I've had the Menard's engine house plopped down on my layout for the past several years and - while it's a great structure as built - it was a little too modern for what I needed/wanted. So, I decided to back date it to better represent something from the steam era. I started off by cutting away the base of the engine house using a Dremel and a back saw which also gave me some more real estate on the layout. (Wear a dust mask if you do this: trust me on this). Using coffee stirrers, I built a cupula (right word?) and constructed a chimney from a leftover wall section of a kitbashed building. I used Johnson and Johnson paper tape to simulate the rolled roofing and painted it flat black adding a couple of ventilators from an Atlas engine house. Finally, I added a little bit of detail to the inside of the engine house doors.
I reversed the orientation of the engine house to make the rear doors face front. I did not do anything about the lighting, although I will probably do something to make it less bright; don't know what, though. I have a bit more detailing to do, but all in all, I am pretty pleased with the way it fits into the scenery.
Oh, yeah... one final point: Jack was not injured over the course of this project.
Jim
