HOW TO DO IT: TURN THE CHURCH INTO A STATION
Identify major changes, working out what it’ll take to make the building look like a station and not a church - and to create a pleasing, railway-like look. Here, I’m checking the position of doors and windows from the Station Booking Hall kit before cutting the apertures.
Now you need to start modifying the church. The bell tower will go, as will those tell-tell buttresses (hence the hole in the gable end wall). The door and window-less church wall will become the station’s front wall.
The length of the main building is governed by what you have left when you’ve removed the church tower. A razor saw and wooden bench hook (homemade in this case) are ideal for removing unwanted sections of roof and both main walls, which are now about 11.5cm long.
Remove all remaining buttresses and clean up each hole, making sure that all angles and edges are square in readiness for a scrap wall patch. Plastic Weld will help fuse parts together so as to minimise any joint lines.
Cut new window apertures (or square off the original church ones). I used a knife on the softer Dapol plastic. Remember to remove a small area of the stonework, ready for the Wills SS46 lintels and sills.
I used the roof supplied and coping stones. Move or ream out holes as required. End coping stones were left original width, using full-length pieces on the visible side. Make extensions from scrap to match those from the bell tower end.
The church’s greatest weakness is in the rear entrance porch, which is exceptionally low, but raising its position is quite straightforward. First, though, remove the church-like doorway with a sharp blade.
Pare away nearly all of the mounting positions on the wall except for the two vertical ones either side of the door aperture. Start with a knife and then finish with a grinding wheel in a minitool.
Assemble the porch and file out a bit of the roof ridge tile in order to accommodate the gutter underneath the main roof. Patch in spare sections of stonework at the lower edge, but don’t fix the porch in place just yet…
Place the double doors from the booking hall kit over the main entrance. Trace the edges onto the former church wall and make the aperture with a knife or cutting disc. Secure the porch and affix the additional scraps of stone wall.
Create new quoin corner stones on the rear elevation’s left-hand corner from thin plastic sheet. I traced an existing moulded corner to ensure similarity in style and size.
Remove stonework detail to accommodate the quoins. I’ve placed notice boards over unwanted holes; a window near the porch and the one made by removing the gable end buttress. Note new stone sections at the bottom of the porch.
Using the roof top ribs as a guide, cut two sections from the Station Booking Hall canopy, leaving a rib at the new end. Remove the end valance from the discarded piece and fit this back in place on the shortened canopy. To do this you’ll need to make a rebate on the underside of the cut end, wide enough to take the original end valance. File the valance to the correct height. With this done, position the underside brackets so they align with stonework, and don’t foul a door or window.
I’ve tried to make these projects as economical as possible. As a result I’ve extended the fall pipes, using the ‘T’-shaped bell hanger from the church kit. I’ve used them upside down for a more accurate fit to the guttering and created a shoe at the bottom by cutting as shown.
I’ve pinched a couple of spare locomotive shed lamps, one for over the porch and the other on the right-hand end front corner. As made, they stand out too far for this application, so I’ve reshaped the arm using hot water and cut it shorter to improve the effect.
You can see how overall components, from three different kits, have come together in one pleasing composition. The chimneys come from SSMP226 brick sheet with a single added string line from Microstrip; tops and pots from Wills SS46, building details pack A, and a Ratio 140 signal box chimney kit. Ridge tiles have been trimmed on both long edges to meet up with the top row of slates on both sides.