James River Branch: Passenger Station Renovation

Naughtright Passenger Station, Part 5 of 5: Renovations

This "mini-scene" was inspired by an (expensive) accident of my own. While working on the underside of the access panel, I snapped off the wires for one of the two Märklin station platform lights, and as bad luck would have it, the break took place right at the base, rendering it irreparably damaged. Aside from bearing the cost of replacing it, I'd also have to paint and weather it just like the other light.

Or would I? As I stared at the bright, shiny new light on the platform, it appeared to me as if some Z scale people had just renovated it. Hmmm... What if a volunteer group had gotten together and done just that? All I'd need to complete the scene would be some ladders, paint buckets, and happy painters...

Thus began the station renovation scene. For fun I took it a little further by naming the three fellows participating in a little painting faux pas after members of the Railwire. It somehow seemed fitting, even though two of them were not yet born at the time of the layout's temporal setting of 1975. It was a way of giving the scene some "real" personality, as well as a few inside jokes.

The three Preiser figures were modified to suit their respective real-life counterparts, although to be honest the resemblances are barely superficial. For Tom I began with a surveyor wielding a hammer; I removed the hammer, sanded off his hair, and painted his head to reflect Tom's celebrated bald pate. Lee started life as an upset-looking dock worker; the paperwork he's brandishing was transformed into a paintbrush, and with a new brim* his hat became Lee's trademark baseball cap. Finally, Ed is another dock worker who's striking a pose that could pass for struggling with an extension ladder; I re-shaped and painted his hair to suggest Ed's signature gelled coiffure.

The ladders were adapted from a Micron Art detailing set (#91401); the stepladder was completed with a piece swiped from a TrainCat signal kit. All ladder parts were soldered for strength—the joints were too small for CA to hold reliably. The paint cans were made from bits of .030 styrene rod; the one that's tipped over was drilled out with a #70 bit.

The replacement light on the platform inspired the station renovation scene.

Micron Art ladder parts are soldered together and then painted aluminum.

The tipped-over paint can is a bit of styrene rod that's carefully drilled out.

Modified figures are arranged with the props to suggest an accident happened.

At some point I'll have a more appropriate vehicle for the crew; at present, a beautiful Land Rover from Álvaro Cortes serves as a stand-in to complete the scene.

*The hat brim, by the way, was clipped from an etched brass bridge part, and constitutes the single smallest discrete part I've made and manipulated to date, as far as I'm aware. With apologies to Lee for not being able to apply the Western Maryland logo to it...