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Bridges and Buildings Along the Pocahontas Division

Eventually, I plan to have photos and articles about both scratch-built and kitbashed structures that you will find along the right-of-way on the Pocahontas Division. I think one of the most important things about using structures is to use the ones that best reflect the region you are trying to model. Nowadays that is easier with kits released by Walthers and DPM. I don't ;like to use the kits right out of the box. One of the things I detested most about N-Trak modules was the sameness of buildings. Everyone seemed to buy and use the same kits over and over. One of the best things about the hobby is learning to kitbash. After some practice you can turn the ordinary into the extra-ordinary. Nothing hides a run of the mill plastic kit better than adding a new addition or changing its height, its width or even putting some angles into it's overall appearance. Of course some painting and a little weathering help too.

Keeping a box full of cast-offs from other kits should give you lots of details to add to your new structures. I have discovered some of my best buildings came from mixing walls from various kits. The Model Power,Heljan and Bachmann line of city structures including; the hotel, apartments, stores and restaurant kits were made for kitbashing. By combining various walls and building fronts I have created whole blocks of towns in a few hours of cutting, gluing and repainting. Remember to add roof details, because the roofs of your towns and cities are  likely to be the first thing visitors to your layout will see.  Cluttered roofs with signs, billboards, ventilation units, piping, smoke-jacks, chimineys and roof access doors will help break up the monotony and will guide the viewers eye to each individual structure.

One of the things that is easily noticed when traveling in this region, most structures are built of the same material..  Everything in this corner of West Virginia is red brick, in some cases well weathered but still red. When I  add a few blocks of this colour to any town along the n-scale Pocahontas Division, suddenly I have been transported to the hills of West Virginia. You can almost smell the creosote and coal dust! I do like to throw in a bit of colour now and then just to break things up. I have a bank and several stores painted in a weathered gray in the town of Iaeger.

Just a note about bridges. So far the best available are the two made by KATO, one a through-deck bridge, the other is a through-truss. Both are highly detailed and will fit most situations. One of these days I am going to attempt to cut one of these Kato beauties in two. I'll let you know how that project goes. Atlas bridges are okay but lack the detail. Their through-deck type has a solid bottom which I like to remove and replace with the deck from their truss kits. Its an easy conversion and makes a better looking bridge. The Atlas bridges will make convincing highway and road bridges after new decks are added and they seem to capture the feel of prototype bridges found along the real "pokey".

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