This coaling tower was based on an article designed and written-up by Eugene Le Doux in a project book called Easy-to-Build Model Railroad Structures, published by Kalmbach. The opening pages of the book suggest it was first published in 1958 and had been reprinted several times at least up until the 1971 printing I bought. It has lots of interesting building projects; I built a few of them, and studied all of them to one degree or other. The construction methods are fairly dated by today’s standards, but it still has lots of good ideas for simple builds.
You know, I don’t know why I built this structure. I didn’t have any steam locomotives; mine were all diesels! Although the construction is very rudimentary, cardboard and balsa, with pencil lines to indicate siding, it still has a simple charm.
One interesting feature is that the roof surface is made by gluing a piece of Kleenex to a card backing and painting it a black and brown mix. And all the dust it has accumulated over the years has only improved its looks! Simple, but fairly effective.
I built this one, too! One of my first all-cardboard models.
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