A between shows refresh

It's less than two weeks away from Philden's next public outing at the Pine Rivers Model Train & Hobby Expo on Brisbane's north side. So thankfully this weekend I completed a general refresh of my small layout's appearance, concentrating mainly on replacing the incandescent light bulbs in the station building with LED's, and adding some more LED light poles to the small yard. The photos above and below show the finished result. The warm white LED's not only rid the model of that bright "high-beam glare" that got the better of me back at the Brisbane Model Train Show in May, but being such a low voltage they don't show through the tiny cracks in the roof that developed where the glue had dried out from two days of constant use with the now removed incandescent grain-of-rice light bulbs. The LED's also make photographing the waiting room at the station a lot easier as you can see below.

The station building and waiting room are now fitted with low voltage LED lights for a better look.

I also added a pair of railway yard light poles alongside the tracks that double as marker points for where the locomotive is able to couple onto my stationary goods wagons. One can be seen in the top photo in the left of picture. I decided to use the other light pole as an excuse to add some extra line-side detail. As you can see below, the light pole is incorporated in a new fence line I built using a roll of silver mesh ribbon trim I bought from Spotlight fabric store. Compare it to an earlier photo I found taken from the same angle, and you can see that the simple fence gives my cement plant and steel unloading apron a bigger presence without obstructing the line-side view of the layout.

The new fence line is built alongside the abandoned siding and features movable opening gates.

Before adding the fence line, there was nothing to define the cement plant's property line.

For now the chain mesh fence can look like a newly erected fence that was built along the access driveway to Cement Australia's Philden Plant. The gates are also operable, I just hope the foreman remembers to lock them at the end of his shift, or rail fans might wander onto the property to photograph some trains.

I'll write up a small article on how I built a scene like this for under $10 after the Pine Rivers Model Train Show and submit it to our leading model railway magazine here in Australia. The next major refresh on my layout will be the remodelling of the siding you can see the louvred wagons, or box cars sitting on. Hopefully if I've the time, that will occur between the Pine Rivers and Gold Coast shows. But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day.

See also; Exhibition #1 Brisbane Beginnings

Adding miles in miniature

I love freight cars. They instantly convey a sense of purpose on a model railway by depicting what railways were designed for in the first place, moving objects from point A to B over long distances. But how do you add miles to a model in miniature? There's really only one way, and that is to dirty them up. Over the weekend, I managed to weather a few more wagons on my roster using the same method I explained in my previous review on easy Rustall weathering methods. Rather than write another step-by-step post, I thought I'd just share some before and after shots that demonstrate how some subtle weathering can create the illusion that our shiny, well detailed models have actually covered some miles in service.

Next I turned to the Auscision Models NCTY steel wagons. Great looking models, but they can't stay that clean forever.

I scuffed the white cradles a bit where the steel coils would sit, using a silver paint pen to simulate steel scrapes.

Using the same method, the end result is by far more believable, yet subtle enough to appreciate the nice blue paint job.

When the next coil steel load arrived back at Philden, the NCTY wagon was looking a lot more well-travelled. The road grime in the well of the wagon and especially around the side ribbing is convincing enough for me to believe that the shipment has just been railed in from Port Kembla.

Philden Yard now looks a little more convincing with some weathered wagons waiting to be unloaded.

Weathering some freight wagons may not be everyone's idea of a dirty weekend, but it was a fun project to enjoy over a rainy weekend. I now only have my fleet of cement hoppers to be weathered for my freight car roster to look well-travelled.

Cement Works Part Five

Finishing the cement plant kit building on my HO scale bookshelf layout required a little bit of good ol' fashioned kit-bashing. Largely because there were a number of minor flaws with the HO scale Faller Old Cement Works kit. Finally, more than a year after I kept coming back to work on this kit building, my cement plant is now finished and standing alongside the rail line.

There were just as many leftover pieces in the Faller old cement works kit as went into the finished structure!

There were several flaws with this kit, which if not addressed would have taken away from the structure's overall appearance. Namely, the small, central upper level extension that overhangs the rail line had a blank provision for what looked like a pouring spout to handle wet cement. Now while I'm not aware of any cement plant that loads wet cement into rail wagons or hoppers, the spout for starters didn't fit. Also, on the left side of the structure, there was a door on the upper level that led to nowhere, with no mention in the instructions of what was supposed to go there. Even the images on the box didn't lend any clues, with the structure only shown from the three other sides!

Once more I hand painted the pieces I used to kit-bash the cement plant receiving dock.

Fortunately, there were enough left-over pieces from the kit for me to fashion something from. My best thoughts are that this kit shared generic sprue pieces from other Faller kits, and it was simply cheaper to share the manufactured sprues between models without any care for the wasted leftovers. Now I've been in the hobby long enough to know one thing, and that it is you never throw leftovers away. They always come in handy for something down the track.

In this case, I decided to kit-bash a wagon height receiving dock, complete with a staircase leading up to the dubious door to nowhere. Using a leftover stairwell (that was much shorter than what was needed), I glued on some angled handrails (that were also leftovers), and cut a small piece of plastic to act as the landing at the top of the stairs before painting them with a silver paint pen. As the stairs were not long enough to reach ground level, I used a leftover section of what looked like wall paneling to act as the rail dock platform, and painted this using different shades of brown acrylics to resemble timber. The dock is then held up with pylons of what looked like log dividers that were supposed to go with the sand holding bins which I didn't end up modelling beside my structure. I painted these using oil paints to resemble green treated copper logs, as though the receiving dock had recently been re-stumped. Finally, I cut down some leftover sections of ladder that would provide two access points to ground level, and painted these with visible white handles at the top.

Kit-bashing the steps and receiving dock solved the problem of the door to nowhere.

So far, so good. The dubious second level door that you can see on the structure above now looked like it was there for a reason! As for the pouring spout, I boarded it over using a small piece of nailed on planking that was also left-over in the kit. So if no cement is going out, it stands to reason that I then had to make my cement plant look like it received loads of dry cement mix instead, to be mixed on-site and loaded into trucks that would then deliver the wet concrete to local building sites.

By this stage, I had long decided to abandon the idea of using the 3 stall holding bin that was supposed to stand beside the plant. I had constructed it in my Cement Works Part Four post, but the end result just looked cheap, plastic and well.... just plain awful! Instead, I went ahead and scratchbuilt the abandoned siding and concrete loading apron that you now see beside the cement works. I'm sure you'll agree it looks much better!

The receiving hoses were made out of old speaker wire, spliced in two, painted and glued into place.

From this point on, I've got to be honest. I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to receiving train loads of cement hoppers, other than it involves discharging the cement mix from the myriad of valves and piping that reside underneath the models of the NPRY/NPRF cement hoppers that I purchased from Southern Rail Models. So for that, I painted a circular piece of something-or-other that was still attached to the sprue sheet with the silver paint pen. I next glued a short section of spliced two-way speaker wire into the round hole, (painting one strip of the speaker wire with a black marker pen for a bit of visual variety) before gluing it into position beside the track to resemble a messily-unwound hose that supposedly connects the something-or-other to the underneath of the incoming cement hoppers.

Adding a danger sign gave the model a more serious look.

I kit-bashed two of these, and spaced them evenly where two of the NPRF/NPRY hoppers could be set out beside the structure. I next added another leftover section of painted silver down-piping, (that I simply couldn't get to fit where the instructions said it went), and glued it instead to the overhanging upper level office extension where it runs down along the kit-bashed receiving dock to ground level. What it does I don't know. But with a printed "DANGER" sign added above the pipe, it gives the model a little bit of interest.

The cement plant was then glued into place and the scenery blended to the edge of the structure.

Being a plastic kit, the structure lit up like a roman candle when I tried to add interior lighting to the building. So I simply pulled the lights back out and glued the structure in place beside the rail line as there is no need for the building to be removable. Next, I added some LED light posts to either side of the structure so that they would light up the stairwells leading to the upper level, and blended scenery to the edge of the structure using the same scenery methods I've already outlined on my construction page.

Finally, a cement plant that I was happy to see finished!

Finally I stood back, dimmed the lights and admired the finished structure. By night light, the building takes on a realistic industrial appearance, as though the plant is awaiting the next load of cement hoppers to be delivered before the workers arrive first thing in the morning. Finally, I added a few more tufts of grass between the sleepers (that's railroad ties for the good ole boys from the US), to give the siding a more sleepy feel.

The concrete loading pad will handle both loads in and loads out for operational purposes.

The concrete loading apron with the abandoned rails protruding from the concrete beside the cement plant, has the light posts spaced out enough for the forklift driver to have access to load the louvered vans and soon-to-arrive steel wagons that will be needed for the steel-reinforced concrete spans the boys are working on just beyond the layout edge.

Pressed hard to the edge of my layout, my cement plant reaches right to the layout's ceiling.

Building this structure was a slow process that I spaced out over the course of 12 months, largely because of the dubious door to nowhere that almost had me beat when it came to finding a solution. Thankfully my perseverance paid off. While not pretending that this is an actual portrayal of a working cement works, it looks 'railroady' enough to provide me with some realistic operating fun on a small bookshelf layout. By placing the structure at the end of the layout, the building doesn't really obscure the view of the trains from the public, and with the backdrop being reversible, you can see from the above photos that I have the added benefit of viewing the cement plant from both sides of the track when I want to.

Having now figured out the lighting dilemmas that previously hindered me completing this layout to my own satisfaction, this past week I have also skipped ahead and replaced the lighting at Philden's railway station. The cement plant and the lighting were the two final projects I had needed to do in order to say that stage one of my layout is now effectively complete! As the year draws to a close, I've actually surprised myself with how much modeling I've managed to fit in before Christmas. Not only have I completed my bookshelf layout before the end of the year, but in the month of December I've also spent a day at the cricket, taken my family to a Brisbane Bullets basketball game and been treated to a night out with my daughter to see Keith Urban in concert as an early Christmas gift. Life just seems so good right now!

Later this week, I'll post a final photo for the year with our Christmas tree set up in front of my bookshelf layout. But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day.

See also: Building an abandoned siding or Cement Works Part Four and Cement Works Part Three and Cement Works Part Two and Cement Works Part One

Railway Station Part Six

Sometimes a rainy Saturday morning is all the excuse you need to finish that model kit you've been telling yourself you'll get around to completing one day. That day was today, and the kit in question was none other than my railway station building, the one building that is supposed to be the star of the show but had sat awaiting the final finishing touches for sooo long that I'd simply become accustomed to it looking the way it did. Well, not anymore.

I always paint the parts of laser-cut timber kits before assembling them.

There wasn't really that much to be done to the Model Train Buildings NSW A-4 station building in order to say that is was finished. So I got to work painting the fascia boards and strip of guttering for the rear of the building. If you're familiar with building one of Walker Models' laser cut kit buildings, then you'll understand that painting over the blackened edges where the laser has cut through the timber or MDF sections can be a little difficult using a light colour. I wanted to paint the fascia trim white to match the white window frames visible on the rear of the building, but thought the blackened edges could work in my favour if I simply applied a thin wash of white paint so as to let a little of the black show through. It turned out that it worked, with the finished white fascia trim looking a little weathered as though the paint has been faded by the hot Australian sun. The thing I like most about working with timber kits is that you get a much more realistic finish than a plastic model, and they end up looking like miniature buildings rather than model kits.

I spaced the brush strokes when using the Rustall to make the roof resemble sheets of weather beaten corrugated iron.

While waiting for these to dry, I set to work on finishing the roof with a light application of Rustall, following the same process as I outlined when constructing my NSWGR G-2 goods shed. The rear loading dock off the parcels room I finished by painting in assortment of brown, black and grey stripes to resemble timber planking. I simply mixed the colours together on a palette and ensured no two brush strokes were alike. Once complete, I set this aside and started work on the two chimneys.

The chimney sections just needed an angled trim to sit flush on the roof.

The chimneys were tricky little suckers! Although they fitted together with perfection, applying too much pressure with your fingers caused them to collapse in on themselves. Eventually I had them glued square using some fast drying white PVA tacky glue, and sat back to wait for them to dry.

You can't be too perfect when painting aged brick chimney stacks.

Painting them was a three part process. First I filled all the laser etched mortar lines with some white acrylic paint before wiping the paint from the surface of the bricks using some dry paper toweling. Then I could gently dry brush some burnt sienna acrylic onto the surface of the brick pattern by making sure the paint was well wiped from the brush before making each stroke.

Once more I used a silver paint pen marker to work some magic on the down pipes.

I was left with an odd gap on the rear left hand side of the building where I'd trimmed the fascia board too short. Feeling that the building could use a down pipe anyway, I made one from one of those clear plastic nozzles that attach to the end of an aerosol can to give a concentrated squirt of whatever into hard to reach places. I simply painted it silver with a silver paint marker, and when dry trimmed it to fit as shown in the picture below.

I made the down pipe longer than the building so it will spill to ground over the brick foundations the station rests on.

Having a hole in the core of the areosol nozzle tube makes the down pipe look so realistic when viewed from above. However, the silver looked a little too shiny for an old timber railway station building, so I gave it a treatment of rust, once more using the Rustall that I've come to love. You can see the difference in the photo below.

I'm so glad I made the backdrop on my layout reversible so that I can view the building from both sides.

With the chimneys, down-pipe and fascia boards glued in place, the building was ready to put back in place on the platform. When viewed in correct lighting, I particularly like the subtle finish I gave the railway station roof. At first I was just going to glue the fascia boards to three sides of the building, and simply let the imaginary rain run off the platform awning onto the tracks (as shown in the top photo), but the end result just didn't look right compared to how good the rear of the building came up. So I lifted the building back off and added a strip of white guttering to the front platform awning using some scrap birchwood sheeting, and completed the kit by scratch-building a second rusty angled down pipe that you can just see in the right of picture.

And finally, Philden Railway Station is finished!

So there you have it. Thanks to a rainy Saturday morning, I can finally say that Philden Railway Station has joined my growing list of finished structures. While I still may come back one day in the future and add the Station Master, Parcels, Toilet and Waiting Room signs above the doorways, the beauty of having made my structures removable is that it is not going to require surgery to lift the station building back off should I choose to do so.

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

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

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

Cement Works Part Four

Adding the staircase and handrails to my cement plant was a project I had been putting off on my Faller model kit since discovering that the pieces just didn't seem to want to go together. As you can see in the above photo of my model sitting on top of the picture on the box, there was no room for the inside handrail to clear the roof line of the structure beneath the silo dock. So the manufacturer simply left if off for the official company photo. Look closer at the photo, and you will also see that the handrails don't meet on the left corner and a section is missing altogether beneath the discharge silos. So it was about time I did something to fix this.

Shaving the sprue marks from each piece of the kit made a lot of mess, but ensured each piece looked right.

I started by cutting each piece free from the sprue, and shaved each sprue mark and mould line from the handrails and steps by scraping it back with a sharp hobby knife.

The storage bins were the most straightforward of kits I've yet built. Floor, walls, simple as.

Next I cut all the pieces for the storage bins that hold the aggregate used in the production of concrete. This was the most straightforward part of the kit so far. A few wall panels held in place by some plastic channel beams glued to a floor base, that when complete will hold a pile of either white sand or crushed rock.

The door to nowhere. I think I can fix that.

Next I turned my attention to the one side of the building that really wasn't shown on the box or instructions. There is a door here that opens up onto a 12 foot drop below that simply wouldn't pass workplace health and safety regulations by today's standards. The instructions had a simple answer for this, a single piece of moulded rough-saw timber planking that would make the doorway look like it was boarded up. The kit is after all, FALLER 130951 - Old Conrete Mixing Plant. But after cutting the pieces I needed for the stairway that leads to the discharge silo platform, it seemed I had enough leftover pieces in the kit to construct a second stairway to address the lonely door issue.

I started work on the 2nd stairway using pieces of the kit that were strangely leftover.

All I can think of is that this kit also shared some common components with another kit from Faller's range. There were leftover windows, window frames, machinery wheels and tubing, and just enough steel walkway and handrails to complete the second stairway.

Unfortunately it wasn't long enough to reach the ground.

With the fake light already glued above the door, I tested the leftover stairway height and soon discovered it was about the height of a station platform too short. So for now I have put this aside until I think of how to built a raised section of platform to stand alongside the rail line. Maybe an inspector's vantage point for recording the numbers of incoming/outgoing cement hoppers?

The stairway and handrails built my way. Well, really the way the instructions intended it to look.

Turning my attention back to the discharge silo platform at the other end of the model, it didn't take long to figure out that following the instructions on the model was impossible. The photo on the box and those in the instruction booklet were two different things. Both the roof line and the edge of the platform section don't allow enough room for the inside handrail to fit, probably why it was left off altogether on the finished model that they show on the cover of the box. The only way to make the inside handrail fit, is to glue the handrail section to the top of the stairwell piece rather than beneath it. The only problem with that however, is that the handrails on the stairs now sit 3 mm higher that the handrails on the platform. Gluing the handrail sections underneath as instructed would have caused an awkward looking gap on the far left corner post. Perhaps that is why it had been cut away and simply photographed on an angle to make it look as though it joined for the cover shot on the box. I improved the handrails along the platform edge compared to the photo on the box, but there is only so much you can do with pieces that were strangely moulded with round ends. For the likes of me I cannot understand why, and they were simply too short for me to angle cut them for a neater fit.

My cement works finally set out in place along the No. 2 road. Only the final weathering and yard details await.

For an advanced kit whose construction has been a drawn out process lasting more than six months, this model has called for a lot of extra detailing, required a lot of modification and consumed a lot of my patience. In the end I feel that I have almost got it to a point of looking better than the example illustrated on the box. Then again, I guess that's all we modellers can ever ask for really. Now, let me see if I can get this second stairway platform built and then I can weather this baby up and call it finished!

See also; Cement Works Part Five or Cement Works Part Three and Cement Works Part Two and Cement Works Part One