All Done on the Eastern Front

For my next project after completing the two TP&W 40-foot boxcars, I dusted off (literally) my Legacy Building kitbash. The Legacy Building is located in El Paso, IL and appears in the background of many photos of the former Illinois Central/TP&W crossing. Larry Irvin posted a 1981 photo of the Legacy Building on Flickr that has been my main reference for this project.

I started this project in 2021 and did not make any progress on it last year. One reason this project has languished is that last year I seriously considered using 3D printing to make some of the more complex pieces, like the tower and the cornices. Last summer I started trying to draw one of the cornices in SketchUp, and it quickly became clear that it was going to take me A LOT of time to 1) learn how to use the software and 2) use it to draw complex 3D shapes. I decided that this wasn't how I wanted to spend my hobby time, so I'm back to doing things the old-fashioned way. I work at a computer all day for my job, and one of the things I like best about model railroading as a hobby is getting to build things with my hands. I haven't ruled out exploring 3D printing sometime in the future. 

Here's where I left off in 2021. The south wall of the building (on the left) is mostly done, except for the cornice, entrance, and second floor windows. I was in the process of making the basement windows for the east wall (on the right). I resumed work on the east wall.

I made the basement windows from the tops of side wall windows from the Walthers Magnolia Hotel kit. I shortened the gray window castings to fit and made new sills from styrene strip. I made the staircase and first floor door from scraps of styrene. Each step is 0.070" tall and the door is a scale 7 feet tall.

Next I made some of the decorative trim, like the end columns and the second-floor window sill, from styrene sheet. I built up the cornice base from pieces of 0.060" x 0.250" styrene strip and added a piece of 1/12" tile on top.

Instead of trying to use 3D printing to make some of the more complex trim pieces, I looked for other kits that had the features I wanted. I found this Con-Cor/Heljan "Two Brothers Restaurant" in old hobby shop stock. I bought it mostly for its brickwork, but the tower pieces should also be useful.

The second floor windows of the Two Brothers Restaurant are bracketed by trim that looks right for the Legacy Building cornice but would be very tedious to make from scratch.

I carefully cut the upper trim piece from the wall with many, many knife cuts.

Here's the wall with the trim piece installed. The brackets on either end were cut from the Magnolia Hotel's cornice. The ledges that go above and below the tile were cut from 0.010" styrene, and the rounded trim are pieces of 1/8" half-round styrene rod.

The final touches on the cornice are the two finials on either end. I made these from pearlized pins I bought at Michael's and pieces of 1/8" styrene rod.

The supports for the finials are sort-of mushroom-shaped. I achieved this effect by holding pieces of the styrene rod near the barrel of a hot soldering iron. This technique is described in the late Art Curren's article "Details do make the difference" in the December 1992 issue of Model Railroader. This article was a favorite of mine growing up, and it was cool to finally use a technique from it in practice. 

I trimmed the rods to the appropriate length and drilled #71 holes through them for the pins. 

Here's one of the finials in its final position. I shortened the pins with wire cutters and inserted them into #71 holes drilled into the cornice.

The finishing touches on the east wall were the doorknob, made from a piece of 1/32" styrene rod, and the keystones above the first floor windows and door, made from 0.010" styrene sheet. Except for some putty to fill gaps, the east wall is now complete.