Here was my weekend project, now having some mastery of the casting process. Build the interlocking tower at the CN/KVR diamond in Hope.
I had pictures that detailed three sides of the tower. It’s pretty basic. Rows of windows along all sides for visibility of the operator, windows on the front, and an area at the bottom where the cables came out. This project would have faced an interminable delay if I’d had to rely on scratchbuilding every window. I had looked around at hobby stores but could not find one close enough to a CPR No. 2. Being able to cast meant having to get only one right, and then recast it a gazillion times (25 windows total!).
The one hitch to this was there was no indication of any doors on the sides or front of the structure. That left the back, but no pictures exist of it. I had to take a guess and put a door and window back there where I thought they might be. Figured the door must be near the tracks, and on one side so that there was room once you entered for the stairs to reach the top floor. Usually on these structures the stairs are outside, but on wider/bigger towers, apparently they could be inside. Anyway, best guess for now until someone proves me wrong. 🙂
Roof again was a lot of guesswork – calculating the little edge at the top, the rise, and then positioning the edge in the center of a piece of styrene casting, and making diagonal cuts to its end. That was for the front and back piece. On the sides, I simply painted the edges of the front and back roof, and then placed a piece of casting on top of it carefully, leaving an impression of the diagonals I needed to cut. Then I used some rubber cement and assembled.. voila! A signal tower. Pretty darn close, I think!