Gorre Station Platform
John Allen had made the Gorre station platform from brick sheet; however, inspired by the freight dock for a building I'd subsequently removed from the layout, I decided that I'd make a wooden platform from individual boards instead. It may sound like a lot more work, but actually it was only marginally more difficult, and worth every minute aesthetically. John also ran the platform between the center track and the siding along the front, while I elected to omit this.
Before I could get to work, I had three preparation steps. The first was to shim the area up so that the boards would be nearly flush with the railheads. I used sheet styrene for this so as to prevent swelling or warping while ballasting the tracks. Then, I had to install the floor of the station, which I made from a scrap of lasered micro-ply. And finally, I had to decide which way the boards would run. I was really torn, but ultimately it came down to the left end of the platform where the tracks start to curve: it would be much easier to fit the boards if they were set perpendicular to the rails.
Then it was time to start cutting stripwood, which had to be done one board at a time, and not mass-produced using a Chopper, owing to the fact that the two parallel tracks were not precisely parallel. I bonded the boards to the shim with thick CA, which set almost immediately, so I could place the boards as fast as I could measure and cut them. When the platform was finished, I applied an India ink wash; later, I'll also apply some powdered chalk to tone down the variations in the ink wash.
With the station posed on the layout, Gorre is really starting to take shape!
Original Gorre & Daphetid image courtesy of Peter T. Prunka.