NMRA RH October 2018

I wanted a polished marble floor and
found photos of slabs on a supply
company’s website. I loaded the photos
into a graphics program, made
them scale size, rotated copies and
then laid them out to the floor plan,
making sure the same images where
not near each other. I printed out
several copies and laminated them to
give strength and the polished finish.
Each of the three floors were cut to
size and placed in the rooms. I then
cut card to fill in the hole in the kit
floor and stuck it to the laminate with
double sided tape.
I wanted a mezzanine floor above
the main concourse to give a higher
eating area. First I divided the three
sections of the building with internal
arched walls then cut the walls from
foam core board and covered them
with more dressed stone paper. The
sheets include arched sections and
I used those above the arched cut
outs. The rear wall is wide enough for
a row of tables and chairs to fit, the
front is just a walkway. The mezzanine
provides space underneath for
the ticket office, toilets, etc. For the
front walkway I made
a glass balustrade
from clear plastic sheet
that used to surround
a cake! Being clear
stops it blocking views
through the front windows.
With the areas divided
up I could start fitting
them out. For the restaurant
I added a kitchen
and toilet block in
one corner, made from
foam core. I fitted it out with cooking
equipment from a free Clever Models
building and Scalescenes interior
sheets. The floor and walls come
from the Clever Models kitchen. To
get lighting down to the kitchen which
is visible through a window I ran the
wires to a LED down an extraction
pipe that runs up to the main ceiling.
I made a serving bar from card that
I printed my own design on. The
seating booths are from Shapeways
as are the bins, plates are punched
from paper with food drawn on with
fine markers, cups are short pieces
of thin wire insulation.
The centre area has Shapeways
tables and chairs on the mezzanine
floor along with Shapeways vending
machines on both levels. I needed
benches for the waiting area,
after looking at photos on the web
I designed them in a drawing program
(Open Office). I printed them
onto thin card and cut out and folded
them around rectangles of foam core
and stuck them to the floor, PVA will
stick to the laminated floor. Finally I
added a toilet block to a corner of the
waiting room.
To light the building I used 27 LEDs ,
6 in each side room, 12 in the centre
and another 3 above the columned
entrance. These LEDs came from a
Christmas light set I bought discounted
after the holiday, they have flat
fronts ideal for mounting into ceilings.
I made the ceilings from foam
core, cutting out the areas under the
skylights, they are removable, resting
on foam core blocks glued into the
wall corners. The LEDs were glued
into holes drilled evenly around the
ceilings. They were connected three
in series with a 1,200 ohm (1k2)
resistor in series, with each of the 9
groups paralleled together for each
ceiling. The circuits were connected
together with spring loaded connectors,
these were small enough to fit
above the entrance, allowing easy
disconnection if I need to remove the
ceiling from the building.
The people populating the station
are all cheap Chinese ones. I change
hair colour, they all come black and
give them a dark wash to show
clothing folds and facial features.
I used about 50 in the station and
restaurant.
The station is just about complete, I
still have to fit platform canopies, with
lights of course and detail them.
The only thing I would change is to
not use the supplied glazing. After
finishing the station I decided to fit
the other unfinished buildings on the
layout with glazing. These kits did
not come with glazing, so I decided
to try laminate offcuts from making
car cards etc. This worked really well
and is much thinner than the styrene
in the Walthers kit. This would have
made the windows stand out less
inside and is optically better.
Mike Ruby
October 2018 - ROUNDHOUSE 9