Aylesbury Junction

[metroland]

Dec 19, 2010 0:54:27 GMT Glyn said:

The station building looks like it has continental origins but also resembles some on the Southern such as at Chertsey, St Denys and Netley.

These fingers are getting mighty itchy.....

Thanks for the comments. I wondered how long it would be before someone picked up on the station building!

One of the layouts that inspired me was one by a German called Abermymach (that's the layout not the German). It was in RM in the 1980's a couple of times (I said I'd been armchair modelling for a long time).

Anyway he'd been to Wales a few times and been smitten by the GWR (well who wouldn't be?) At the time, there was no internet, and very few British kits in Germany so he resorted to bashing Kibri, Vollmer, Faller etc, and made a good stab at a welsh GWR scene using German kits, modified.

It got me to thinking that in the Victorian era a lot of buildings in UK and Germany and USA were quite similar if you're careful what you pick.

Obviously some designs are very Teutonic, and some north American stuff just doesn't suit. However it did broaden my horizons to keep thinking about these possibilites.

A lot of station buildings in London and SE during the railway mania years were what I call 'Italianate Town House style' - no idea if that's the correct architectural term but that's what I call it.

I was looking for something of this ilk when I stumbled across a Kibri admin building - which is what this is. I feel this represents a fairly important station building of an appropriate era, or how the directors would have wanted their line to be perceived - grandeur on a budget!

I need to do some more anglicisiation but that's for the future. The roof has tiles laid in diamond fashion rather than traditional UK style. I was going to change the roof tiles, and probably will eventually. However, in the interim I realised the GWR had roof tiles like that, and Slough still does. Not sure if the Met or LNWR ever did. I haven't found such a reference yet - if I do I'll have a chance to be lazy and leave it!

Yes I take your point about resin buildings from Hornby/Bachmann. Great things to start with - either no mods needed, or very little.

[metman]

Dec 19, 2010 0:54:27 GMT Glyn said:

Superb! Keep 'em coming. I love the idea of filling in the corner of the layout with a bay platform. One corner of mine will have a disused branch going into it. The Hornby 'Skaledale' iron bridge in the last pic looks good 'in situ'. I have one as they are identical to some of the bridges on the Reading to Basingstoke line. Some of the cast resin stuff from Hornby and Bachmann saves a load of time building kits these days. Even some of the 'Thomas' range from Hornby would look good on any layout. The station building looks like it has continental origins but also resembles some on the Southern such as at Chertsey, St Denys and Netley.

These fingers are getting mighty itchy.....

Yeah I know.....

[railtechnician]

Dec 19, 2010 20:27:37 GMT metroland said:

Dec 19, 2010 0:54:27 GMT Glyn said:

The station building looks like it has continental origins but also resembles some on the Southern such as at Chertsey, St Denys and Netley.

Thanks for the comments. I wondered how long it would be before someone picked up on the station building!

I like the station building, although somewhat different it reminds me very much of the South Harrow ex-SM office building which was I believe the original station building long ago. I knew the place quite well as I worked there often from 1979 when the SM was in situ until 2005 when it was little more than a trainmen's mess facility.

I gave up railway modelling years ago in favour of computer simulations of one sort or another, always being more interested in signalling than any other aspect, but I must say that I used to like building Faller and other 'foreign' building kits which always seemed to be better than Airfix. I found them to be very adaptable and often cobbled together what I wanted to make using parts from several kits.

[metroland]

I had couple of months off due to Christmas and a bout of illness, but then set to work on the station forecourt on the BR side.

As the A stock still hasn’t arrived, steam-hauled Dreadnoughts are still working into this side, to allow the locos to run round.

This was the situation 19Nov 2010 showing the area to be worked on, with a skeleton incline for the bridge - in true Blue Peter fashion with a cardboard base. Fortunately I had enough room to make a slope of about 1 in 7 which doesn’t seem too steep and toylike.



Now, 3 months later I’ve surprised myself and done something which I can leave, and come back to later. The building still needs weathering, and signage, and people, and and and and and…..



The 3/4qtr angle looks like this:


The tree is by Ceynix as I’ve not got the skills or patience to do this kind of tree yet. The single deck Bristol really belongs the other side of London but I like the general feel of it, until I can replace it with something more suitable. Fortunately the Weymann bodied STL’s were based at Garston so this suits the geographic area.

A closer view of the edge of the bridge incline 19Nov 2010:


An aerial view of the completed (for now) area 25Feb 2011:


I’m not a rivet counter but I wasn’t happy with the plastic ‘wire’ that comes with the Ratio fence posts, so I bought some EZ line from USA which I think gives a better impression. I stopped taking my medication for a while and thought it would be a good idea to add some weeds at the bottom of the fence posts made from plumber’s hemp. Remind me to file bright ideas away next time….have had to double the dosage on my medication after this.


Am hoping to get to Acton on the Saturday. The layout won’t be with me – it’s very mixed fixed.

[Cyberman]

Very nice work. Always inspiring to see what others are modeling.

[Charlie J]

It is rather inspiring! Gives me one too many a reason to model...

[Glyn]

Very nice. Thanks for the updates. What shade of paint did you use for your 'Dreadnoughts'? I have two to build at the mo with the aim to create an authentic six-coach set.

[metroland]

I actually bought them made up from Radley Models.

IIRC they use(d) British Leyland Oxford Brown?

I think Metman makes models for Radley? Hopefully he can suggest what they're using now.

(I was a bit surprised at the time that I was the first customer who'd asked for red ends on the brakes. Have since discovered I need to add pickup beams to the brake end bogies, but not the 'inside' ones. Apparently they had these to prevent gapping when coupled to the Met Bo-Bo's and most (but not all!) Dreadnought brakes had these).

[metman]

I used Citadel Paints to paint my T stock. Dreadnoughts still outstanding. I have painted mine a little worn so they look a bit old.

A picture to show what I mean

s100.photobucket.com/albums/m6/Adthelad/?action=view¤t=Tstocktrailer9724threequarterview.jpg

[metroland]

One of the jobs that got interrupted by the summer break was building a goods shed for Aylesbury Junction.

You may recall the ancestry is that the line was built by Metropolitan and LNWR jointly. My skills aren’t up to completely scratch-building and in any case I couldn’t find anything that quite fitted. I certainly didn’t want the usual offerings from Superquick, Scaledale etc.

I stumbled on an American shed by Walthers, where the end profile seemed to fit the latter years of LNWR just pre-grouping. It was a little larger than I really wanted so the fact it was HO was an advantage.

The trouble was, the roof was ‘wooden’ and also the kit was a deleted item. After some searching I managed to find a UK shop which had it (except their stock system showed it in stock when it wasn’t and they took the money….)

A couple of months later I managed to find another UK shop that actually had it, so I could finally make a start at the end of last winter.

The main changes in anglicising it were to create a tiled roof, some ‘glass’ roof lights, and alter the canopy over the rail siding to make it more English.



The proposition is that the shed was hurriedly built towards the end of WW1 when Aylesbury Town was incredibly busy and congested. Needless to say the war ended as soon as the structure was built and it remained something of a white elephant, never fully realising its potential.

The roof tiles were Slaters buff coloured pavement slabs, painted with a wash of Humbrol matt grey 87 using Genuine Turps as a thinner which I felt gave a good shade for cheap slate. Everything else was painted/weathered using acrylics and powders.


The ‘rooflight’ section caused me some angst as I’ve never seen models of dirty glass represented quite the way I wanted. Eventually I settled on Wills batten sheets dusted with grey and black powders. Over these I then ran deep runs of PVA between the ribs, and left a couple of days to dry. After several experiments these seemed to give a kind of dirty glass effect, especially when over-brushed with further dark powders.

The walls were dry brushed with terra cotta powders, and then over-brushed with Tamiya acrylic weathering powder for the darker shading. I’ve tried to achieve a late 50’s/early 60’s look of a building which has an air of inevitability about it.



The base is Railmatch concrete, over-brushed with more Tamiya powders to get shading and runs. The seam around the bottom of the shed should disappear when the building is finally fettled into ground cover. The corrugated roofing over the rail platform canopy was taken from another Walthers kit to keep in scale.



‘Well weathered white’ on some windows and bargeboards was achieved by painting with Railmatch concrete, over-painted with Polly Scale Aged White to try and achieve the rundown effect.

Below is a general view of the shed and its juxtaposition with the station and yard - hopefully it will all come together in due course as the landscaping gets done.

[The Tram Man]

A nice little layout you've got there. I ilke that you've got the little stub end track. A nice touch.

[fleetline]

That looks ace!

[Glyn]

Superb work again sir! The roof looks excellent and those windows look superbly dirty! The brickwork is maybe a bit clean but that's just me nitpicking! Again, superb! Keep up the good work. I'm with cyberman. Seeing others work gives me itchy modelling fingers!

[xercesfobe]

Your layout is coming along nicely. Keep up the good work

XF

[metroland]

Thanks for the comments guys - it gives me confidence to tackle the station building which will need doing once I've done some canopies.

I might come back to make the goods shed dirtier at a future date, but didn't want to overdo it, and in any case I need the station building to look aged, without being too run down.