Now that I have an idea of what the engine house will look like, it’s time to start.  First order of business is to make a list of the building materials and get that on order.  I took delivery of the material and set it in the garage for now.  I’ll move the pieces to the building site as needed so that they don’t sit in the weather and warp.  Here’s what the engine house looks like at the moment.  Note that it comes “Some Assembly Required”:

Selecting and Clearing the Site

The track oval sits on a slight grade.  I’m going to position the engine house at the high point of the track so that the track is at the same relative height (to the doors) on both the entrance and exit.  There are some small trees and brush that’ll need to be cleared away.  This is what the site looks like before and after clearing:

Preparing the Foundation

I could prepare a foundation involving grading and pouring a concrete foundation.  But I’m going to keep things simple (and cheap) by sitting the house on concrete cap blocks.  It won’t need to support much weight, and the house won’t be getting much traffic.  So the cap blocks should work just fine for my purposes.

I’ll position nine blocks, spaced at five foot intervals, to support the 10′ x 10′ engine house.  It’s critical that the top load-bearing surfaces of each of the blocks is exactly level with the other eight blocks.  If even one of the blocks is out of level, it will affect the levelness of the floor, which in turn will cause the framing to be out of square.  So I’m taking extra care to ensure that the foundation blocks are set properly.

Building the Floor

Now that the foundation blocks are set, I can build the floor.  The shed is ten by ten feet, but I won’t be flooring the entire area.  The track will go through the shed, so I’ll be flooring only that portion of the interior where there’s no track.

Here is what the flooring looks like as it progresses: