Project 16 - Station Road

Station Road, bridge and embankment are reused from the previous build. Adjustment and refurbishment was necessary to fit the new location just a few inches away but skewed due to the track curvature.

• Cut about 3 inches off one end of the road and extend the other end.
• Decorate the other side of the bridge, which was 'off scene' and plain previously.
• Resurface the road. I was going to add texture but found the Wickes 'urban nights' grey emulsion match pot I used to repaint the surface has a slightly rough texture anyway. It also dried without brush streaks.
• Remake the step banisters to replace broken ones.

After 2 or 3 hours work I felt a little disappointed because the scene is the same as before. Not to worry though because most of the remaining landscape will be different to what was there previously.

More about the bus, special to this location.

The Water Tower can be purchased here.

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To Part 14.

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Project 16 - Reusable Ballast

This is at least the fourth time I have recycled my model railway ballast. I am able to reuse it because of the fixing method I adopted.

The ballast is my own mix of granite chips and cork ground in an old coffee grinder, sieved through a fine mesh tea strainer to remove the dust and sieved again through a one millimetre mesh to create the ballast stones. To this is added ground, dry wallpaper paste. Once laid the ballast is sprayed with water containing a few drops of washing up liquid to reduce surface tension allowing the water to seep easily between the stones and hydrate the wallpaper paste.

The wallpaper paste gives is a weak bond that withstands light vacuuming of the ballast and allows the stones to be broken up for reuse by scraping with a small screwdriver.

Many modellers lay proprietary ballast, which is a uniform colour, and then spray paint it to weather the track bed. If you look at a real track bed the stones vary in colour from shades of grey to brown (on Southern track at least) and where the trains run can be quite dark due to muck and oil dropped by the passage of trains. My method of mixing grey granite and brown cork goes some way to mimicking the real track bed and between the sleepers I have included a high proportion of ground coal in the mix to represent mucky ballast.


To Part 13.

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Project 16 - Roding & Crossing

Cosmetic point roding roller frames and cranks are brass frets by Colin Waite.  I hope they are still available in the market because I may need more, even though they are very fiddly to assemble. He states that they can be made operational but I fail to see the practicality of this.

The rods themselves should be square section but I don't have enough to complete the job. I used copper wire from the outset, of which I have plenty.

Did you know you can straighten copper wire by gripping one end in a vice, the other with pliers and pull. This action also hardens the copper a bit.

After installation the metal work was painted with Humbrol enamel 62 and then dry brushed with matt black.

The rods enter the platform culvert via angle cranks. Here we can also see the signal wire pulleys, which are made from FIMO clay.

The Barrow Crossing, shown below,  is made from 1/16 inch plywood planks mounted on a 1/8 inch cork base.

To Part 12.

To Part 1.

Project 16 - Platforms Pt.3 Fin.

The process for adding decoration to the platforms was as follows:

• Paint the top surface dark grey emulsion.
• Mask platform edge.
• Apply watery PVA glue to the top surface and sprinkle over granite dust to give texture. The covering also hides defects and raised grain contours (if present) in the wooden base.
• Vacuum off excess. Where there is light covering of dust the darker grey shows through giving a nice graduation of colour across the surface.
• Remove mask and paint white line along platform edge.
• Design and print stone paper.
• Stick to platform front face.

The stone colour on the platform front is not quite what I had in mind but after two attempts this will do and does not look too out of place alongside other stonework associated with the station. It is suppose to be ham stone ashlar, which has a yellow ochre colouration in its unweathered state but in this position it would be darker due to muck deposits and weathering.

The signal box was designed for ground standing but, here on the platform, the plinth is too tall. I'll need to remake it later for the correct height in the same style. To Part 11.

To Part 1.