Ice House - Diorama

West Barre, Vt. has been transformed into a ice storage location with the Fairlee milk platform added across the ROW. You got a sneak peak of this scene in Wordless Wednesday No. 13.

Drop in diorama No. 5

Ice House on the White River Division

At a local RR flea market in 2009 I found a built Walthers N scale ice house. It needed some work as glue was showing in places, it had not been painted yet and the roof vents were not installed correctly. I thought it would work for a background structure or maybe on my Hon30 diorama's as the narrow gauge rolling stock is quite small.

The ice house has some additional height added with strip wood applied to the base. HO scale corner trim is added. The roof vents are re-glued in place and new styrene roof section are added. Now for the paint.

I decided to raise the structures height some what adding a strip wood base and add HO scale corner trim. I painted the body reefer white and the roof grimy black. I added a Hood's placard to the front wall then weather it all a bit. Once done in early 2010 it sat on one of my shelf's till a week ago. I thought it might make a neat addition to my drop in diorama's even though it was N scale. I popped out West Barre station and set in a ready to use base ( I have a few cut in reserve). When I set the ice house down it just looked right and the project moved forward.

I decided to add more weathering with my Bragdon powders, mostly light and medium grays. I placed it on a Gatorfoam base that fits my West Barre location. I think the ice house looks great and it still might be used at another location that would accept the same size inserts...George Dutka

The ice house is painted and weathered. The structure has sat on my book shelf like this since 2010. I have finally decided what I wanted to do with it and freed  up some room on my shelf.

The ice house is seen set in place. I used Bragdon weathering powders tocomplete the weathering. Since it was to look like a very old structure that has outlived the creamery that once stood across the way. The creamery was replaced by a milk platform. The ice house is still used on the White River Division for storing ice blocks which is harvested just a short drive away. Packed in sawdust it still stays cold all summer. This is still the era before refrigeration and home ice chests was the norm.  Locals can come and purchase the ice as need be while larger ice trucks arrive for home delivery on occasion. Some ice is hauled across the tracks to keep the milk cans cold.

An overview of the ice house location on the White River Division. Seems as a B&M milk train is on its way by. By the looks of the milk platform I think the train will be stopping here today.