Once a well-kept secret, the Barco Distillery later became a tourist attraction in its own right. Every train entering and leaving Oasis Palms had to travel through the caves and passengers would see the old moonshine operation turned-legit distillery in full production daily.
Situated in the caves directly below the Flamingo Motel, the Barco provided heat and water to the buildings on Vista Drive.
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The Barco Distillery was modeled using a K-line Santa Fe box car to mimic the replacement of the original Old No 5 box car that burned in the fire in 1948. The Distillery was made from a kit-bashed Menards Moe’s Cycle Shop. The still is a 3D-printed item sourced from Etsy and the loading dock was scratch-built from coffee stir sticks.
Moe’s is a simple building and has the added benefit of being shallow. This is a trick Menards does with many of its buildings so they will fit in narrow train layout spaces.
The building was liberated from its base and stripped of all the glued-on graphics. The second story was removed using a rotary tool. A flat roof was made from 1/8″ hardboard and I took a picture of the roof and photoshopped roof panels to match the overhang roofing.
New graphics were created and applied. The interior is a view of a whisky tasting room with a bottle of No. 5 in the front. The No5 poster was added to the front of the building and the large Barco sign was added below the eves.
A coffee-stir stick floor was added to the box car and lights were added to the front of the box car, inside the box car and over the door on the side of the distillery. Flickering LEDs were added to the trash barrel and inside the still. The Distillery eve lights were dulled down by coloring them with a black Sharpie marker.
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