The Gorre Details
A while back on The Railwire, when I posted images of the Gorre station, one of the regulars joked about a desk for the ticket agent. Little did he know that I'd been planning to add just such a detail all along. Since the station is right up front, features many windows, and is illuminated, interior detailing was a must.
I started with the ticket agent's desk, and while it's not "quartersawn oak," it's made from stripwood that I deliberately painted a slightly-too-bright color (Testors Flat Brown) and covered with tiny slivers of styrene shaved from the end of strip stock that scales out to around the size of paper, so that it's noticeable through the windows. Attached to the return on the desk is a wooden cabinet that hides the lighting wires. And lurking in the back right corner is something vaguely resembling a large stove, which is actually the resistor for the LEDs painted dark grey. A couple of Preiser figures—one of them seated on a scrap of styrene at the desk—rounded out the simple interior detailing, all of which was bonded to the station floor on the layout.
The lighting consists of three warm white SMD LEDs. A notch I'd made in the roof during construction allows solenoid wires to pass from the station to the canopy over the platform. Once the LEDs were secured to the structure and the interior detailing was finished, the wires were soldered and, after one final electrical test, the station was permanently bonded to the platform with thick CA. Oh, and one big advantage of a solid brass structure is that there's no need to light-proof it!
The next couple of hours were spent detailing the area around the station—a most enjoyable task—using photos of John Allen's work for inspiration. Benches in the waiting area are from StoneBridge Models; baggage cart (modified into a freight cart) is by Micron Art; there's a BAZ Models stepladder; and the freight scattered about is mostly Preiser, with some Merten mixed in. The freight loading dock is Micro-Trains' first ever Z Scale laser kit, #799-90-901. John Allen also populated his scenes with many figures, and I've done likewise—so far the layout has well over two dozen people already, and I'm not done yet!
Now I'm really looking forward to getting the ballasting done, so that I can clean all of the track and start running trains through the finished scenes!
Original Gorre & Daphetid images courtesy of Peter T. Prunka.