Railway Station Part Five

Passengers will no longer get wet while waiting for a train, thanks to a weekend project that saw the roof and windows finally installed at Philden Railway Station. It seems that at last, the key building on my small bookshelf layout is nearing completion, and work on my layout is well on target to be completed by May 20th. If you've been following my progress on this blog, then you'll appreciate that's only 12 months after I cut the first piece of wood for the benchwork.

Before adding the roof, I turned the model over to drill holes through the floor for the light fittings.

Before I got stuck into installing the roof, I first turned the model of a NSWGR A-4 station over, and drilled 3 holes through the floor so as to easily be able to install the lighting from beneath the layout. Although the holes were positioned in each of the 3 rooms so as to not be visible through any open doors, I touched them up with some matching paint anyway.

Although the holes are in inconspicuous places, I touched them up with paint anyway.

I next turned my attention to painting the window and door frames.

I learnt from painting the window frames on my Model Train Buildings laser-cut timber NSW G-2 goods shed, that the more coats of paint you apply on MTB's timber kits, the more difficult they are to fit in the window openings. For my second Model Train Building's kit, its safe to say that I have now mastered putting these kits together, and building this station kit was not only heaps of fun, but has turned out to be one of the highlights on my layout. Keeping to my two-tone colour scheme of off-white and burnt sienna, I added white to the inner framework of the plastic window panes that are supplied with the wooden kit.

Fitting the glass panels was a pain. The trick is not to paint the door frames with too thick a coat of paint.

I simply kept the protective paper lining on the window panes where the toilet block is located.

After gluing the triangular roof supports into place, and ensuring that they were appropriately spaced to support each corrugated iron panel, I could then glue the completed windows into place. Remember how I said that the toilet windows would be painted out with a frosty white privacy finish that is common at most Australian railway stations? Well, I cheated. The clear plastic window panes inside the Model Train Buildings kit come with a removable white paper film to protect the surface. I simply left it in place undisturbed, and glued it to the window panes so that the paper coated side was on the inside of the building. It was so easy, yet looks so good.

I next painted the awning support posts....

I painted the platform awning supports in burnt sienna. The same colour I had used for the door and window frames along with the waiting room floor. Three watered down coats of this artists acrylic is enough to give it a good finish without coating all the fine detail on the laser-etched timber in a blob of paint.

....and glued them to the station sides.

The roof line of the station building is 250 mm long, while the structure itself is 238 mm long. There are 6 support posts on the A-4 station, and taking into account that the 2 end support posts fit on the inside corner join of the building, there are 4 posts to be spaced out evenly between all the door openings. I divided the distance between the outside posts by 5 and found that each post needed to be spaced 46 mm apart. However, the post that runs parallel to the waiting room entry has been fudged a little more than 46 mm. I can't tell by looking at it, and I doubt that anyone else could either looking at the photo above.

I painted the corrugated iron roof sections using a silver paint pen marker.

My much-loved silver paint pen has officially done its last project. It is the same pen that I used on my NSW G-2 goods shed that stands opposite the platform, so it was important to keep both it and the corrugated iron roof of my station identical. The thing I love about the Uni paint marker is that it takes about a tenth of the time to paint a model compared to using an enamel paint. The end result not only looks like authentic corrugated iron, but can be picked up and handled in less than 20 minutes.

The triangular roof support sections need to be spaced correctly to support the roof panels.

Getting the spacing right on the triangular roof supports is critical to fixing the roof in position. There are 3 pieces of roofing on each side of the A-4 station kit, and there needs to be 2 raised triangular pieces supporting each section for the roof to come together. Having said that, I just eyed up where to glue each triangular support by simply holding a section of the roof up to the model and drawing a small pencil line where I was to glue each one. I then glued the model together using some acetone based craft glue. I also applied a thin strip to the side edge where each roof section met. Finally, when the glue was dry, I applied one more coat using the silver paint pen marker to the entire roof area. It is the easiest way to cover up any join lines or glue marks. The other thing I like about the paint marker, is that it provides a lot neater finish when touching up the sides of the roof section above the fascia.

Painting the underside of the roof sections gave the model a better finish when viewed through a camera.

The newly completed Philden Railway Station is just awaiting the final details.

Although the model now looks complete, there are a few final details I need to see to before officially commemorating the completion of Philden Railway Station. There are 2 chimney stacks to be added to the roof line, along with the guttering and fascia boards around the edge of the roof. The small rear loading dock to the parcels room on the right needs to be finished with some timber stumps, along with the CountryLink station benches that I will add to the platform. And of course I need some passengers on the platform, to justify the South Northwestern Xplorer service that is a daily visitor to the station of course. But as usual, that is a story for another day. Tune in next time for the final chapter.

See also; Railway Station Part Six or Railway Station Part Four and Railway Station Part Three and Railway Station Part Two and Railway Station Part One and Building a Station Platform