5.13. Naughtright Passenger Station
Although it wasn't the first one I'd started, the passenger station was one of the first structures I'd completed, and represented a substantial effort in design and construction. As such, it provided invaluable lessons in brass structure kitbashing that I use to this day.
After exploring many options, I settled on this perfectly ordinary-looking station in Malvern, Pennsylvania, as the visual starting point. Photo by Lucius Kwok.
The raw materials were gathered from many different sources, and included a number of N Scale etched brass detail parts.
Because this was not a one-piece fold-up job, I had to fabricate a number of jigs to precisely hold the parts in position while I soldered the corner joints. I also sprayed the parts with primer first to prevent the solder from wicking into the brickwork—a trick I learned after ruining a couple of other buildings.
Painting came next, followed by window and door installation. Because there were no guides to position the windows and doors (as there will usually be in kits), I had to install them while the building was suspended on its side over a mirror so I could visually align the parts.
The eaves were made from pieces cut from the walls of an N Scale barn kit, and the filigree braces came from a British N Scale passenger platform detailing kit. The assembly was designed to simply slip down over the building walls so that the roof would be removable.
The roof was undoubtedly the most difficult part to make. I used a cardboard mockup to get the angles right, then cut the parts out of walls from Miller Engineering's N Scale Crestline Theater kit (it had the largest windowless walls of any kit I had on hand). Fortunately, N Scale brick looks remarkably like Z Scale singles! The chimney alone took the better part of a day to fabricate. I couldn't have been more pleased with the results.
