The wheelchair car is a nuisance in the shed. It is hard to walk past, and leaves no floor space for working at the workbench. We had considered storing the wheelchair car outside on a track with a fold-back cover over it, but now more of us like it in a mini-shed.
We’ve decided on a mini-shed that just fits. The wheelchair car is 36″ x 92″, but 44″ wide when holding the loading ramp. So a 48″ door width would be plenty, and a 96″ shed length just makes it.
And we have the funds in our infrastructure grant.
Alternate Location discussion
– Some of us wanted to build a track switch and put the mini-shed on a new siding, but we’d not likely get that done by the infrastructure deadline of September 2025. Too much metal fabrication work. And the Market uses the parking lot for vendors in the winter.
– Some suggested expanding the north side of the south shed, but that still leaves the entrance the same (an ankle-breaker). It would be expensive and challenges deadline. (Expanding that shed remains an option in some future year when we need more space and the wheelchair car is stored elsewhere)
– if we later prefer having the over-track drive-through shed at a different location, since the mini-shed is small, we have the option to easily move it later.
The decision is to build a drive-through shed with the current location selected here, near where we deploy the wheelchair train, towed by “little toot”, with the option to move it later.
Our standard wheelchair setup is now the little-toot loco, pax car #10 and the wheelchair car. When setting up, we’d pull the wheelchair car back to the west shed, move the main loco by, then move the 3-car wheelchair train into its “priority loading” position.
The shed opening would be 4′ wide and 4′ tall, (just enough to drive through seated), with a single gable metal roof and door like our recent lean-to shed. Shed length is 8′.
Foundation could be simply four shallow concrete blocks, or four post blocks with a treated 8′ x 2×4, just like on the shed extension.
The shed door would be 4’x4′, and when open would display photos or whatever, plus the full 4’x8′ wall is available for a permanent photo display or mural.
Another plus: the photos on our heritage displays could be on the shed to avoid deploying the displays.
Homemade trusses could look like this; we would need five at 2′ spacing. We could store 20″x 20″ boxes in half the space with a 2’x8′ piece of plywood under the trusses on one side.
across the trusses would be two 1″x4″x10′ on each side of the gable to hold the metal roof
We have several pieces of metal roof left over that are large enough for the 28″ needed on each side of the gable. We have an offer of a free metal ridge cap.
To prevent trapezoiding sideways, we could add 2x4s like in this shed, there is no clearance problem near the top
Cost would be under $900