Building a movable rollup door

The grocery distribution warehouse in Lovelock has one track that enters a part of the building for the unloading of frozen and refrigerated products.  I wanted this rail car opening to have a door that could be opened and closed.  After a bit of thinking about how to do this and some experimentation, this is what I came up with.

After determining that the .020 thickness of Evergreen V groove siding was flexible enough to bend around a corner, I made a track that would allow this to slide though.  I started by bending a section of K&S brass 1/8 inch square tubing using the rail bender tool from Fast Tracks.  I bent 2 equal 90 degree bends in a single section and then cut it in half.

1/4 inch wide strips were cut from a sheet of .005 inch thick of sheet brass.  These were then soldered first to the inside of the bend of the tubes, then to the outside of the bend to create a pair of channels.  Then sections of the 1/8 inch square tubing were used as cross bracing to hold the channels at the proper distance.

A scrap of .020 brass strip was added to the side that would be next to the outer wall of the building and a 90 degree bend was made at the point were the wall would be.

The bottom part of the two channels and the strip near the outer wall were glued to the inside of the building with E6000 adhesive and left clamped overnight.  A section of the V groove siding sheet was cut to a width that would fit between the channels.

A .030 thick piece of styrene was glued to the inside of the door for re-enforcement.  A 2-56 screw is the linkage from the door that extended through a slot in the roof.   The position of the screw was in a place on the door where it's travel remains flat and parallel to the roof when sliding through the channels.

 A 2-56 nut was glued into a hole drilled in the bottom of a resin casting of a large refrigeration unit.  The bottom edge at one end of the casting was rounded with a file so it would not catch on the roof seam that it has to slide over. 

A pair of guides made from .040 square strip were glued to the roof along the sides of the refrigeration unit. The door is opened and closed by moving the refrigeration unit on the roof.  This section of the roof is removable and is held in place by the roof turbine which has a screw in the bottom of it.

Roof for the grocery warehouse

For the roof of the grocery distribution warehouse I wanted to use a pattern printed on paper.  I have had some good results in the past designing my own shingle roofs using Microsoft Visio and then printing them for house roofs.  I had considered making a commercial type roll roof this way but then I found something easier that I thought looked really good.

For a fee of $1.99 I was able to download a PDF file of this roof and can print as many of these as I want.  I got this from Team Track Models.  Their web address is: teamtrackmodels.com  They offer this and other types of roofing in several shades as well as paper buildings.

It took parts of 4 sheets of this printed roofing to cover the entire roof.  Each piece was cut to fit it's location and a number was written both on the bottom of the roof material and on the roof of the building.  The seams were arranged so that the patterns on the paper would match at the seams.

From my past experiences with paper roofs, I already knew not to use a more liquid type glues and used the same stick glue as I have had good results with before.

And here is the completed roof.  Of course there will be some details added such as access points, vents, and air conditioning equipment.

Painting the grocery warehouse

For me, a structure project really starts to come together when it gets painted.  I have learned through experience that a primer coat is a must when using the Vallejo paints so I ordered a large bottle of it.  This is one of the largest structures I have built and would it not fit into the spray booth. So I brought in a folding table and placed it in front of the spray booth for this job.

The finish coat on this building is Vallejo stone gray.  One tile was masked off and painted white so it could be the background for some decals I made to create a sign.  The numbers above the truck doors are from a Microscale decal set. 

Out of the many smaller pieces in the kit I selected 32 for use on this structure.  They were stuck to a sheet of cardboard with small amounts of canopy glue and sprayed with gray primer.  After that had dried overnight, the parts were brush painted in various colors.

For concrete pad at the truck loading dock,  I found that the primer gray was as good concrete color so used it for the sheet of styrene that I had already scribed the expansion joints into.  Then weathered it with some weathering wash and dabbed with a paper towel before the wash dried.  I really like the effect this gave and plan to use this again in the future on other projects.

Winter 2026 layout update

It's currently getting into the 30's at night and that is about as winter as it gets here so it is time for a winter update.  Progress on the Lovelock expansion section for the layout is progressing in between other projects and activities.  Again this winter I am participating in the annual Trainboard Winter Layout Party and have been posting regular updates on that thread.  The fascia and the control panels for 6 turnouts have now been finished.

Also, the ballasting of the track has been started and is now about 50% done.  And a few of the details of the grocery distribution warehouse are also being worked out.

I recently picked up a pair of the new Micro-Trains Railgon gondolas which will be used on the layout.  This model is most likely going to be the last new body style released by Micro-Trains as the company was purchased by Atlas in November.   A future project will be to weather these.