Hi. Welcome to my "home" design page.
The drawings in the left column are for D&RGW long caboose models for
living in - they have about 165 square feet of inside living space.
The drawings in the right column are for D&RGW 3000 series box car models
- they have about 200 square feet inside. The box cars can be altered into camp cars (M.O.W. cars).
I plan on one caboose which will have a bathroom and shower and/or tub, a small food preparation and eating area and a small place to sleep. Once a box car with bedrooms is constructed, the food preparation and eating area in the first will become a small kitchen and the small sleeping area will become a dining area.
As can be seen in drawing OVERALL and OVERALL2, one box car with a den and study is under consideration. It will
allow the kitchen to expand and might be used temporarily as bed rooms. So far, all cars have end doors to facilitate
loading and unloading stuff.
I show a floor plan sketch for a 16' short caboose but I do not know if I'll build it. I also show a second long
caboose in one spot with a second bathroom. It would also include a laundry and much needed storage if built.
I plan on two box cars right now - one for a small metal shop and the other for live steam storage. A third might
be added for a small model RR layout.
For a den with a fireplace and a screened in porch, I may build a small building that looks like a depot.
I have contacted Banks Count Zoning and Planning to see what it would take to get this built. I am waiting on their
response. This is my letter to them:
April 14, 2001 1513 Thornhill Court Dunwoody, GA 30338-4226 Banks County Zoning and Planning 144 Yonah Road Homer, GA Dear Sir, I own 21.787 acres off of Barefoot Circle near Lula in Banks County (tax map #68 parcel #20). It is zoned ARR I believe. I am looking to build a weekend cabin on the property. Currently there are no buildings on the property. As I am interested in railroads, I looked into purchasing and moving a RR car to my property. Although a box car and caboose would cost about $18-20,000 and transportation about another $5000, I could not arrainge financing. I found a small "kit" cabin available through Costco for about $8000 (240 squar feet) that would be nice. It only lacks shingles, paint, and labor to assemble the panels together. I then thought that I could design panels myself (I have a BS in civil engineering from Ga Tech) and build a full sized "model" of an 1880-era wood railroad caboose that would use more traditional house construction on the inside. I would like to be able to build panels here in Dunwoody and cart them up to and assemble them in Lula. I have designed the panels to be able to be transported by my 4’x8’ trailer. I called you about several weeks (5-6) ago to try to get some information. If I understand correctly: 1) a septic tank requires a $150 permit and a plat that shows where the septic tank is to be. I assume that a pert test will be required (my notes show no reference to this). 2) all I need for a well is to have it drilled by any state licenced well driller. 3) Zoning and Planning will need an O.K. from Environmental Health for the septic tank for approval 4) Zoning and Planning needs a plat showing where the "house" and driveway are located I am not sure of the following items: 1) Building size - is there a minimum building size requirement for ARR zoning? 2) Address - what is my property’s address on Barefoot Circle? Where do I find out? 3) Plat - does it need to have a registered land surveyor’s seal or a registered civil engineer’s seal? I have worked for 7 years (1973-1978 and 1995-1996) as a civil engineer designing subdivisions and surveying but I am not a registered P.E. or L.S. 4) Do you need drawings of the building? I am enclosing a set of drawings that I have that show basically what I want to do. I would like to build a 165 square foot caboose to start with (drawings attached) and expand as I have time and money to include 205 square foot box cars (full sized models like the caboose - drawings available upon request) using some of the same and some new panels. 5) Georgia Power has a 12,000 volt power line running through my property. They are willing to drop power to my "house". They say I need some sort of permit or inspection by Banks County. Where do I go to find out about this permit or inspection? 6) What other permit(s) will I need? I would be willing to come up to discuss this unusual idea with you if you would like. I have photos of the prototype railroad equipment that can be presented to give a better feel as to what I am trying to simulate. I have built one "F1" panel to see how dificult it would be to assemble and to see if I really wanted to try to build a house myself. I could provide photos of it. (To explicitly spell it out, I would like to try to build this house myself if I can get all the permits. ) I have located a copy of the "Southern Building Code" at the local library. I have glanced at it and it appears to reference large buildings and wiring and plumbing and HVAC items. I have a copy of "Housebuilding A Do-It-Yourself Guide" from Popular Science. I am willing to use any other items you feel are needed. What I now need to find out is what I need to do for Banks County so I can build and occupy my "train" house. I have tried to ask most of the questions above and list what I know. If I have missed anything, please fell free to mention it. As an additional background item, I have not only the BSCE from Ga Tech I mentioned above, I also have a BS in Electrical Engineering from Ga Tech. I have wired 120AC in my basement here in Dunwoody. However I am not a lisenced electrician. I am not sure if I’d want to run the wiring for train house myself or have someone do it. One other item, my hobby is building and maintaining 1/8 and 1/5 size railroad trains. I have a small but complete metal shop in my Dunwoody home. I have built parts for not only my trains, but also airplanes and cars for my neighbors. If you think steel reinforcing in the caboose would be advisable, I would consider the suggestion. I buy steel at Builder’s Steel in Lilburn, GA. When I had back surgery 5 years ago, I did not want to give up my hobby and so I designed and built a 2000# overhead crane to raise and lower my eqipment (box cars weigh in about #150-200 , locomotives in between #150-500). If I changed the chain hoist out, the I-beams could hold at least #5500. Although I am starting this as a weekend cabin, I may want to make it a year round residence. One other small item I need is a way to contact the County Extension Service. I am interested in seeing what I might be able to grow on my property for sale . Can you direct me? I may be contacted at work (770-825-0230). We are a consulting engineering firm and sometimes the office is not manned while we are at a customer’s site. My home phone is (770-394-2882) in case you wish to leave messages. In addition to my mailing address (Douglas van Veelen, 1513 Thornhill Court, Dunwoody, GA 30338-4226), my e-mail address is douglasvanveelen@mindspring.com Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Douglas van Veelen ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Drawing explanations: OVERALL2 - the shows one possible way of setting up the buildings as a home of about 950 square feet. The one in the upper left and the other in the lower right would be cabooses. The other three would be box car style and would house bed rooms, den, study, and a work shop. SIDEC2 - this shows the overall side dimensions of the caboose style building. FPLAN1 - shows the proposed floor plan for the first caboose which would include a full bathroom, a very small kitchen/eating area (mainly a small half height frig, a micro wave (maybe), silverware and cookware storage, and a small counter top for eating), and a small area for sleeping and sitting. This would change as second and third buildings would be added. I.E. a building (box car) with beds would make the fold down bunks not needed. A box car with a den and study would allow the entire area to become a kitchen/eating area or kitchen/laundry. PROFILC1 - this shows the inner construction of the walls. Since the panels are shown in detail elsewhere, not all items are shown. The floor is 24" above the ground to allow a crawl space underneath. The bracing to hold the legs to the floor substructure are not shown in all places. They will be added on site. I envision short 18"-24" legs fitting in concrete footings available from Home Depot for decks. A bed of 6" of gravel would be underneath the entire car and between the footings and the ground. Bracing of the panels are shown as dashed diagonals. They are to be added after the panels are in place but before the siding goes on. From left to right, there are three P1 panels (with windows) followed by three P2 windowless panels. The cupola may actually be a separate panel but may also be built in place and not here in Dunwoody. I expect the 24" of the crawl space to be covers by latticework instead of a cinder block wall. By doing it right, I think I can give the feel of a railroad train without the wheels having been modeled. XC1 - this shows the cross sections of the building. The end wall (ENDC2A has the details) shows the additional required bracing of the legs to the subfloor. A typical cross section of the caboose with the roof is also shown. A cross section at the cupola is also shown here. XC2 - this shows the internal wall construction. In the caboose, the internal wall with centered door is used. In some of the box cars, the off-center door is also used. Diagonal bracing is used in both wall types. FLOORC2 - shows the sub floor overlaid with the side walls to make sure there was support under the walls. Additional timber can be added, if needed, for end wall support. The side walls fit right over where the 4"x4"’s of the flooring modules are supposed to be. FLOOR1 - this shows the two types of flooring panels needed (F1 and F2) and how six F1’s and 2 F2’s are assembled to make the caboose. The 6"x6" timbers on the ends of the caboose on the F2 panels actually try to represent the exposed end sills on the real caboose. The real end sills are 8"x11" actual dimensions and I did not want to pay for the larger timber size. (As an asside, a different end floor panel F3 is used with the same F1 panels for the box car building). ENDC2A - this is the end wall construction. I am not sure about how to make this panel since it would be larger than my trailer. I expect to build the wall on each side of the doorway and the cap piece that holds the roof and assemble it on site. P1 - this is a window side panel. P2 - this is the windowless side panel. COUPS1 - this is the cupola side panel with room for two windows. This might change to a single centered window. The caboose I’m modeling had several window styles. FPLANB1 - this shows a bedroom floor plan for a box car. This will actually look like a railroad workers car on the outside. Railroads usually took old box cars and modified them into whatever they needed for maintenance of way work. The internal walls with off-center doors are used here. FPLANB2 - this shows another floor plan for the box car frame that includes a den and a study/computer room. A cloak closet is included here. Both boxcar floor plans show the use of P1 panels used by the caboose and a new panel (not detailed here). PB2 is a windowless panel of 4.25’ long instead of the 3.66’ length of the caboose P2 panel. details can be provided upon request. |
Return to Doug's home page.
I may be contacted at douglasvanveelen@mindspring.com
Return to Doug's home page.
I may be contacted at douglasvanveelen@mindspring.com