Meat Market Mock-Up

Okay, just one more and I promise I'll be done with mock-ups for a long while.  I've completed the mock-up for the branch house and meat market structure that's replacing the ice factory at Ocala Springs.  

This one is different in a few significant ways.  Firstly, it's bigger; it needs to be large enough to seemingly justify handling even a small carload of meat and yet small enough to not overpower this end of the layout.  Branch houses received carcasses from a larger slaughter house and processed them into smaller cuts for distribution to grocers or even home use.  They're an ideal way to get the meat industry onto a model railroad without the brutal compression or massive real estate required for a large slaughterhouse.

I've imagined this branch house would also sell meat in a storefront as well as operate a small abattoir for butchering local animals.  The combination of functions gave me a good general guideline for laying out the structure.

R to L; storefront, processing building, shipping/receiving, abattoir and not pictured, the stock pens.

The photo above illustrates the second major difference; it's only one story tall.  This fits the overall progression of heights from the low branch house to the two story pool hall, the peaked roof and ornate brick cornice of the soda bottling plant and the three story drug store beyond that.  This is another reason why the ice factory simply didn't work here.

I had always envisioned Orange Avenue with its storefronts to be the highest point on the layout with the structures along this as-yet-unnamed street descending from it.  There are indeed hills in central Florida, elevation changes your car notices when driving.  However, on a flat layout surface I'd need to indicate an elevation change by visual trickery and this, to my eye, accomplishes that effect.

Finally let's talk about the source material.  I've got three AHM kits and one RDA kit in this kitbash.  The storefront itself is from the Ramsey Journal building with parts of the processing room and abattoir using more of its walls in addition to two sets of walls from AHM's Fire House.  The shipping/receiving section is from RDA's Delaney Iron Works, now offered by Rail Scale Models.  (Note: they also sell RDA parts as "kitbasher parts", something I've wished other manufacturers would do!)

Ramsey Journal (pink), Fire House (dark red and brown) and Western Union (yellow)

Texturally this building will be stucco, cinderblock (or maybe "hollow bricks"...I haven't decided) and concrete.  In the 1920s many slaughter houses were constructed to project a clean and sanitary look, setting them apart from the heavily ornamented structures of the 19th century.  The AHM "brick" is really large enough to be hollow brick or cinderblock so that's what it'll be. 

To disguise the structure's origins I'm keeping the quoins on the storefront walls but eliminating them from the rest.  I'm aligning the corners to "interlace" the quoins as they would be seen in real life - another reason I've chopped them off the majority of the corners.  These walls also provide ample room for painted-on signs, a feature I'm looking forward to modeling.

Operationally I can spot meat reefers of any brand at this location though in reality it would have likely only ever seen one brand; Swift, Armour, etc., as branch houses were tied to their parent company.  I'm imagineering and probably bending reality to do this but I like rolling stock variety more than prototype fidelity, in this case.  I can also spot a carload of animals at the stock pen; again stretching reality a bit but again, affording me the chance to run the occasional stock car.

Alright.  Enough mocking about.  June 1 is coming and the Summer Challenge 2026 will be upon us.  This structure stand-in was one of a handful of tasks I wanted to complete before the challenge begins and I'm chuffed with how it turned out.  Thanks for reading.

Kitbashing Speedy Andrew's

This is the second installment of my "how-I-did-it" articles chronicling the development of my NMRBO22 entry diorama.  For part one, see the previous post on how I made a brick street with track for a horse-drawn streetcar.  In this post I'll show progress pictures and discuss my thinking behind turning an AHM "Speedy Andrew's Repair Shop" into my "Strickland's Speedy Service and Souvenirs".  For some interesting history on the original structure, and other fun kitbashing ideas using these kits, see JD Lowe's 30 Squares blog and search for "speedy" or just click the link.

In the photo above you can see some of the kit parts laid out alongside my mock-up and a few other parts I had in mind to use.  The mock-up was made by photocopying the kit walls and gluing them to cardstock.  In the end I didn't use the brick card or the pre-printed shingles but did use the metal doors and shutters.

Here are the original kit parts.  I like to use as many of the walls as possible, even if they don't make it as walls.  Not pictured is the wood textured "ramp" you were to place at the garage entrance; that part became the two signs over the drive-though bay on my model.  Speaking of which, that was the element that made my redesign click.  That big false-front entrance wall is the dead giveaway for the kit origins.  I had to do something to disguise that, so I re-imagined it as a sign above two pillars, using cut-offs from the walls to add bulk.  The "interior" wall from the kit became the drive through ceiling.

Another trick I used to hide the kit's origins was to eliminate the "L" shape of the building and reorient the main entrance in relation to the big sign.  The weakest elements of the kit, in my opinion, are the windows and doors.  I subbed two metal doors (either Dyna Models or maybe Sequoia, I can't be sure) and added Tichy shutters to the windows.  On this wall I shifted one window a bit towards the door so they'd be symmetrical and used the shutter to hide the gap that created.  The little bump-out at the back of the building is the sort of thing that just happens organically during kitbashing.  Once the main building is set, those remaining pieces you haven't used just cry out to be used somehow!

And here's the finished structure, showing the final elements I used to hide the kit's origins - the standing seam metal roof in place of the cast shingles and the signage.  DISTRACTION!  If I'd only used the main sign with the lovely arch in the top it might have been too easy to say "oh, that's that old AHM kit I've seen before".   The two signs on the sides perpendicular to the main sign, centered as they are over the drive-through, create a sense of weight and bring balance to the structure over and against the main building with its side-entrance and porch.  

The building in situ, with a mini-scene to tell the story.  Strickland stands on the porch welcoming the dapper gent, who has just pulled up in his brand new 1914 Austro Daimler 18/32 Cabrio.  Jeb and the kid look on, wondering just how much this man will buy.  No doubt they have a hundred other questions they'd love to ask him.  If he stays long enough maybe they'll get to.  He's just the sort of tourist they've been seeing more frequently ever since the county paved Orange Avenue, opening their part of central Florida to the rest of the state, and beyond.

The other side of the building, with more signs.  The brick paper I did use came from Walthers - from the middle of the last century.  It was the right balance of red, orange and gold to suit the colors I had in mind for this building.  The large signs were created in Gimp, the ads are from JL Innovative and other sources.  The smudge pots don't look too dirty or rusty because they're new.  They're resin castings from California Model Company and are the right style for the period.  So too the gas pump - it came with the kit, and is actually a pretty close match for the ones used in the 19-teens.  The more common glass-top pumps didn't become popular until the 20s and 30s.  

Leave any questions or comments down below, and thanks for reading.