General Motors Bowling Green Assembly - Corvettes
Its cold outside here in Washington State so I've put off opening up the big door and removing the old Sn3 layout. It supposed to get up in the low 50's soon so until then I've been working on structures for Bowling Green, Kentucky. The General Motors assembly plant for Corvettes is located in Bowling Green so I thought some kind of representation of the 1.7 million square foot plant would be a nice addition to the layout. At this point, the structure is little more than an above average mock-up. Details will come later.
Unlike the Sn3 layout, where I got bogged down in details, I decided to use the "good enough" approach to speed things up this time around. After all, at 72, I can't spend the next 14 years plodding along like I've done for the last 14 years. My goal is to have a trouble free operational and presentable layout in 3 years. More on that later.
Most of the structures I see on contemporary model railroads are much to small for the prototypes they represent; that bothers me. This model is nearly 6 feet long and it is designed to go up against the backdrop. It is being built using a combination of modified Walthers kits. The first photograph shows the office building which is pretty much "stock" right out of the box except for paint. The sign was pulled off the Internet, worked over in photo shop, and attached to a styrene base. Eventually, it will have a planter box around it and a 1995 Corvette (Herpa) out front on display. Although I don't usually do interiors, I may include a ground floor lobby in this model.
Unlike the Sn3 layout, where I got bogged down in details, I decided to use the "good enough" approach to speed things up this time around. After all, at 72, I can't spend the next 14 years plodding along like I've done for the last 14 years. My goal is to have a trouble free operational and presentable layout in 3 years. More on that later.
Most of the structures I see on contemporary model railroads are much to small for the prototypes they represent; that bothers me. This model is nearly 6 feet long and it is designed to go up against the backdrop. It is being built using a combination of modified Walthers kits. The first photograph shows the office building which is pretty much "stock" right out of the box except for paint. The sign was pulled off the Internet, worked over in photo shop, and attached to a styrene base. Eventually, it will have a planter box around it and a 1995 Corvette (Herpa) out front on display. Although I don't usually do interiors, I may include a ground floor lobby in this model.
The second photo shows more of the plant. The kit has brick or concrete block below the windows and siding. I replaced it with sheet styrene to represent concrete (more like the prototype). I also used the styrene to increase the height of the building by about a scale foot, Two kits were used here; the Walthers "Assembly Plant" and "Buds Trucking Company" .I have found "fit" to be a problem with a lot of Walthers kits and these were no exception. I spent a lot of time sanding and fiddling around with the parts and am still not entirely satisfied with the results. The blue parapet shows up in photos of the prototype so I added it to the model.
This end of the plant will be in the corner. The track running into the building will run through the backdrop and into the staging area. I spent a year working in a GM assembly plant between my Junior and Senior year of college. As I recall, the two tracks that went into our plant held four 86' box cars each. The huge cars were an amazing site sitting inside that building.
In the next day or two, I will mount the plant on a 8' x 16' piece of 3" thick pink foam. Track, details and some initial scenery will then be added. I'm also working on Hill's Pet Nutrition and the engine facility for Bowling Green.
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