Hello again MRH readers its October 4th 2009.

For the past 6 months I have searched for a High Quality Craftsman Model of the Ridgway Roundhouse for my Rio Grande Southern Railroad and have been unsuccessful! what I do have are Exact scale Drawings of most of every structure on the Rio Grande Southern so I decided it's scratch building time.

So far I have laid out the base of the 7 stall roundhouse and the three brick walls on the ends. Now you ask why are there three ends?

Originally The first roundhouse and 50 foot Turntable was built in in March 1894 and the  five stall building was constructed almost completely of wood. Not their best Idea as it was destroyed buy fire on February 12 1906. Then by 1908 They had moved the undamaged 50ft Turntable about 1/2 mile south and closer to the lower edge of town and the intersection of D&RGW Duel Gauge Ouray Branch. Here they completely rebuilt the Roundhouse and RGS shops. This time the two ends as well as the rear of the 5 stalls was built entirely with Red Brick. the only parts of the Roundhouse made of wood were the 4 Timber Fraimed roof supports that separated the 5 stalls the roof and the front of the roundhouse with it's 5 Double doors.

Then (exact Date not documented) some time in the late 1920's or very early1930's they added two more stalls on the west end to accommodate the Galloping Goose fleet of rail Buses and actually where they built the original 7 Goose fleet and serviced them and thus the third Brick End wall was added as well as two new stalls.

I'm constructing the RGS and all its towns, industries, Mines & Lumber companies in the post 1935 to 1955 Era Im starting with the Ridgway yards and Engine terminal so I need to build the 7 stall Roundhouse and Scratch building seems to be my only option. I'm constructing molds to poor plaster into and do some scribing of the plaster to simulate brick and so far I have only built the three end molds. next I'll construct the seven rear mold sections of the roundhouse and then pore all the plaster at the same time. for now here are two photos one is just the three end wall molds and the other is the base of the roundhouse with the pits drawn and a second view of the wall molds.

The molds are laid out on Wax Paper covered 2 inch ridgid foam with the Drawings (Plans) under the wax paper.

More to come as I continue to build up parts of the roundhouse.

Dan