@Rich883 posted:As I continue to work this elevated area on my layout, I have begun the work on the Albany Union Station Model that will be a focus point.
Having Grown up in upstate NY, the Albany union station was always a building I found interesting, despite never seeing rains at the station myself. The building was constructed in 1899-1900 and designed by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, the successors to the firm of H.H. Richardson and the designers of the South Station in Boston and Union Station in Springfield, Massachusetts.
The station served primarily NYC but also the Delaware and Hudson Rail Road. Daily departures began in 1900, and ended in 1968, when the passenger service was moved across the Hudson river to Rensselaer, where a small station was built to service Pen Central and later Amtrak. The construction of a new high way in Albany would be built through the passenger yards, prompting the relocation. That small station was replaced in 1980, with an equally non-descript station, and finally in 2002 a new much improved station was constructed. When I lived there, I used the 1980 version station frequently, mostly to commute in and out of NYC for business. The service was generally pretty good.
Early photos of the station
A view of the rear - Yards in 1948. In my layout the station will be elevated above the yards for space reasons as part of the elevated city.
Albany Union Station Today – It has been some form of Bank since 1986 in which the bank did a fantastic historic renovation
Since I started the updated and expanded version of my layout about 10 years ago, I wanted to add the Albany Union Station, I always thought it was a interesting building, and that in fact it could work in a lot of difference cities. When I owned Korber Models, I thought it might be a good model to turn in to a kit, and I made some designs and had a few test cuts completed, but never really had the time to finish the project. So the idea sat on a shelf so to speak for about 7 years.
In the fall of 2019, I restarted my concept for the station, but decided that I needed to enlist some help to get this project done, and turned to Richard Segal at Right On Track Models – currently a OGR form sponsor. I came across Richard a few years earlier, and really liked his unique, highly detailed model structures, and added several to my layout. I even had Richard create a custom Kroger grocery building from the 1940’s for me – which came out great.
I shared photos, and the earlier drawings I had done on the project with Richard, and by January agreed to move forward. With the pandemic and some other commitments, we got stated later in the spring than planned, but we are underway.
Richard prepared some detailed drawings to get things moving, and we exchanged notes to dial in the details
Here is the first pass drawing of the front.
With some back and forth we got to a good amount of detail - Richard is very good at turning the concepts into details.
Always open to input, comments or suggestions. I will post more as I have it.
Looks great Rich! One thing so that the membership knows, Mr. Segal is not currently a forum sponsor. His banner and listing should be coming down soon.
