and am also searching for used brick locally that I can maybe take the tile saw to.

[davefoxx]

The only reason that I would talk you out of brick is the resale of your house.  Either you or someone else might have to tear it out in the future, meaning you'll have work to do to list the home, or someone else might be buying with an eye to tear it out (affects the marketability of the home).  I don't doubt that you will make it nice looking for your use, but believe it or not, we're not all rail fans.  Perhaps, I'm biased, because I bought a town home in the past with that veneer brick in the kitchen between the upper and lower cabinets.  Hated it.  I think that the beadboard will be much less obtrusive and likely not require tearout later, if you sell.  And, if you did decide to take down the beadboard before you listed the house, that would be much easier and less messy than tearing out the brick.

Just my thoughts,
DFF

[peteski]

Back in the mid 70's there used to be self adhesive "brick tiles" made from what looked like vacuformed plastic sheet.   Each sheet was about 1' X 2', and they interlocked.  To me, as a teenager back then, these looked pretty decent. Good enough to stick them on one of the walls of my room.  But I doubt these are still made.

I also ran into fake bricks used for decorating home interiors.  They are some sort of brick-like material, but only about 1/2" thick.  The system included a bucket of special mortar. You spread the mortar over a sheetrock wall, then you smushed the bricks into it. Then you smoothed the mortar lines.  This stuff used to be sold in Home Depot in the 90s.

[basementcalling]

A little 1:1 modeling in the layout room today. The workshop area of the layout room is a mock up of your typical New England textile mill and today I was able to get the "upper floor" floor planks installed. I also started mocking up the 7x7 beams which "support" the upper floor. Half brick will be on the walls.

I get shots like that of my ceiling all the time, but they are almost always when I move the phone camera too soon and the shutter lag is still in effect.

Edited for Peteski's sake.     Us Pete's have to stick together, ya know.

[peteski]

RANT MODE:

Nothing personal against you Peter, but I hate to have to scroll through several screen-fulls of photos quoted in a reply (which I've already seen in the original post, and in couple of quoted replies), just to see a one-liner reply on the bottom.  Even, if I found it amusing.  I just wish that people would edit the quoted content to not repeat the same photos over and over in the thread.  This also often shows up in the Weekend Update threads.  I see the same set of photos repeated over and over (just to see an atta-boy on the bottom of the post).

I feel better now! 

[Sokramiketes]

See the bright orange "NEW" button next to the thread?  Click it and all your problems will be solved.

[Spades]

Ian

I have seen linoleum with various raised brick pattern or there is even photo wallpaper.
http://www.thefind.com/homefurnishings/info-brick-vinyl-flooring

G

[C855B]

I'm sure Ian has seen the fake brick panels at the Home Depot where he works. We use them to partition spaces in our local history museum, which is an old brick building. They're not nearly the same as the real thing, but I will agree with Dave that full-blown masonry veneer, especially simulation of old masonry, is frequently a matter of taste when it comes to resale.

Bead board... now there's an idea.

[peteski]

See the bright orange "NEW" button next to the thread?  Click it and all your problems will be solved.

Doesn't quite solve the problem.  If the original thread has 10 photos, and 10 people respond to it, quoting those photos, even only looking at new posts, I will still need to see *ALL* those photos 1o times, scrolling down through a  total of 100 photos, just to see a one-liner reply. 

Just sayin....

[packers#1]

Doesn't quite solve the problem.  If the original thread has 10 photos, and 10 people respond to it, quoting those photos, even only looking at new posts, I will still need to see *ALL* those photos 1o times, scrolling down through a  total of 100 photos, just to see a one-liner reply. 

Just sayin....

At the risk of escalating this conflict, I provide my +1 to peteski's original post as well as this one; it takes about ten seconds to select image code and press delete or backspace, and saves so much load time and makes the page so much shorter; my personal side is I don't mind if the post is on a new page from the pictures, but even then, if several people quote it, I just start  with all the scrolling...

[Ian MacMillan]

The resale value does not concern me too much since the layout room is so specialized, if I ever do decide to sell, its going to take a considerable amount of demo as it is. The room is a hugely odd size of 11'x37' which is only good for a few things: a train room, an indoor archery range, or a bowling lane. In terms of resale it would need to be split up and new walls added. Aside for the custom cabinets that are going in the workshop area, there is also the lighting for the room, which is specific to how the layout is set up. If it sells, its gonna need demo period, so the small workshop area of 6'x10' is just a drop in the bucket.

I have seen the wall papers and linoleum but I am definitely not going to use them. They look in person like exactly what they are, wallpaper and linoleum. My OCD would drive me insane if I used these because its doesn't look or feel what I want it to be.

The "fake" brick panels are what we are looking at here. They are 1/2" thick and come in "fake" as in they are just colored composites to look like brick, or the ones that are actual cut down bricks. The one I am looking at is "Boston Brick" which is a recycled 1/2" brick from buildings in the Boston area. Like I posted before, its about $50 for 7.2sqft. This is cheap, considering most are in the $80-$120 area for the same coverage. Now, I am also looking at going to the dump and picking out my own bricks and then using the tile saw to just rip a 1/2" slab off each long side. Including the tile saw purchase, this will be significantly cheaper.

The beadboard still has me up in the air. It can really make the right impression or the wrong impression. I would have to get it just right so that one does not think "cool train station". I've been perusing some of my favorite photos from Robert Lussier and Steven Perlmutter who run Historic Mill Photography, focusing on the several mills in Lowell and Lawrence. I'm looking at attending one of their sessions this summer. They have some good shots of some of the beadboard and wood in the stairwells and lobbies. Unfortunately I can't find the ones that Robert had posted of the lobby of the Stone Mill which had a crap ton of beadboard.

[wazzou]

Are you going to weather it?