14-18.08.2005
After about 5 days of pretty much hard labor can I sit back and
look at a model I'm almost fall in love with...
Why you might say, well, thanks to the texture's I've used - it
sort of comes to life even if I'm pretty sure it is not how it
looked in real life back in 1896...
But, that is one of the things I can't do much with as I have no
info on how it looked other then Sanborn mention it is
"Corrugated Iron Cladding" on it's 1896 map where I
first found a base floor plan of it. So, I just try to make
it as best as I can...
So, how come I started on this model then - except for the fact
I really want to model all structures found in the area (I know,
it's impossible...)?
Well, it sort of started with me getting tired of seeing the
same listing over and over and over on ebay for a reprint of an
old panorama picture of Cripple Creek done by W.H. Jackson &
copyrighted 1895.
A part of my always wanted that picture, but I never got around to
buy it until July when I could no longer keep my self from
spending money on it...
Why, well, I told my self it was for the picture of the
Sampler/mill near the right edge, because that was the only
picture I ever seen of that structure and it looked to be a good
shot too.
So, I bought that picture together with one for Colorado
Springs, both of the large sizes and was eagerly awaiting the receiving
of them.
The listing on ebay stated the prints to be of high quality and
very sharp - well, for my eyes that turned out to be not how I had
hoped, when I received them and looked at the picture I had no
problem telling it was a digital print and some small details I
had hoped to see I could not as it was lost... :-(
Still, I found the oldest Sanborn showing this
structure - the November 1896 set, made
it into a smaller image and imported it into my 3rd PlanIt Model
Railroad CAD program for a trace of the outline of the structure.
Then, I draw up a basic floorplan, decided on where the center
should be and centered the whole thing on that so I can get the necessary
X, Y info directly from my plan.
From there the trip went into gmax and a basic shape soon stood
out.
From there on it has been a "3-some" -> gmax, 3rd
PlanIt and Trainz - all working together in trying to make the
structure come alive.
And, so it did, by end of second day I did have a model inside
Trainz, not finished, but the basic where there.
Then, I did the "stupid" thing of searching on the
Internet for info about this sampler, and lo and behold, a second
picture surfaced showing the backside of the
structure! The
picture is dated March 1894, but as Sanborn for that year don't
show the structure I'm not real sure if the date is correct or
not.
Sanborn is dated December for year 1894, so I would have imagined
the structure showing up on a Sanborn map - so I sort of feels the
dates on the picture might be wrong and it should been 1895.
But, I was so
happy as while I had seen the picture before I couldn't then relay
it to this structure as I had no interest in it.. And, I had been
a little worried on how the backside was looking and how to make
it look okay in Trainz. So, yes, I was very pleased to find that
picture.
Until I started
to scale it and using the other picture and a scene set up in
Trainz to mimic that picture, then things started to go wrong on
me fast. They just don't line up to each other. Only way I could
get it to work was that the back side picture shows a "pre
rail connection" time and that the railroad was actually
higher up from the ground (about 2 meters) and that it later got
filled in.
So, all this brings back the old feeling of frustration that I
got when I was starting working on the Economic
Mill a couple of years back. The feel of not getting things
right, the feel of sort of betraying the history as I can see my
models are wrong but I can't see how wrong, or what to do to fix
it as I lack some vital information to do just that.
For me that is a nagging bad feel, it kills my good mood and feel
for the Cripple Creek project right off!
So, today it is the 18th of august, I haven't finished of the
structure, I haven't actually worked on the gmax model for several
days and beside a few lines in my CAD yesterday and a lot of
looking at a heavenly enhanced part of the panoramic picture where
I'm are able to size things according to a boxcar and which tells
me that my basic shape is still more then good, I haven't done
much.
I need to raise the roof on my model a little, but other then that
there are no way I can make the backside fit the front if I want
to keep the back side at same height as the tracks of the Florence
& Cripple Creek.
So, the more I look at it, the more I come back to my first idea,
that somehow the area behind this Sampler was raised/filled in
when the F&CC expanded it's yard tracks and the Sampler got a
rail connection in as well as the outbound connection. I'm pretty
sure it was a horse wagon connection for ore in from the start.
That part I get from the picture of the
backside and the fact
Sanborn 1896 don't show a inbound track connection. Only the
lower part has a track. Both Sanborn for 1900
and 1908 do show a
track on the backside.
The 1900
shows a single sided track coming in from the depot side (left
side on the maps) while the 1908
shows me a double sided track with even more sidings above that.
This leads me
to think that at first there where this track going down to the
backside of the Sampler, but later it was taken out, filled in,
and re-laid with now a connection at both ends of it.
There are two
reasons for this thinking, one is the fact that my drawing can
only fit if it was like that when using the two pictures I have
(there are some dark parts, usually at the very end, of other
pictures that also shows slight parts of the structure, but non of
these is useful it the versions I have seen in the books due to
the printing process... :-( ). The other is the fact that the part
of the Sanborn that mention "Office" with that angled
structure at upper left for the Sampler is changing both angle and
look from the 1900 to
the 1908 Sanborn. And
as that same office still is on the Sanborn
1919 while the rest is gone sort of confirms that theory of
mine.
Not because it is
still there per say, but because it is in the same position as the
1908 one, which sort of help rule out the possibility they sort of
messed up on the drawing...
So, I've
decided that what I have is as correct as I can get it today, will
just adjust the roof height a little and then I have the basic
done for at least 3 models of it.
One model will
be the one shown below, with the horse wagon connection, second
will have a track version, and the third will have the raised
track and new doors to fit it or something like that.
In addition to
that, the company moved somewhere around 1896-97 up the hill to
the Midland Terminal tracks and the structure got reused for the
Rio Grande Sampling & Ore Company, which also probably added a
few things as I do have a picture that hint on a slightly
different looking roof with a second raised part.
Which version
will end up being used to this map of mine? The Rio Grande
version as that is the closest to my time line of around 1905-1915
I guess.
Even if it is
listed as closed in the 1908
Sanborn map.
Some pictures (from the text above and then some):
.jpg)
Sanborn
Fire insurance Maps - from my own collection.