Stratas Foods, F/K/A Quality Oils:

Stratas Foods, F/K/A Quality Oils:

One of the Housatonic Railroad’s steady customers in New Milford, CT is Stratas Foods.  This was formerly known as the AH Humko/Quality Oils packaging plant.  It takes in tank cars of vegetable oils and repackages them for various national name and store brands. 

I am disappointed by the small size of most available N scale kits, so I decided that this would be the candidate for my first scratchbuilt building.  I exercised artistic license once again with this project, in relocating the truck loading doors to the gable end of the structure for visual interest.  The doors are located on the side opposite the tracks on the real building.  I also added in box car loading doors for cardboard deliveries and outbound product, even though there are no such loading doors on the prototype building.  This adds to the variety of switching for this industry, which in reality only takes in loaded tank cars. 

The model representation of this building is almost full scale size.   Since this was my very first attempt at scratchbuilding a structure, it was slow going, along with some errors (learning opportunities).  I am pretty happy with the progress so far.  The first photo shows the roughed in building, with roof panels needing trimming and bracing.  The second shot is nearing completion.  I will add final details, like loading dock “pillows” around the truck bays, drain pipes, vegetable oil tanks, with piping, etc, as I get closer to finishing this scene.  I still need to add in the paved areas to bring the trailers up to the proper loading door level and add signage as well.   (Click on the photos for a larger version)