Railway Station Part Four

There is usually only one way of adding interior detail to a model building, and that is to do it before you fix the roof in place. So before I turned my attention to completing the roof on my Model Train Buildings NSWGR A-4 railway station, I turned my attention to the internet, in search of some authentic railway maps and posters for my station waiting room.

If you look closely, one of the maps is actually a scaled down map of the Sydney rail system from 2000.

While there are many manufacturers of scale sized railway posters on the market, a lot of these tend to be over-the-top Olden Days advertising posters plugging soaps or tobaccos from the UK or US. So for a 1993-2008 era NSW CountryLink railway station, I was going to have to make my own. It turned out to be quite simple. A quick Google search landed me a host of maps and posters from Australia's not-so-distant past to choose from. I saved each image, and then created a blank Microsoft Word document in which to import each photo. One by one, I used the mouse to reduce each image in size until they were about 15 mm high.

Making my own signs was a lot more fun than simply gluing run-of-the-mill advertising signs to my station.

Satisfied that they would look the part, I printed them on a sheet of standard paper before laminating them with a small cut-out square of self-adhesive book covering, using the same method I outlined in my post adding railway station signs. There is a State Rail poster saying Cooee Katoomba from the late 1980's, a Corroboree XPT poster from 2007, an Xplorer and XPT poster for a bit of CountryLink self advertising, a map of the Sydney rail system from 2000, and if you can spot it on the right, a NSW TrainLink poster from 2010. Its a bit of a motley crue of railway posters that together cover the era I am modelling. I then trimmed these with a sharp hobby knife and put them aside while I turned my attention to building the passenger waiting room bench that came with laser-cut kit.

Back to the Model Train Buildings kit to build the waiting room bench.

The L-shaped bench that comes with Model Train Buildings kit was simple enough to piece together. I applied a couple of dabs of white PVA glue to the bracket supports that would be visible, and then shoved it aside to dry.

Pthalo blue was the best match I could find for that deep shade of CountryLink/Freight Rail blue.

Remember how I said I was finishing the station to resemble a mid 1990's to mid 2000's appearance? Well, when the station building is to retain a well-maintained, somewhat traditional looking, off-white and burnt sienna colour scheme, I went ahead and painted the bench in the waiting room in pthalo blue. I have some exterior railway benches to add later to the platform, and since these will also be painted blue, I wanted the waiting room to look like it had just received a very quick makeover as part of the CountryLink roll-out. Gluing the posters and railway maps into position further emphasised the station's transition into the CountryLink era.

Painting the plain MDF board flooring was a lot simpler than trying to scribe floorboards to resemble timber.

The fascia, platform canopy brackets and window frames will all be painted burnt sienna. So to further highlight the original two tone colour scheme I also painted the floorboards in burnt sienna. As my station is supposed to appear like a well-maintained country railway station approaching its centenary celebrations, I decided the varnish had worn away from the timber floorboards to the point where the flooring was simply painted over. When the paint had dried I glued the painted blue waiting room bench into position. Deciding that the Station Master's room was noticably blank, I then cut some 5 mm wide strips of balsa wood, lightly stained them using the dirty water I was soaking my paint brush in after painting the floorboards burnt sienna, and glued them into place to resemble a bench and the Station Master's desk. Finally I added another NSW railway system map to the wall of the Station Master's office.

A long way from finished, but the simple interior adds some character to my station.

Although relatively spartan in its detail, the waiting room and Station Master's office add a lot of depth to the building. I decided against detailing the toilet with partitions, interior doors or a toot, as who wants to see someone on the loo anyway? The window panes will simply be painted out with that frosty white glaze as is commonplace at railway stations across Australia, and the door left slightly ajar so viewers can at least see that the floor inside is painted and imagine whatever sound effects they think might be emanating from the rest rooms. As you can see, the parcels room on the right has not been detailed as I am modelling this with the doors locked up tight. Next I have to drill 3 holes through the base of the model to add lights to the interiors of the Station Master's office, waiting room and toilets. Then I can add the window frames, doors and other architraves before I can place the roof into position. But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day.

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