Giant Warehouse Building

T

TruckLover

Mack CH613 & 53' Trailer
Apr 14, 2006
4,073
0
36
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Rancho Santa Margarita, Cali.
I have this idea to make a giant warehouse building after I saw this place when I was comming home from Mt. Baldy in California. This building was the biggest building I have ever seen. It had 183 truck cargo doors and who knows how many rail doors where on the other side of the building but from what I saw there was two sidings.jawdrop
I plan to make this model warehouse using NU-LINE Structures warehouse kits. My building will be about a third of the size but will still have 56 truck cargo doors and 4 or 5 rail doors. Not to mention about 200 or so trailers and trucks. It will have an main enterance using NU-LINE' enterance extention pack.
This massive building will be on a piece of plywood. About 8' x 6', and the hole thing will be nothing but building, trucks and trailers and boxcars. I plan to put concrete walls around the perimiter with barbed wire aon the tops.
This will probably be the biggest building ever made in HO Scale
Does anyone think that this is a cool idea or does everyone think I am nuts hamr
 
Interesting! 8' x 6'...cool and nuts both. Reaching the center could be an issue. I'd love to see progress pictures as you go. Is this going to be part of a layout? How big is the layout? More info please. I am interested in real industry-sized buildings.
 
I am not sure when I am going to get started on it but I hope to do it soon!!:)

I have not even started my new layout yet. My current layout is 15 feet long x 2 feet wide. I don't have any running trains cause there is no-way there would be enought room.
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I keep extending it and I put another probably 2 foot x 4 foot square going down the wall next to my layout and now my mom is starting to get a little mad
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cause my layout is starting to take over my room.sign1 sign1 (By the way, im only 16 so I still live at home and don't have a job yet)
She said that I could clear out the garage and move my layout down there where I could make it as big as I want.
I plan to make an 8 x8 foot or maybe even 12 x 10. Then I will be able to have a nice layout with lots of running trains.

When I build this giant warehouse though, I will have to attach it somehow cause if I put it on the 8' x 8' layout, thats the hole thing and if I put it on the 10' x 12' layout, that still leaves me hardly any room for my many other buildings that I have right now.

I have not decided on which layout size I am going to do (8' x 8' or 10' x 12') yet and it's just a matter of how much room there will be in the garage. Ill post pictures and send some to you if you would like but it probably won't be until mid to end of this summer cause I have to get a job so that I can first pay for this huge project.

I am currently comming up with a layout plan for my new layout and trying to decide how and where this huge building is going to fit in. I will try to post a copy and send you one if you would like.:)
 
Josh

It's hard to contain your enthusiasm when you are 16. But I would urge you to build your layout a small section at a time. In 2 years, there's a good chance you will be moving out of your parents' house. So build something that you are likely to get to a reasonable stage of completion in those 2 years. I would hate for you never to get beyond trying to lay track on a large layout that you are eventually going to have to tear down.

Keep dreaming, planning, and building!

yours in training
 
Sounds like an amazing structure Josh! As for building something of this magnitude as a model it does seem that it would take over your proposed garage layout and leave little room for anything else. I wonder if you'd consider modeling just one side of the warehouse (the side with loading docks for trains) and use that as a backdrop building so you could have your layout and the warehouse too. Save your idea for the huge model of the entire structure when you have your onw place and space. :)
Ralph
 
About a year ago there were a number of pictures of something similar posted on the net - also in one of the magazines I think. Can't find them at the moment, but the detail was pretty awesome - a complete interior. however building something like this wouldn't leave much room for anything else.
 
Hey, it's your layout, build it if you want. However, most of it will be viewed as just a "roof". The real interesting (and useful) parts are the loading areas. This would work well as a backdrop building, or on a peninsula-type layout with a backdrop dividing the scene. You could model a truck-loading dock scene on one side, and a train-loading scene on the other: you could even have each side represent a different industry.
Here's a fairly large industrial building on my layout. The complex is 6 1/2' long and 18" high, but only 21" deep, with a mainline running between the buildings. Lots of work to switch loads and empties at this business.

Gern.jpg


Wayne
 
I like the idea, and think giving people an uncompressed bird's-eye view would really give a strong impression of how large modern distribution centers are. I also think accurately modelling the correct roof geometry (ridges and valleys, all slightly sloped and leading to drains), along with the details like air conditioning, ventillatioin, and skylights (in a repetitive pattern) could be cool. For a large structure like this, I might stay away from kits, though. 4' x 8' sheet styrene would be much more economical, and is easily cut and scribed to replicate the jointing in the tilt-up concrete walls. Interior detail could be kept to a minimum, with pallet racks full of merchandise visible through open loading dock doors, which block the view deeper into the structure.
The entire scene could be suspended from the ceiling, with fold-down legs, so that you aren't using up all that space at all times.

Chris
 
If there's one thing I've learned, it's not to set yourself over ambitious projects. Picking the biggest, most complex building in town to base your model on is not smart unless you're prepared to spend weeks and weeks building and detailing the thing.

If you rush through it, it'll look awful and you'll end up with one big really expensive mess that you're totally unhappy with.

Also, not considering a reason why you're putting that building on the layout, and just saying "I want that so it's going to be there" will leave you asking yourself "well now what do I do?" when it comes to actually running trains to and from the building.

Buildings do not have to be massive to be cool. Buildings do have to be massive to be impressive, but not cool. That said, the level of detail on a small building can make it just as impressive as an enormous silo and milling complex.

One other thing that's impressive and cool, is the land of "seldom made but very interesting" buildings and complexes. There's a heck of a lot of rail served industries out there that don't really get a lot of attention, if any attention, even though they're begging to be modelled. In these instances you have to do a lot of scratchbuilding, but no matter how big or small these types of models will always impress people, especially those that know their stuff.
 
This is good advice no matter what your age.

JD

pgandw said:
Josh

It's hard to contain your enthusiasm when you are 16. But I would urge you to build your layout a small section at a time. In 2 years, there's a good chance you will be moving out of your parents' house. So build something that you are likely to get to a reasonable stage of completion in those 2 years. I would hate for you never to get beyond trying to lay track on a large layout that you are eventually going to have to tear down.

Keep dreaming, planning, and building!

yours in training
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