NMRA RH October 2018

11th Avenue Station
Mike Ruby
Photos by Mike Ruby
I
have had the Walthers HO Union
Station kit for many years, but
had not got past opening the box,
looking at the parts and making a
card mockup.
My 11th Avenue Freemo module was
originally a double track one to the
old NMRA BR standard. The station
was to be mounted on a raised structure
over the two mainlines and yard,
there are videos on YouTube with
the mockup in this position with long
trains passing underneath. When our
local group Western Union in Plymouth
decided to change to the RS
Tower single track standard, I built
adaptor boards to covert the module
to this standard. The station was
moved to ground level on one of the
adaptor boards. After a few years of
use in this form I built a new module
designed for single track from the
start. Then 11th Avenue became my
home layout.
This year 11th Avenue was invited
to the 2018 Christow, Devon Fremo
event, I decided I must get around to
building the station.
I had always planned to fit out the
interior. I’ve done this with several
other buildings, but the size of this
one would give a far larger space to
work with. I decided the left section
would be a restaurant with the centre
and right still in use as the station as
they open on to the platforms.
8 ROUNDHOUSE - October 2018
The first job was to do the insides
of the walls, Walthers did not plan
for an interior so the walls are hollow.
I cut black card to fit around
the window frames, the card
was about the thickness that the
window frames projected, black
was used as I planned to light the
interior and did not want it shining
thought the walls. I then stuck
printed texture paper to the black
card but I left the paper longer than
the card to allow for overlapping in
the corners.
Before attaching the inside
walls I sprayed the outsides with
Rust-oleum Limestone paint. I
roughed up the inside of the walls,
stuck the interiors with PVA and
weighted them to keep the card
flat.Next were the windows and
doors, I painted the frames first
Wall paper stuck to the wall finished
window at left, as per the kit at right
and then stuck on the glazing with
Deluxe Glue ’n’ Glaze. Put a thin layer
on the frame, it will stick faster and
cleaner. I then cut edging strips from
the textured paper and glued them
around the window edges to hide the
sides of the glazing, once again with
Glue ’n’ Glaze. In retrospect I should
have used thinner glazing than that
supplied in the kit.
I print the interior paper from Scalescenes
dressed stone texture. This
is my favourite way of doing interior
walls. You can download many
textures from such companies as
Scalescenes, Clever Models and
Team Track Models. Once you pay
for the download you can print off
as many copies as required. These
companies also sell complete kits
that can be printed out and laminated
to card to make the kit. To protect
the paper I sealed the printed sheets
with flat acrylic spray varnish. To
glue the sheets down I used Pritt
Stick glue using a roller to press the
paper down or double sided tape
or transfer tape (this tape leaves a
layer of glue but not the tape), I find
liquid glue such as PVA tends to discolour
the paper and I’ve read that
spray on adhesive doesn’t last.
The station was then built as per
Walther’s instructions, without gluing
the roofs on. I left the end canopies
until after everything else was
complete as I could then stand the
building on end and not risk damaging
them.