At the turn of the 20th century the New York & New England RR. had been absorbed into the New Haven Railroad, a new brick Danbury passenger station was built and opened in 1903. The original NY & NE station structure that served Danbury was no longer needed, to make way for the new union station and track expansion the structure was moved and rotated counterclockwise approximately 120° to a new location on railroad property.
The below photo shows the NY & NE station in its original location and points out the location it was moved to.
Click to enlarge photos.
This photo shows the station building in the new location after the move.
Leahy's Fuels Garage
After the second world war the small railroad yard property and structures on the left in the above photo was no longer needed by the New Haven RR, John Leahy purchased the property and repurposed the structures for his expanding fuel company. The relocated former NY & NE station structure was re-purposed as a garage sometime before my mid 50's modeling era.
The garage survives to this day and is still owned by Leahy's. The photo below shows the structures present configuration, the buildings original station heritage is easy to spot.
The Model
Usable prototype reference photos of the garage during the modeled era are hard to come by. The structure in photos is usually obscured by rolling stock or the lower storage portion of the office building on the left as in the 50's photo below that only shows the green roof and added on lean-to and the same for the present day photo taken from the end of the station platform below that.
Sizing the model was figured as best as possible from the picture of the station in its original location by using the known width of the track in front of the station as a reference.
The model is a simple scratch built structure using styrene clapboard siding and various styrene strips.
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