Leek station- an O Gauge project

My apologies for not posting updates for a while as I've had to concentrate time working on the veg planting now the weather here has turned mild, anyway some wonderful 3D printed items for the Leek station build arrived from Andy Sollis a few weeks ago. Here is the print of the North Staffordshire Railway internal bench which was placed in the booking hall, the ticket office wooden partition has yet to be made.

 

Thanks Jim, yes its a model and the floor finish was achieved by several wash coats of Valejo acrylics... a very time consuming process.

cheers Paul

 

So this is the main station building which originally going to be built together as seperate slot in modules, however this proved troublesome with unsightly gaps showing so I decided to glue all the modules together as one solid unit... a much better result even if its near on three feet in length. The right hand side which is the Staff Room is currently being worked on and the little room at the end is the now complete Station Master's office... these two rooms will be glued to the main building once complete. Removable roofs will be fitted as a last job. The spines facing outwards will become the carrier frame for the platorm canopy. On the left is the ticket office and booking hall which Jim Freight mentions about the floor finish, behinf that is the Parcels Office, then there is the main entrance corridor and to the right of that is the General Waiting room, the WH Smith bookstall and then the Ladies Room, these Waiting rooms have been painted as originally found on the real Leek station in the LMS Deep Cream and Dark Brunswick Green paint scheme of 1936, the ticket office remained in the original 1912 North Staffordshire Railway paint scheme of Off White and Dark Brown.

 

So this is the internal view of the both waiting rooms showing the positining of the bench seating, Andy Sollis 3D prints did a superb job of designing and printing these bespoke items along with a whole pile of other stuff I have yet to add into the rooms... watch out for NSR wall clocks, lamp shades, ticket racks and telephones to mention only a few items. The two Stanier 4000 gallon tenders behind in grey primer will pair with the Rebuilt Patriot loco I built a couple years a ago and a Gladiator Kits 8F which is on the bench along with a Stanier 2-6-4 tank loco which I'll do a build update soon.

 

This is an old piece of work so apologies to those who have seen this before but I thought for interest I'd post this recent shot of the Waiting shelter to show how the stone textures were made. Again all the fittings such as canopy brackets, Suggs lamps and signs are 3D prints by Andy Sollis. The general canopy design is the same as will be made for the canopy to be fitted on the main station building.

 

Hi Mossy, well yes you are mainly correct ... the full layout which is planned from tunnel mouth to station yard(near end) will be 28feet in length, the plan is to sit the layout on module tresles which have already been made some time back and are stored away. The "art studio" making room is 20 feet internal length but has to be shared with my partner who makes paintings and small sculptures, however I have suggested we add a dedicated art paint room to the end of the current studio where she can have sole use of the new space, I'd make a block wall clad with timber and a flat roof with big sky light. So the Leek platform part of the model can be put together inside our current studio but it doesn't leave room for trains to run in from a fiddle siding really... so the trade off is to have the layout run out onto the gravel yard where there is plenty of space. This whole thing takes time and I guess I'm my own worst enemy for not making speedy progress but I really want to go for the "super real" look as I call it. I'm making progress slowly and I'll let all know when its done for those who wish to see it first hand with prototypical trains of the period.

 

Fair comment Andy but the delays are not really to be laid at your door, your design and print making work is outstanding and give the model that "super real" look. I have to admit to floating between loco kit building and making the model which can be quite tedious at times particulaly with scribing all the various stone courses. None the less we keep going.

 

The little stone building at the end of the main station building was the Station Master's Office, the 1912 station rebuilding plans don't show this structure in this form as the old coal house is shown instead, maybe the plans were modified or the SM's office was a post 1912 construction since it doesn't follow the same architectural style. Who knows what really happened but I just remember this as a pretty forlorn space back in 1972 before the station became totally vandalised... so here is the model so far which needs internal fittings added, I probably over weathered the internal walls a tad too much for my liking so will smarten the off white to make it appear cleaner. The model is made from laminations of 1.5mm styrene card which seems not to become brittle in the same way as the Romark or Plasticard sheets I used on the test model, walls are filled with TwoPac wood filler which is basically a fine grade Isopon body filler. There is still about twenty A3 sheets of it in stock so I'm ok for a while yet.

 

Here is an example of Andy Sollis's design and 3D print work, the fireplace which is outstanding even has the NSR Staffordshire knot embelished in it, there is a secret opening behind to allow for the fitting of flicker LED's to represent a lit fire. The brown wall colour has been toned down to represent the LMS Middle Brown colour that was used in the post WW2 era.. the upper walls and window will need a bit of tidying up to make them look cleaner. Skirtings and floor finish is yet to be done.

 

The long task of stone weathering has started, in north Staffordshire fancy stone work was often sourced and cut from the Hollington seam which was a particulaly robust pinkish colour stone with a nice smooth texture, I suspect the SM's office was not as grandiose using a rougher type stone which weathered to almost dark in colour. The sash frames on the windows have been made to slide open too... just a nice little touch if even quite unneccessary.

 

The upper walls have been tidied up a bit with a thin coat of white, still need to sharpen up some of the brown edging particulaly around the windows and fit the furniture, skirtings and floor. Moving onto the Staff room and Gents build next.