Build a bespoke station
If you have a particular station in mind it’s likely you’ll have to carry out some modifications to an off-the-shelf kit. Peter Marriott shows you his approach to achieving a specific style.
Peter Marriott continues with his station build by making the waiting room.
One of my favourite types of station is one where the original features have been carefully conserved and integrated into what appears to be a thoroughly modern station. Users get to enjoy traditional features such as old platform canopies with valances and original structures, but with all the modern features of 21st-century train travel.
Kettering station is an example of what I mean. Railtrack sympathetically restored the old Midland Railway canopy and buildings, rather than go with BR’S preferred option, which was to replace the canopy with plastic sheeting. I wanted this blend of old and new on my ‘Stanton Central’ urban station project (MR246).
Wills’ SS54 Station Canopy kit is nowhere near as ornate as the one at Kettering, but it has enough of that ‘steam age’ character that I wanted. I also wanted a complementary waiting shelter, so went for the Wills kit which, though apparently inspired by the one at Clapham Junction, is nicely generic. I spotted similar station architecture while passing through Leicester recently.
I’m no novice to building plastic kits, but I really struggled with the canopy. The instructions are rather dated and not particularly helpful, compared to those supplied with more modern kits. The biggest issue was that there was no way to fix the supporting legs and their brackets to the roof other than by improvising using additional support under the roof, made from excess plastic sprue. I felt that it would be easier and cheaper if I scratchbuilt my own canopy.
The waiting room, on the other hand, went together a lot better than the Wills platform canopy. To make mine a little different, I simplified the window frames by cutting off the rather ornate triangles on the top of the window frames.