Builders in Scale kit #7 is the Tennessee Pass Depot. The kit is long out of production and is listed as used only because it has been opened. I have inspected the contents of this kit and I’m confident that all the parts are there and it has not been started in any way. It is based on a Denver & Rio Grande depot that stood in the high Rocky Mountains for about 70 years. That station was built about 1890 in Tennessee Pass at an elevation of almost 2 miles. It was primarily a telegraph office that relayed orders for helper engines that assisted trains on each side of the mountain. Early on, the trains were narrow gauge but later they became standard gauge. So you could use the kit for HOn3 or HO.

The real station was built into the hill at the top of the pass. The track was adjacent to the lower level of the station and you went up stairs to get to the 2nd level. The kit itself can be built like this if you have a mountainous layout. But Builders in Scale includes extra wall parts that are to be used if you prefer to builds the station as a 2 story structure to sit on level ground. Very clever I think.

Years ago I built a model railroad that used another copy of this kit as a transition station. We built the station into the side of a mountain. We used the lower level of the structure for HO or standard gauge passenger trains to stop. The passengers supposedly could walk up the stairwell to get to an HOn3 track and ride to the upper levels of the layout on narrow gauge. It worked well and gave the layout extra dimensions. There was a small town in the mountains that the HOn3 trains serviced. There was a little larger town with waterfront that the standard gauge HO trains stopped at regularly.

I’m getting older now and I need to part with this kit because I have been laid off until sometime in late December or January. I believe I’ve priced it very reasonably. Hopefully one of you will buy it and help me pay the mortgage. Thanks for looking.