The main building feature for the Newtown section of the layout is the large flour mill and the accompanying silos of Crago Flour Mills. The modelling of the silos has already been detailed in July 2019 Blog Post so after over 3 years this section of building is way overdue.
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| Above: Frontal view of the completed kitbashed Crago Flour Mills |
Background and Prototype
The Crago Flour Mills siding and buildings has been part of Newtown since 1896. It was a working flour mill until 19881 so it would be appropriate that this would fit my period of 1950s as an operating flour mill and siding with hopper. Various fields trips were made over the years to view the flour mill from across the road and whilst on the local suburban train to get an idea of the area and building size and features.
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| Above: Photo taken from a moving suburban train taken in September 2015. The mill has been repurposed as art studios and the silos as apartments. |
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| Above: Siding Diagram of Crago Flour Mills sourced from ARHS. |
Modelling the Siding and Flour Mills
In the prototype there a quite a number of sidings that were part of the mill. However, due to space and the fact I did not find a source for the sidings diagram until after I laid the track I only have 2 sidings. Modelling of the Crago Flour Mills was the most difficult challenge as there was no ready made model of the building so scratchbuilding or kit bashing was necessary. My modelling skills are not as professional to tackle a scratch build and I would require detailed architectual drawings to do a thorough job. Instead I opted to do a kitbash and search for various buildings kits that have curved window buildings and large rectangle windows to give the look of the Crago Flour Mill
The Models & More Bradbury building laser cut kit fit (no longer available) the bill whilst the DPM rectangular window design bulk pack was able to give the look of the 3 storey building. The Bradbury building facade required alot of plaster/polyfiller to raise the level of the walls I also need to fabricate the curved brick sections that are raised around the windows. Brick plasticcard was used to layer over the plaster to represent brick rather than the wood look of the kit.
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| Above: Plaster was used to raise the level of the Bradbury building wall facade in order to sit proud rather than indented as the kit. |
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| Above: Brick plastercard glued on after the plaster. |
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| Above: Open kit of the DPM Designer Bulk pack |
Roofing was made from model corrugated iron sheets and the loading dock was made from a spare peco station platform facade.
Detail and scenery
Even though there is a siding area there is still a large amount of work to detail and do scenery to bring the models to life. One feature that is timing consuming and tedious is building the chain link/factory fencing. I used a combination of LJ Factory Fence and Gates Kit (no longer available) and Walthers chain link fence to create the fencing around the siding area which at the time of writing was still in progress. The use of metal or plastic posts gluing wiring framing onto the posts with super glue and then cutting the fabric mesh "grill" was a test of my patience.
Other details I have added include 5 Ton Crane, woodland Scenics ground cover using a mixture of colours and a signal box and working yard lights. I hope to post more photos in the near future but I am glad this build is now or less complete.
