Railway Station Part Three

After getting sidetracked with other modelling projects, namely running trains up and down my bookshelf layout, it seemed about time that I once more turned my focus to completing the station building at Philden Railway Station.

With the inner-shell of the building already complete, I got to work painting the weatherboard cladding.

The NSWGR A-4 weatherboard station is a Model Train Buildings laser-cut wood kit that is typical of many intermediate country train stations across New South Wales. While there were many different variations to what was a standard government design station building, the Model Train Buildings' version comes with an open passenger waiting room. With the inner-shell of the kit and foundation for the building already constructed, I painted the weatherboard cladding separately before applying the outer skin to the structure. I used an off white acrylic artists paint made by Semco that is available through Spotlight, and watered the paint down with about 30% water. I applied just 4 coats of the thinned down paint with a flat artists paint brush, which was enough to achieve a uniform finish without losing any of the detail.

I made the stone base for the station building from balsa wood, and stained each block a different colour.

Having already walked readers through how I built the station platform in a previous post, I now had to make a tiny modification to the kit to enable the weatherboard cladding to sit flush with the platform. I wanted the floor of the waiting room to sit almost level with the platform surface, so the foundation for the building is slightly recessed as shown in the photo above. The thin laser-etched birch that forms the outer skin of the building was easy enough to trim a 3.5 mm strip in line with the base of the doorways on the platform side with a sharp hobby knife. I also had to trim a 3.5 mm cut to accommodate the corner of the structure sitting between the steel handrails visible in the above photo. But that is the beauty of working with a laser-cut timber kit, they are easily modified to achieve their own unique finish.

I then tacky-glued the painted weatherboard cladding to the inner-core of the building.

With the paint dry, it was time to bring out the tacky glue. I've come to love working with this stuff. It dries fast, clear and is easy to clean up any glue that seeps out when you press the outer skin to the inner-core of the model with a damp Chux cloth.

The modified corner of the kit enables the building to sit flush with the platform height.

You can see how the cut away corner of the building enables the model to sit flush with the height of the platform, while in the background the CountryLink Xplorer stands ready to depart Philden. While I still have the roof, windows and interior to detail, the above photo complete with gardens, scratch-built handrails and station sign gives a tiny glimpse of a finished scene. But to give readers a taste of what I'm trying to capture with my layout, I guess you have to compare my progress so far to that of the real thing. So I present the following two photos...

That's me soaking up the sunshine at the restored Lowanna Station on the former Dorrigo Branchline...

...and that's my Xplorer service arriving at Philden Station. I think the colour is a good match.

Readers will know that I am a writer. So if a picture tells a thousand words, then I hope that my station scene, (when it is finished), provides me with ample inspiration to write a railway based mystery novel. Conspiracy, murder and mayhem. Sounds like the 9.10 to Philden.

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

Goods Shed Part Four

The final stage of construction my Model Train Buildings NSWGR G-2 Goods Shed, involved gluing the roof fascia and platform bargeboards to the model, and to my surprise this turned out to be one of the trickiest components to the model.

The kit comes with a spacer for aligning the bargeboards, and unfortunately there's not enough to model 3 strips of them if you stray from the plans like I did.

After leaving off the wider door frame pieces in favour of fitting the door sills in the same bug-eyed fashion that I fitted the windows, I soon discovered that the bargeboards were now too short when placed along the walls of the building. This called for a bit of improvising, and knowing that there were 3 strips of bargeboards on the G-2 sheds with the lowest sitting flush with the decking of the goods platform, I decided to leave the bottom strip off altogether and simply apply 2 strips of bargeboards. Using the spacer that comes in the kit to raise the lowest strip off the platform decking, I then had enough painted bargeboard to complete the building by cutting sections to fill the gaps from what would have been the third strip of bargeboard.

Fixing the bargeboards with glue calls for tweezers and a steady hand.

By now, the model is quite sturdy to hold in your hands to work on. After spending a few days applying several coats of thinned down Burnt Sienna acrylic to the laser-cut wooden fascia boards, corner soffits and bargeboards as I outlined in Goods Shed Part One, I could then get to work fitting them to the model. I used quick drying craft glue to fix the corner soffits first, and then glued the bargeboards in place. Next I measured the gap that needed to be filled courtesy of my ommission of the door frames and glued the final pieces in place. This was a job that called for tweezers to ensure that I pressed each piece into place correctly so as to avoid any glue smears from trying to line it up after it had touched down on the surface.

The roof fascia and bargeboards fixed in place.

Finally I touched up any join lines courtesy of my cut and fill joins on the bargeboards, and also where I'd shortened the roof line on the non-rail side with some paint. At this point, the rear of each door that is visible through the opened area of the model was also painted with the same Burnt Sienna acrylic. When dry I placed it on the goods platform to see how it looked.

A view of the finished model from the rail dock end...

The shortened roof line on the non-rail side will now enable the clear perspex sheeting to drop into the channels along the front of my layout, while still blending in with the overall appearance of a G-2 Goods Shed.

...and another view from the office end.

Apart from the join lines on the bargeboards where I had to fill the gaps, the missing third strip of bargeboard isn't all to obvious thanks to the darkened timber decking of the goods platform. From the non-rail side, the bump-planking along the delivery dock certainly goes a long way to making up for it being left off. All I need to do now to complete the model, is stain the steps, add a few strategic items on and around the goods platform and install the lighting inside the building. As usual, I'll save an article about detailing a goods shed for another day.

See also; Goods Shed Part Three and Goods Shed Part Two and Goods Shed Part One and Building a Goods Platform

Goods Shed Part Three

Fixing the roof to my NSWGR G-2 Goods Shed left me with one glaring problem. The model building almost looked too good. With construction of New South Wales G-2 standard corrugated iron goods sheds dating back to the early 1900's, Philden Goods Shed looked more like a brand new Titan shed than an historic railway artifact. The solution? Rustall.

This was a Christmas present from years back that had waited patiently for construction to start on my HO layout.

A few Christmases ago, my daughter's boyfriend impressed his future father-in-law with a gift that was sure to win him over. I'd looked for Rustall here in Australia for years without any luck, and somehow he'd managed to trace down a kit for me. The only problem was that selling my N scale empire and starting work on my Australian HO layout has taken me this long to be able to use it. They say Rustall 'rusts anything'. Well, I was about to find out.

Step 1, painting the rust onto a new model at first looks a little harsh.

Without any experience using Rustall before, I dived straight into the box, quickly read the instructions and pulled out my paintbrushes. It looked pretty straightforward, 4 numbered bottles, 4 different results, simply stir and apply. Bottle 1 is the rust, a muddy-looking concoction that achieves varied results depending on how thick you apply it. At first it looks a little harsh when applied onto a new model, but I soon discovered it worked best when applied in gradual layers.

Step 2, adding the black-wash highlights gives the rusted areas some body.

Bottle 2 was simply some black-wash highlights that randomly collect on the rusted panels, giving the rust some body, and the barer patches of corrugated iron a much-needed coat of weathering.

Step 3, the flat grey toner blends all the layers together.

Without sounding like I'm giving make-up tips, bottle 3 was a flat grey toner. When applied, it blends the rust, black-wash and painted silver surface of the corrugated iron together. There was a 4th bottle in the kit that contained a dirt powder for dry-weathering the finished model, but as my goods shed will sit up on a timber platform, I think I'll save that for another project.

The finished result, my goods shed is now awaiting the fascia, corner soffits and bargeboards to be added.

In Australia, corrugated iron rusts. The older the structure, the deeper the rust tends to be. Without having photographed an actual G-2 Goods Shed to use as my reference, I simply gave the roof a rustier finish than the side walls. I wanted to rust the goods shed now, before fitting the fascia, corner soffits and bargeboards to the model. My model is meant to replicate a well-worn, but still functionally sound goods shed, and although I was a little heavy-handed at first, for my first-time using Rustall, I'm pretty happy with the results. Now I just have to get those fascia boards painted, but as usual, that's a story for another day.

See also; Goods Shed Part Four or Goods Shed Part Two and Goods Shed Part One and Building a Goods Platform

Goods Shed Part Two

What a difference some corrugated iron cladding makes to a model building! After explaining how I painted the laser-cut timber kit in part one of my building a goods shed series, gluing the corrugated iron to the sides of my Model Train Buildings G-2 Goods Shed took a matter of only minutes.

Some fast drying PVA wood glue was all I needed to glue the pre-painted sides to my goods shed.

I used some fast drying PVA water based Tacky Glue made by Boyle that I bought from my local Bunnings store to fix the painted corrugated sides to the inner-core of the building. Compared to normal PVA wood glue, it still leaves enough time to slide each panel into the correct position, but sets a lot quicker, which means less time clamping the kit with your hands until it has bonded.

I used the same Tacky Glue to fix the clear acrylic window panes to the sills and crossbar panels.

The Tacky Glue dries clear enough to use with the acrylic glass panes that come with the Model Train Buildings kit, which proved to be a blessing as I couldn't figure out how to glue the crossbar panels to the sills. There was an 'inth of a millimeter play between the white panels and the painted window sill that had me beat. So I just glued the white crossbar panels directly onto the clear window panes, and the window panes into the sills. As you can see, the Tacky Glue dried without leaving any clouding behind on the clear acrylic.

I used an old paint brush to paint the Tacky Glue around the holes where the window sills fit to avoid any spills.

I next became stuck trying to figure out how to position the window sills into place in the cut-out openings. Despite each piece fitting perfectly when I tested it before painting, I'd applied about 8 coats of Burnt Sienna to the door frames and window sills which meant that they were now too thick to be fitted from the inside of the model. The windows sat too far back in the opening, making the windows appear recessed and robbing the model of all the detail I had put into each window pane. My solution was to fit them from the front of the model, meaning my goods shed's windows now sit out a millimetre or two from the face of the building like bug's eyes. Yet somehow it gives the model a bit more character than if they had been fitted flush with the side of the building, and I'm kinda pleased with the end result.

It seemed a shame to cover up all that detail on the goods shed platform, so I positioned the doors to be fixed open.

With the windows glued into place and the door frames ready for the doors to be fixed into position, I placed the building onto my goods shed platform and stood back to see how it was progressing. Only I felt gutted that once the roof was fitted to the goods shed it was going to cover up all that beautiful detail I had put into the timber decking.

Gluing the doors into an semi-open position provides a cool viewing angle.

No problem I thought. I'd just glue the doors in a slightly opened position so as to allow viewers a peek inside. With the awning on the non-rail side of the goods shed needing to be cut back so as to clear the perspex screen that will slide into position on the front of my layout, the open doorway is positioned in a prime viewing area. All I need to do is paint the interior walls of the building that will be visible through the part-opened doorway, fix a light into position, and viola! I'll have given my goods shed another level of interest. But as usual, that's a story for another day.

See also; Goods Shed Part Three or Goods Shed Part One and Building a Goods Platform

Goods Shed Part One

Having already constructed the goods platform to stand alongside the siding in my small railway yard in a previous post, I needed to find the right prototype goods shed to sit on top. After a trip to visit Stuart at Model Train Buildings, I returned home with a laser-cut NSWGR G-2 standard goods shed, that with just a little bit of modification, will easily fit the space I have available.

Assembling the steps that lead down from the goods platform.

MTB's timber laser-cut building kits all begin with the same inner-core sub-assembly, in the case of my HO scale kit, made from 4 mm MDF board that virtually guarantees the end result being immune to warping or sagging. The G-2 Goods Shed kit comes complete with a timber platform. Having already scratchbuilt the goods platform on my layout to fit a specific area, I cut the tabs away that would normally slot into the base of the platform and assembled the 2 sets of steps as shown above. The pieces slot into place easily and I used just a pinhead of craft glue to hold them in place.

The finished steps glued into place are just awaiting a final wash of weathering.

Skinning the building with the finer laser-cut birch pieces that give the goods shed its detail, requires that the pieces be painted before being glued onto the inner-core of the kit. While exploring online and even making a special trip to a hobby shop to find the right paint to replicate galvanised iron, I returned home empty-handed and picked up the same silver marker pen that I used on the handrails of my railway station platform. The timber pieces absorb a lot of the silver-shine, and despite the first two coats appearing a bit patchy as I left them to dry overnight, a third and final coat with the marker pen the next morning had them looking more like miniature pieces of cut metal rather than a painted piece of etched timber.

A silver paint pen was enough to make the timber pieces resemble corrugated iron sheeting for the goods shed's walls.

Next up I painted the goods shed's doors and window frames with thinned down Burnt Sienna acrylic artists paint. The colour of the door and window trims on the G-2 Goods Shed varied between locations, but photos from my research often showed them in a shade of tan-brown. The goods shed on Peter Hearsum's Burrowa layout is perhaps the finest example I've come across.

The window and door frames required about 8 coats of thinned down Burnt Sienna acrylic paint.

The door and window frames proved time consuming to paint, given the thinned down Burnt Sienna paint was a much lighter colour than the blackish-brown burn-marks where the laser cutter had burnt its way through the timber. Had I have chosen a darker colour to conceal this, it wouldn't have been a problem. All up it took around 8 coats applied over 2 days to achieve the desired effect. While waiting for the paint to dry however, I was able to finish gluing the inner-core of the structure and position it on the goods shed platform to determine where I would place the two steps leading down to ground level.

The siding end of the goods platform with the steps glued into place on the rail side.

The width of my goods platform has dictated that the roof line on the non-rail side of the building needs to be trimmed back to allow only an overhang for the guttering, and not a second covered awning on the yard side loading platform. Thankfully there is a prototype for everything, and I found it courtesy of James McInerney's detailed archival notes on Stockinbingal Goods Shed in southwestern New South Wales. Stockinbingal's Goods Shed was unusual in that there was no covered platform awning on either side of the building. The door and window trims were also painted an iced-green colour.

The office end of the goods platform with the steps glued into position on the non-rail side.

On the office end of the goods shed platform, I decided to place the steps leading down to the yard area on the non-rail side of the platform. To me it seemed a more logical position than blocking trucks from accessing this corner of the platform. I'm sure if I looked hard enough I would find a prototype for that too! So with the configuration of the goods shed sorted, all I can do is sit back and wait for the paint to dry before I can start gluing the corrugated iron panels, doors and window frames into place. But as usual, that's a story for another day.

See also: Goods Shed Part Two or Building a Goods Platform

Railway Station Part Two

The railway station building at Philden may still be just a hollow frame shell, but the station platform, gardens and surroundings are now almost complete. After days spent 'model gardening' and building station signs, all that remained for me to do was add the galvanised steel handrails to the rear platform edging.

The long-stemmed nozzles that are used on aerosol cans are perfect to use as steel hand rails.

I started by painting some long-stemmed aerosol can nozzles silver using the same silver paint pen I used for the hand rails on my cement plant, and trimmed these to a height of 13 mm.

The trimmed steel posts ready to be installed along my platform.

Next I measured where each handrail post would be positioned along my platform and drilled a 3 mm deep hole. When glued into place each post will be 10 mm high, and just to be sure, I measured each and every one with a ruler while the glue set.

Each steel post is drilled and glued into place, checking that they are all a uniform 10 mm high.

While the glue was drying, I played around with where I wanted to position each light post and station sign that I had been busy making over the past few days, until I was happy with how it looked. I next added an easy access ramp between the 2nd and 3rd posts in the above platform.

The platform end with the finished hand rails in place.

I then measured and cut the top hand rail sections, once more using the painted long-stemmed aerosol can nozzles as tubing, and glued these into place. Once the glue was dried, I touched up any glue marks or scratches on the painted tubing with the silver paint pen, and turned my attention to blending the station surrounds with the station garden that lies at the other end of the platform.

8243 worked 'light engine' to Philden to inspect the track along the finished station surroundings.

After letting the glue dry overnight, I carefully vacuumed the station surroundings, cleaned the track and sent 8243 light engine to the platform to inspect the finished work. The concrete slab in the bottom left of the above photo has been laid in readiness for Philden Signal Box.

8243 standing alongside my finished station garden and new platform signage. Note the easy access ramp.

I finally decided on using my Countrylink sign on the platform above the station garden instead of the Model Train Buildings laser-cut kit I had custom made, simply because the Countrylink sign is smaller and allows better visibility of my trains pulled up at the platform when viewed from this side of the layout. The large NSWGR black on white station name board will instead be erected in the car park. I think doing so will help tell a story of when passenger services to Philden were cut in the mid to late 1980's and the nameboard was relocated to face the arriving road coach. Fast-forward to 1993, and passenger services to Philden were reinstated following the introduction of the Countrylink Explorer. Sounds a bit like Moree and Armidale doesn't it?

I think the dusty outback station garden at Philden Station will forever be one of my layout's highlights.

Finishing the scenery around my railway station means that I now have the scenery completed for just over half of my layout. It also means that I have the goods shed, my railway station building and now a signal box to finish. With each of these buildings designed to be removable so that I can also model the interior, it also means that there's no rush for me to finish them. So for now I might put the tools away for a bit, and just have some fun running some trains. After all, I don't want to get this finished too quickly. See you down the line!

See also; Railway Station Part Three or Railway Station Part One and Building a Station Garden

Adding Railway Station signs

Adding a railway station sign to your platform is the easiest way to present a visual time and place for the setting of your model railroad, and giving your station an identity of its own is a relatively easy project.

The prototype for my main station name-board came from Lowanna Station on the Dorrigo branch line.

When modelling the New South Wales Railways scene in Australia, you quickly discover that many medium sized country railway stations had one large station name-board on the platform that would face arriving trains. Later when road coaches replaced train services on some branch lines, many were either turned around to face the car park, or re-located in front of the bus zone. Most of these signs were painted black on white, others white on black, while some were even repainted white on blue. After photographing Lowanna Station on the former Dorrigo branch line, I chose to model a more common black lettering on white background station sign.

Model Train Buildings offer custom-made laser-cut wooden station sign kits, such as the one I ordered for Philden.

Model Train Buildings make a range of laser-cut wood kits of various sized NSW and Victorian prototype station buildings, and they also offer custom-made laser-cut station sign kits. After a quick email to Stuart at MTB, my custom-made PHILDEN station sign kit arrived the next week.

I started by painted the engraved area black....

The station sign kit was pretty straight forward to put together, the only real difficulty I experienced was in painting it prior to assembly. Although the engraved letters are the clearly defined and easy to paint black, the raised flat surface of the station sign needed to be painted white. Sounds easy, but the white paint kept bleeding into my recessed black letters.

....and finished by painting the flat surface of the sign white.

Eventually I got there after several coats of black paint to hide up the white paint, and white paint to hide up the black paint. I then painted the raised frame portion of the sign black, and set it aside to dry overnight. The majority of NSW railway stations only had one sign of this size standing facing the platform, and the rear of the sign would be plain black or white. However, as I've built the backdrop on my book shelf layout to be reversible, I bought two of these station sign kits to glue them back-to-back. That way the sign name will always be visible no matter what side of the layout I have placed on display. After painting the sign posts black and touching up any glue marks from joining the station signs back-to-back with the same black paint, I put the station name board aside and moved onto the station signs that will hang from the light posts.

Next I designed my own platform signs that would be mounted on my lamp posts using Adobe Photo Shop Elements 8.

As a young kid, I remember catching a train to Sydney every school holidays from tiny Point Clare Station near Gosford, NSW. The station signs that hung from the light posts were of the name placed over a traditional black circle outline. I also wanted to add some similar station signs to the light posts that would line Philden's platform, so I decided to make these myself using the same method I outlined in my post Building a Highway Sign. I then printed these out so that the circle section of the sign was 11 mm tall, while the name section of my sign was only 5 mm tall.

After printing out my lamp post signs on my home printer, I covered them in book covering and rubbed away any air bubbles.

As I did when making my highway road sign, I covered the printed station signs with some self-adhesive book wrap to protect the ink on the finished sign from ever bleeding if it were ever to be splashed with a drop of water, glue or paint.

I then cut the station sign using a very sharp fine tipped hobby knife.

I cut 6 station signs, enough to complete 3 lamp posts with signs mounted on both sides. The trick is to make sure you use a very sharp fine tipped hobby knife. I always do a project like this using a brand new blade.

The finished station sign glued to a cheap lamp post I bought from eBay.

Finally I glued the signs one at a time to the lamp posts I am adding to my station platform. Once the glue had dried, I then turned the lamp posts over and repeated the process again so that I had a sign visible on each side. Although not my first choice in lights for my platform, I had already bought 20 of these lamp posts from a Chinese manufacturer on eBay. All up, the total cost for making these lamp posts was less than 25 cents each! So for now they will do nicely.

A photo I had of Eungai Station made an excellent candidate for my photo-shop project.

Finally, I moved onto the Countrylink station sign that would define the era that I model. During the early to mid 1990's, stations that became part of Countrylink's passenger train network were re-badged with modern Countrylink signage. Signs like the one I photographed at Eungai are still found today in 2015.

Once more I photo-shopped a station sign on my computer.

Once more I turned to Adobe Photo Shop Elements 8 to erase the name Eungai and replace it with Philden. The font Vani was an almost perfect match. I printed these out at a height of 15 mm, and repeated the same steps that I did for the light post signs.

My Countrylink sign also required round sky-blue sign posts to mount it to. Blue Mist was a good match.

Finally, I painted some long-stemmed aerosol can nozzles a blue mist colour, and trimmed these to a height of 28 mm. Allowing 3 mm to sit inside the tiny holes I drilled on my station platform, they then stand 25 mm tall with the raised centrepiece bringing the sign to a height of 30 mm tall. Before I decide the exact location to add my newly made signs to my railway station platform however, I have to skip ahead to my next project, which is adding some galvanised steel handrails and an easy access ramp to my station platform. But as usual, that's a story for another day.

See also; Building a Station Garden and Building a Highway Sign