Wanting to expand the structures in my railway’s yard, I decided to build a sanding house and tower. I was inspired by the Tyco HO sand house and the large-scale Pola sand house.
As with most of my builds, I made it primarily from repurposed parts. I used a Pola Wells Fargo building and a Scankit (both of which had been damaged in a hurricane).
The roof came from the Scankit enginehouse. The tower was built using Evergreen styrene parts. I added bolt castings to the timbers to improve the appearance. The sand tank is a PVC fitting with Archer rivet detail. I scribed the sides of the tank to simulate seams. I topped it off with a large steel washer.
The piping is Evergreen styrene. I added paper clips so that the tubing can be bent without crushing it. For plumbing fitting details, I drilled out 2/56″ nuts so they would slide over the tubing. I then cemented them in place.
The building is lit with a $.98 solar pathway light from Walmart. The sand pit came from a broken Lionel wood-sided gondola. I filled the inside with expandable foam, let it dry, and glued dry cement to the top to form the “sand.” Later, I painted it an appropriate sandy color.
This structure fits nicely with my Bachmann coal tower and my scratchbuilt water tower. This sand house rounds out my collection of yard buildings.
More projects from Bill Barnwell
Lawn maintenance building: https://www.trains.com/grw/how-to/build-garden-railroad/kitbashing-a-lawn-maintenance-business/
Pulpwood load: https://www.trains.com/grw/how-to/projects/kitbash-a-pulpwood-load/
Saddle tank engine: https://www.trains.com/grw/how-to/projects/kitbash-a-saddle-tank-engine/
Station with freight house: https://www.trains.com/grw/how-to/build-garden-railroad/small-rural-station-with-freight-house/
Sugar cane cars: https://www.trains.com/grw/how-to/build-garden-railroad/kitbash-large-scale-sugar-cane-cars/
