Section Foreman's House, 22x24 - HO

Section Foreman's House, 22x24

From the earliest days of the Great Northern through about 1950, most track maintenance was performed by a crew that worked an assigned ‘section’ of the railroad. As of circa 1900 single track sections were typically about 10 miles long. The work was performed by ‘section men’ under the direction of the ‘section foreman’. Even if the section headquarters was located in a town, the railroad typically supplied housing for both the foreman and his crew. In addition to housing, the section typically had a shed for tools and a hand car, or later, a gasoline powered speeder.

The most housing arrangement was a Section Foreman's House plus a section house. The section house could have been a three room section house, a two story section house, or a retired boxcar body.

When section foreman's houses outlived their usefulness in the 1950s and 1960s, the railroad demolished them or sold them with the requirement that they be moved off railroad property. They made good bunk houses or storage buildings on farms or ranches, and some were used as homes.

The kit

Our HO scale Section Foreman's House kit was designed from standard Great Northern plans from the GNRHS archives. It is a Laser-Cut Wood kit with Cast Resin detail parts, with a footprint of 22 by 24 scale feet.

For more information see GNRHS Reference Sheet 392, December 2014 by Don Pavia.