Model Railroading > Interlocking Tower interior

Do y\'all know if anyone makes
interiors for interlocking
towers, such as a bank of
switch levers, or something
similiar. Or maybe there is
a way to do this from scratch
materials. Any ideas, mates?
I am working with HO scale.

If memory serves me right, most of the ones I was in had a dirty hard wood floor or dark gray to keep the dirt from showing. The lower wall half was done in tounge & groove in a sorta dark brown. Most likely from cigarette smoke, while the upper half was in green. Im sure this varied from one railroad to another. The levers were in light gray with numbers on them. This should be pretty easy to do with flat tooth picks for levers. Add a desk, a wall (swing out & around)telephone and a stove. The yard master inside, most likely had a his Sunday hat on. Scott in MI.

ArgyleEagle,

As far as I know, no one makes an interlocking tower interior. The big problem, you have with interlocking towers, is it is custom made. This means no tower was the same.

The only thing I can sugest is trying Ben King\'s article in the Model Railroader on building interlocking towers. In his article he mentions building an interior for tower.

As far as an exact day or year for the article, try the magazine index service on the MR site.

Cass Telles - B.T.H.S. member
"Slow-Approach-Slow" - \'Go by way of the B&O\'
Railroads of NW Ohio
http://www.trainweb.org/rrnwoh

I have a beautiful TCS models of a PRR tower that I\'d love to build an interior for. As a boy I used to watch trains at Overbrook all the time where the tower operator would have me run to a local store to buy soda for him. In exchange I got to sit in the tower for hours and watch him operate the switches. I think the illuminated track board (possibly with LED\'s) would be a great thing to model.
I agree with the post above about the late Ben King\'s article where he scratchbuilt a tower. It will be a great reference source. If you need a copy, write back here with an e-mail address; I\'ll scan it and send it to you.
Narrowgauge

There are plenty of photos other there, in color too. However, I\'ll note that most "armstrong levers" were color coded--red, blue etc for switches, signals etc. by the railroad maintenance dept. but I know of one tower operator that did it himself.

You could probably use a computer to come up with a model board in color with the track diagram larger than scale and reduce it down. As far as furniture etc, all the towers I\'ve been in weren\'t elaborate. The desk and chairs etc could come from the usual sources. Telegraph equip., radios etc, fan, heating equip should also be available.

They aren\'t (weren\'t) only eqipped with Armstrong levrs. Hobart Tower in LA uses(used?) a bank of push/pull levers mounted in a central island for the electrical switch motors. I guess the stuff is so old that they\'ve outlived the last local company that could repair any of it! Include an old refridgerator and mabe a widow airconditioner, depending of era. If I recall, the interior of Hobart was institutional yellow rather than institutional green. Anybody know WHY hospitals and schools ang assorted gov\'t facilities used those horrid colors? I mean did the paint companies just throw in all their mistakes and sell it cheap?