Capturing memories in miniature

Model railways are really just about re-creating memories in miniature. Whether its childhood memories of trips on trains, a working recreation of a railroad's good-old-days, or in the case of my beach extension, simply capturing the look and feel of era you remember fondly. So fresh back from my Christmas holiday break down south in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, its time to unveil the final stage of my year-long project to turn my two track staging yard... into a two track stand alone scene.

Grafton Railway Station on the NSW North Coast line was the inspiration for the brickwork on my new station.

The far North Coast of New South Wales can be a lonely place for train watching. Most of the steel and intermodal trains either arrive or depart from Brisbane at night, leaving only the Brisbane XPT as the sole train to make a regular appearance in daylight between Coffs Harbour and the border. The Murwillumbah Line is largely overgrown since last seeing a train in 2004, and the Pacific Highway now bypasses many of the towns you once slowed down to drive through. Grafton was always the one railway town you could rely on to spot a train south of the Queensland border while making a highway stop at McDonalds. Not anymore. My last two stops at Grafton have yielded no sight of a train at the sugar silo or station, and once the next 155 km Pacific Highway upgrade between Ballina and Woolgoolga opens in 2020, Grafton will lay well off the highway and Maccas stops will become a thing of the past. So the station building became the first point of inspiration on my station scene. Those memories become part of the scene thanks to my copying the brickwork pattern on the modern railway station.

A flat roof needs something to add some detail, so I added this row of air-conditioner units and a skylight.

With the brickwork and station interior finished, (right down to copying Grafton Station's two strips of dark coloured brick), I found some catalogue pictures of some Daikin roof-mounted air-conditioner units, printed them out, covered them with some clear adhesive film and glued them to a strip of styrene. The mounting brackets are simply unpainted 1/16" styrene rod. I also added a skylight using a painted window frame I salvaged from leftovers from my cement plant I built 3 years ago, proving it pays not to throw anything out.

I next cut and glued the clear styrene windows into place where I'd intentionally left the grey spaces unpainted.

Before giving the roof its final treatment, I sealed the edges so that no glue would ruin the inside detail.

The inspiration for my roof came from our holiday accommodation at Pacific Cove Resort, Coffs Harbour.

I went with something different for the roof of the Travel Centre. Referring to some previous holiday photos from our family trips to Coffs Harbour, I wanted to copy the stone roof effect that is used on the Wyndham Terraces apartments in the Pacific Cove Resort at Coffs Harbour. This was our fifth family holiday to Coffs Harbour and our first one was back in.... you guessed it, 2005. Perhaps this is another reason I chose to set my layout in the 2002-2005 period, and it become the second point of inspiration for my station scene.

The roof stones on the Travel Centre are the same Woodlands Scenics coarse light grey ballast I used on my mainline.

I quite like the finished result. It makes you stop and think, 'where have I seen that before?'

Coffs Harbour Railway Station's large sign, flat roof and air-conditioning structures were my next point of inspiration.

A lot changes in a decade without you realising. Although Coffs Harbour Railway Station on the NSW North Coast Line still looked pretty much the same when I called in over my Christmas 2018 holiday break, the giant Countrylink station sign out the front that I'd photographed above just 4 years earlier in 2014 was gone, replaced by an orange sign with a simple 'T' for train, (as if we didn't already know). It shows how the things we take for granted today can become interesting modelling points for tomorrow. The sign became my third point of inspiration. I simply had to model the blue Countrylink sign on my beach extension.

I made the signs following my own instructions on my post Adding Railway Station signs from back in 2015.

I also added some MIND THE GAP stencilling alongside where the doors of my 2 car Xplorer will pull up.

There is just enough room for me to add a model of a Countrylink road coach when someone decides to release one.

The finished Phills Harbour Countrylink Travel Centre complete with platform and signage.

Trying to photograph the now complete station and platform quickly showed up something I didn't like. Where the backdrop of Coffs Harbour meets the painted blue sky at the end of the line seemed to detract from the overall scene. Revisiting my own post adding the layout backdrop from 2018, I figured I could extend the backdrop scene by matching the mountain line of the photo I'd used as the backdrop on my beach extension. Fortunately, I had a lot of photos I'd taken of Coffs Harbour on that same day, and decided to use one that featured a scene of the Coffs Harbour Marina in the foreground. Returning to Officeworks, this time it cost me only $6.50 to print my re-sized photo on the EZ-Tac adhesive.

The EZ-Tac print was measured, cut and test fit before removing the adhesive backing and pressing it into place.

The extended backdrop instantly improved the scene, but something need to be done about that corner join!

I used these hops plants that I'd purchased from Modellers Warehouse at a model train show.

Gluing them to the height of the tree on either side of the square channel that holds the backdrop in place worked.

The lower waterline on the backdrop makes the railway line look like it ends on a wharf above the marina.

Looking back towards the mouse-hole. I've now turned what was a plain staging shelf into this nice little scene.

So the cleverly named Phills Harbour (coughs) is now complete. The only thing remaining to be done is to add a few lights, to the station building, platform and subway tunnel leading to the beach, and some passengers waiting on the platform and inside the air-conditioned coolness of the Travel Centre for the next train to Sydney. Compare the scene above to the view below of what these two staging tracks once looked like. The two tracks essentially do the same thing they've always done, provide a staging area for trains while I operate the main area of the layout.

Flashback to when these two tracks were simply just staging for my bookshelf layout.

The finished beach extension, ready for opening day!

If model railroading is really just about capturing a memory in miniature, the only person who can really judge the end result is the modeller themselves. Although there was really nothing wrong with the original two track staging shelf, what rebuilding this end of my layout has done is provide my small layout with a lot more memories. Memories of chasing trains along the north coast on the way to our holiday.

See also; Phills Harbour Travel Centre and Adding the layout backdrop