28.10.2010
Model can now be found and downloaded from the Trainz Download Station - Look up KUID2:77573:25016:1. Or use my main Downloads page (TRS2004 or newer only) for a link to the file at the Trainz Download Station.
Or, you can just click here on this Direct Link, need Download Helper and installs direct into Trainz, or Content Manager if TRS2006 or newer.
14-18 August, 2005
After about 5 days of pretty much hard labor, I can sit back and look at a model I'm almost fall in love with...
Why you might say, well, thanks to the texture's I've used - it sort of comes to life even if I'm pretty sure it is not how it looked in real life back in 1896...
But, that is one of the things I can't do much with as I have no info on how it looked other then Sanborn mention it is "Corrugated Iron Cladding" on it's 1896 map where I first found a base floor plan of it. So, I just try to make it as best as I can...
So, how come I started on this model then - except for the fact I really want to model all structures found in the area? (I know, it's impossible...)
Well, it sort of started with me getting tired of seeing the same listing over and over and over on eBay for a reprint of an old panorama picture of Cripple Creek done by W.H. Jackson & copyrighted 1895.
Part of the panorama picture by W.H. Jackson I bought, which also can be found in the collection at Library of Congress.(1.)
A part of my always wanted that picture, but I never got around to buy it until July when I could no longer keep my self from spending money on it...
Why, well, I told my self it was for the picture of the Sampler near the right edge, because that was the only picture I ever seen of that structure and it looked to be a good shot too.
So, I bought that picture together with one for Colorado Springs, both of the large sizes and was eagerly awaiting the receiving of them.
The listing on eBay stated the prints to be of high quality and very sharp - well, for my eyes that turned out to be not how I had hoped, when I received them and looked at the picture I had no problem telling it was a digital print and some small details I had hoped to see I could not as it was lost... 
Still, I found the oldest Sanborn showing this structure - the November 1896 set, made it into a smaller image and imported it into my 3rd PlanIt Model Railroad CAD program for a trace of the outline of the structure.
Then, I draw up a basic floorplan, decided on where the center should be and centered the whole thing on that so I can get the necessary X, Y info directly from my plan. And then the trip went into gmax and a basic shape soon stood out.
A basic textured view of my new model from inside of Trainz.
From there on it has been a "3-some" -> going between gmax, 3rd PlanIt and Trainz - all programs working together in trying to make the structure come alive.
And, so it did, by end of second day I did have a basic textured model inside Trainz, not finished, but the base where there to built upon, like a better texturing.
Then, I did the "stupid" thing of searching on the Internet for info about this sampler, and lo and behold, a second picture surfaced showing the backside of the structure! The picture is dated March 1894, but as Sanborn for that year don't show the structure I'm not real sure if the date is correct or not.
The troublesome backside.
Courtesy the Pikes Peak Library District (Image Number: 001-268.jpg)(2.)
Direct link to their page.
The Sanborn map is dated December for year 1894, so I would have imagined the structure showing up on that Sanborn map - so I sort of feels the dates on the picture might be wrong and it should possible been 1895.
But, I was so happy as it helps to visualize the backside, and while I had seen the picture before I couldn't then relay it to this structure as I had no interest in it...
And, I had been a little worried on how the backside was looking and how to make it look okay in Trainz. So, yes, I was very pleased to find that picture.
Until I started to scale it and using the other picture and a scene set up in Trainz to mimic that picture, then things started to go wrong on me fast. They just don't line up to each other. Only way I could get it to work was that the back side picture shows a "pre rail connection" time and that the railroad was actually higher up from the ground (about 2 meters) and that it later got filled in.
But that really don't make any sense either...
So, all this brings back the old feeling of frustration that I got when I was starting working on the Economic Mill a couple of years back. The feel of not getting things right, the feel of sort of betraying the history as I can see my models are wrong but I can't see how wrong, or what to do to fix it as I lack some vital information to do just that.
For me that is a nagging bad feel, it kills my good mood and feel for the Cripple Creek project right off!
.jpg "click for larger image, click on image again to close")
Enhanced version of the front picture, with red blocks helping me in scaling this structures and its heights.
So, today it is the 18th of august, I haven't finished of the structure, I haven't actually worked on the gmax model for several days and beside a few lines in my CAD yesterday and a lot of looking at a heavenly enhanced part of the panoramic picture where I'm are able to size things according to a boxcar and which tells me that my basic shape is still more then good, I haven't done much.
I need to raise the roof on my model a little, but other then that there are no way I can make the backside fit the front if I want to keep the back side at same height as the tracks of the Florence & Cripple Creek.
So, the more I look at it, the more I come back to my first idea, that somehow the area behind this Sampler was raised/filled in when the F&CC expanded it's yard tracks and the Sampler got a rail connection in as well as the outbound connection. I'm pretty sure it was a horse wagon connection for ore in from the start.
That part I get from the picture of the backside and the fact Sanborn 1896 don't show a inbound track connection. Only the lower part has a track. Both Sanborn for 1900 and 1908 do show a track on the backside. While the Sanborn map for 1919 shows only the office structure standing, no sign of the Sampler structure it self.
The 1900 shows a single sided track coming in from the depot side (left side on the maps) while the 1908 shows me a double sided track with even more sidings above that.
This leads me to think that at first there where this track going down to the backside of the Sampler, but later it was taken out, filled in, and re-laid with now a connection at both ends of it.
There are two reasons for this thinking, one is the fact that my drawing can only fit if it was like that when using the two pictures I have seen. I seen some dark parts, usually at the very end, of other pictures that also shows slight parts of this structure, but non of these is useful in the versions I have seen in the books due to the printing process...
The other is the fact that the part of the Sanborn that mention "Office" with that angled structure at upper left for the Sampler is changing both angle and look from the 1900 to the 1908 Sanborn. And as that same office still is there on the Sanborn 1919 while the rest is gone sort of confirms that theory of mine.
Not because it is still there per say, but because it is in the same position as the 1908 one, which sort of help rule out the possibility they sort of messed up on the drawing...
A view at the backside of the model, inside of Trainz, as it ended up for the time being. I like it.
So, I've decided that what I have is as correct as I can get it today, will just adjust the roof height a little and then I have the basic done for at least 3 models of it.
One model will be one with a horse wagon connection, second will have a track version, and the third will have the raised track and new doors to fit it or something like that.
In addition to that, the company moved somewhere around 1896-97 up the hill to the Midland Terminal tracks and the structure got reused for the Rio Grande Sampling & Ore Company, which also probably added a few things as I do have a picture that hint on a slightly different looking roof with a second raised part.
Which version will end up being used to this map of mine? The Rio Grande version as that is the closest to my time line of around 1905-1915 I guess.
Even if it is listed as closed in the 1908 Sanborn map.
Some extra pictures:
A look inside of Trainz, the model is nice but something feels odd.
Here I have changed the roof texture, and it looks much nicer!
I tried to line this Trainz view up with the real life photo, shown next.
Part of the panorama picture by W.H. Jackson I bought, which also can be found in the collection at Library of Congress.(1.)
- Picture from my collection, but also found at the Library of Congress website (Prints and Photographs Online Catalog - TITLE: Cripple Creek, Colo. / CALL NUMBER: LOT 12685, no. 13 (OSF))
- Picture from the Pikes Peak Library District (Image Number: 001-268.jpg)
- Sanborn Fire insurance Maps - from my own collection.