Wagga Wagga Station - a little detailing

 Wagga Wagga station - detailing starts

I have a confession to make.  The Wagga station has suffered some neglect over the last 3 months, whilst I have concentrated on other things - some alas not related to trains.

4204 sitting in Junee yard at the beginning of August.  I first photographed 4204 in Canberra in the early 1980s, during its last NSW government revenue run.  It is great that the loco was not scrapped, and fully restored for excursion work.  This is one of my first pictures with my new Samsung A23 phone - and the quality is far superior to my earlier 7 year old Samsung phone.

This blog post shows some of the little details associated with the station

Toilet block building showing the fence, and storage area.  This picture was taken during the last refurbishment of the station - the brick walls under the render are also visible

The toilet block building cage was made using brass strip, wire, and a LOT of patience

There are a few fences required.  I had some plastic fences in my stash, but frankly, they would have been rather heavy, and distracting.  The cause of one of the delays in progressing the Wagga station, was locating some fine brass fences.  The brass fence acquired via Ebay after a lot of lookibg is much better, whilst still not right, is far better than the plastic ones.

Seats on the platform side

The Wagga station has at least 10 Station seats.  I could only find 7 in my stash.  I believe these are Peco OO - and come moulded in a ghastly green plastic.  I have painted them blue, with black supports.  Not correct, but will do until better examples are obtained 

Luggage carts awaiting use

The etch for the Wagga station awnings, included some extra bits that Ross Balderson had added to fill up the empty spaces.  Two of those spaces were luggage carts.  These are not quite the same as the carts I had photographed, but I won't be too critical

The near disaster

I don't quite believe this happened.  I was replacing the ceiling access panel in my workroom, after it had dislodged after an extremely strong wind entered my workroom, and blew the panel (just a piece of chalk board) into the ceiling space.  In the process of putting it back, the panel dropped through the hole, and in an effort to arrest its fall to the floor, I invertantly directed it to impact the table the station was on.

"Whoops"....(the explicitive has been removed)

The impact of the ceiling access panel was onto the table, and the panel came to rest over the station - only being stopped from forming a pancake of the station by the shelving behind the station.  The station reacted to the force by returning to a set of subassemblies, with some roof sections bouncing into the chalk of the ceiling panel, causing the damage seen.  The front entrance etch was also slightly bent

Assessment, repairs, and cleaning was not immediate.  I walked away for an hour before returning to assess.  I was pleasantly surprised how little damage actually occured.  The only part that really suffered was the roof ridge of the LHS gable - seen in the above shot as white - partially the chalk, partially as the styrene ridge plastic has been removed, exposing the unpainted corrugated styrene.

Anyway, after this, I realise that I have to finish the station sooner, rather than later, and then build a protective cradle, so the station can be stored away from flying ceiling access panels etc.

Diorama resumes.

The first steps after the station was "restored" (I still have to respray the roof area) was to secure the concrete paths made previously.  The roadway curb requires a concrete gutter.  I masked a strip on the roadsurface, hand painted the concrete, and removed the masking.  Then the concrete paths were glued with whiteglue.   

Other modelling

On30 - Outback Model Company - NBH coaches.  I had these kits for about 5 years, and sometimes one needs a distraction.  They are laser cut cardboard - fairly simple, lacks details, but could be enhanced with metal handrails, rollup blinds, and passengers with legs hanging out of the windows

A casula hobbies brass/composite kit - grey primed.  It will be good to get this finished - been at least 30 years.... 

Lyndon Trains - 6 ton cane bins in HOn30.  Gavin from NGDU had asked me to build these for a future "Items of Interest" in that magazine. The etches were produced by Badger Bits - I believe using the same etcher that etched the veranda etches for my Wagga station.  VERY NICE

OCY etc container wagons.  I bought these foolishly at a recent Trains Planes and automobile auction. They were cheap. Unfortunately, they arrived extensively damaged, as the packers had put them all into a large plastic bag, not individually wrapped.  I have cosmetically restored them,  repainted over the previous horrible paint, and added some weight.  Containers and kadees will be needed too.  May make a block train on the future layout - but don't look too closely. 

Last Saturday, I travelled over to Murrumbateman for the Div 2 NMRA meeting at Stephe Jitt's MMR new house.  Stephe had found a house with a big train room to accomodate his Kangaroo Valley railway, albeit with some modifications.  I took the opportunity to take some better phone camera pictures of some of the sections, relocated from his previous obode in Yass.  Stephe tells me that he hopes the layout will be fully operational again in 3 years.  Knowing Stephe, he is conservative with his estimates

Well, that's it for now.  Lessons I hope have been learnt.