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| A B&M freight train passes the newly built Interlocking tower at Essex Jct. |
Monster Modelworks East Deerfield Tower.....by Don Janes
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| The kit |
Quite some time ago I ordered the Monster Modelworks kit of the B&M East Deerfield interlocking tower and I am really glad I did since they are no longer in business. I had always planned to use it at Essex Jct. on my layout where there is a junction with a line that leads to hidden staging. This Covid 19 isolation gave me the time I needed to finally build the kit.
I didn't take any photos of the construction (I forgot to) but will show some finished photos of the tower. This is not a construction article but just an overview of the finished kit. This is an entirely laser cut wood kit and the brick work is amazing. The parts are designed to fit together very well and it was fun to build. I did decide to include an interior in the tower and added some LED lighting to the structure. These photos were taken while the lights were hooked up to a 9 volt battery so I am hoping they will be a little brighter once they are permanently hooked up to the 12 volt source.
The windows are all very thin peel and stick wood and represent the metal window frames very nicely.
One thing I did before construction was to really brace the walls well to prevent any warping while colouring it with acrylic paints. I did change the two sides of the tower as I wanted the door on the opposite side to where it actually was and also boarded up a couple of lower windows for interest. The kit did not include any bracing. The structure was primed with red auto primer to seal the wood then various colours of red, brown and orange craft paints were used for the brick walls.
The tower interior includes a control panel with the actual layout of the track on the board using white decal strips. The roof is removable to gain access for future details. I also need to add some downspouts and electrical conduit to the outside before the tower is installed in the scenery once I figure out what that is going to look like.
Once the scene is finished I will post a few photos of it.
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| This is a view of the prototype tower at East Deerfield yard taken in 2018. Pan AM RR does not like trespassers so a shot of the front of the tower is hard to get. |
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| The old interlocking tower at Johnsonville NY on the B&M is very similar to the East Deerfield tower. |
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| The brick chimney was added coming from the lower level to hide the wires for the ceiling lights. |
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| The tower interior including the control panel with the actual track plan. |
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| Two SMD LED's in Tichy S scale lamp shades. The two wires run down the chimney. |
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| The front of the tower showing the delicate metal windows on the upper level. |
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| A small lamp was installed over the lower level entrance. |
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| Boarded up windows on one side of the tower |
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| The rear of the tower |
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| Here are a couple of shots showing the illuminated tower. |
What's interesting is how unusual it is for even a brick tower to have an inside stairway, much less indoor plumbing. The New Haven brick towers had outside stairways.
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