Those who have just read about the turntable build may have noted yet another mock-up of the section house next to the approach track. If you missed it, have another look:

This is section house #6 – and the one I’m going to build.

Pierre Oliver and I went back and forth on the section house several times by email and phone – trading sketches and photos, and drawing on Pierre’s knowledge of building practices. We originally thought the section house featured a dormer, as seen on some of the previous mock-ups:

But in the end, we determined it’s most likely the roof on an adjacent shed:

The problem was that in order to get a roofline that looked like the one on the prototype…

…the dormer roof had to be a different pitch than the main roof. As Pierre says, that’s incredibly difficult to do – it’s a lot of math. While such challenging rooflines might be built on significant structures – on a major passenger station, for example – it’s unlikely the bridge and building department would have specified such a complex roof for a section house. It would have slowed down construction, and increased labour costs, for no benefit.

Once we decided it was two structures, designing a suitable pair of structures was easy peasy:

(Thanks for all the help on this, Pierre!)

Following a conversation with my friend Pierre Oliver, I created a fourth mockup of the section house at Port Rowan.

This one combines elements of two previous mockups.

Mockup “1″ has no dormer, which I know is wrong but it is a good reference point because I feel it captures the rest of the structure well. Mockup “2″ has a full-width dormer, but I didn’t like the roofline. Mockup “3″ has a better roofline on the dormer, but overall it was too complex. At Pierre’s suggestion, I narrowed the dormer from “2″, and used the same angle for the peak that I used on the main part of the building.

I think the result – “4″ – works better than the first three, so here it is in position on the layout:

This blog has once again proven useful as I work to solve the puzzle of Port Rowan. But if I need to do any more of these, I’m going to have to get smart about building section house mockups.

(Thanks for the feedback, Pierre!)

One of the smallest structures on the layout is proving to be one of the most difficult.

The railway had a section house in Port Rowan – a small structure up near the yard throat to hold tools and materials for track workers. It also had space for a handcar, so workers could move along the line and get to where track needed attention.

I have a few prototype photos of the section house, but they only show three of the four sides. From these, I’ve figured out that the roofline drops lower on one side than the other as can be seen in this picture of my mockup:

So far, so good.

But while talking with my friend Pierre Oliver, he pointed out that the fourth side features something more complex than a shed roof. We think there’s another roofline – probably a dormer – on this elusive side:

The question is, what’s it look like? I’ve created three mockups of the section house…

… and I’m still not completely happy.

The one at the left is my first attempt, based on the above prototype photo as well as another picture, showing the wall opposite that suggests the complex roofline continues across the entire un-photographed side. This mockup doesn’t ring true for me. The roof seems excessively elaborate for a section house and the relatively shallow pitch of the roof reminds me more of a suburban bungalow than a railway structure.

At right, I’ve created a mockup with no dormer. This looks more like a railroad structure – except why would the railway build a structure with a wall at one end that’s only 4.5′ high? I’m pretty confident of that measurement. Yet storing things in that crawlspace would be a real pain – literally, in the head, probably caused by a roofing nail.

The mockup in the middle is a compromise. I’ve built a smaller, offset dormer with a roof pitch identical to the pitch of the main roof. I’ve also experimented with creating a change in the pitch of the main roof to suggest a higher end wall next to the dormer – perhaps a coal bin, since other photos of the section house clearly show a brick chimney.

For now, this is the mockup that I’m using:

The jury remains out on this one… but the exercise demonstrates the value of building mockups before committing to plastic or wood.

There’s a section house near the yard throat in Port Rowan that I need to model. But other than a couple of distant views in the Hamilton book by Ian Wilson, I haven’t found any information to help me model it.

So, if you have any additional information – pictures, drawings or memories – I’d love to hear from you in the Comments section. And thanks in advance!