E. L. Moore's Firehouse

[E. L. Moore's Firehouse; J. R. Fisher collection]

The construction of this firehouse was described in E. L. Moore's article A Hot Time at the Old Firehouse that appeared in the November 1964 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. This wasn't the only firehouse Mr. Moore built. There was another in the Victorian Firehouse article in the June 1968 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. The roof of that one is quite imposing and reminds me of the one on the Brick Enginehouse.

In the article, E. L. Moore implies that he hand carved the brick courses into the balsa walls,

I built of balsa, my favorite construction material, and labored long and hard at the bricklayers trade in putting up the walls. However, I'll assume that modelers desiring to build it will favor something like brick-wood siding such as is sold by Northwestern Scale Models, or will want to use stamped brick wall such as sold by All-Nation.

Recall that Mr. Moore hand carved the blocks in the walls of the Small MFG. Plant , so he was cool with carving as a construction technique.

These days this sort of model would likely be a product of Woodland Scenics, but in E. L. Moore's day, scratchbuilding would be the way to go.

In the last post I was going on about roofs. Removable roofs to be specific. This one isn't an A-frame, but it too is removable.

Look at that. Beds for the firemen on the second floor. That floor can be lifted out; however, when I tried, I couldn't easily remove it, so I quit because I didn't want to damage the model. A mystery I hope I can one day resolve.