Hey everyone. I'm thinking of making a small layout Savannah. In the layout I will have my freelance layout in the present operating on old CofG and using the CofG train station in downtown Savannah. I was wondering if anyone has a suggestion for modeling the station. I've been there many times since I live in Savannah. Also, just to let you know I'm taking ideas for a freelance railroad and anyone who would like to do interchanges with me. My E, F units as well as my passenger cars will have the CofG paint scheme.

Any comments and suggestion would help a lot!

Thanks in advance! Jason

-- Jason Casting (MultivortexF5@hotmail.com), September 24, 2002

Answers

Folks,

The national park service did a documentation projet on the C of G complex in Savannah in 1972. There are approx. 13 sheets of drawings, with elevations, sections, plans, etc. of the depot and the shops. I don't recall how much documentation there is on the red and gray buildings with the attached frieght sheds,I don't think much at all. The project carried out by the Historic American Engineering Record, the project number is HAER GA-1, copies can be had by contacting the Library of Congress prints and photographs division. If you want to just look at a set before you order, there is a set in the library at the roundhouse, contact my better half Angel Long at the shops to arrange a time.

-- rudd long (rudd@cogdellmendrala.com), September 25, 2002.

Jason,

Savannah was (and still is) a great railroad town. There are many different things that can be modeled. My own HO layout is based on the CofGa in Savannah (passenger station, shops area, and Central Junction), and the S&A's west Chatham industrial area in Port Wentworth and Garden City. (I grew up in Garden City on the S&A/CofGa line.)

Design Preservation Models (DPM)makes various styrene wall sections - some with windows, some with doors, some with arches, etc.) which could be combined into a reasonable facsimile of the CofGa's Savannah passenger station. Evergreen makes various strip styrene that could probably be modified and used for the large roof trusses and beams.

I would suggest that you make a trip to the station (now the Savannah History Museum) and take some detail photos of those parts of the station that you want to model. Bull Street Station Hobby Shop (on the corner of Bull and Oglethorpe) probably has some of the DPM wall sections that you could compare to your photos to see which would work best.

Good luck!

P.S. The CGRHS will be having our fall membership meeting in Savannah on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 12-13, 2002.

Allen Tuten

-- Allen Tuten (allen@cofg.org), September 24, 2002.