Filling the Tea-tray (well, at least part of it. . .)

It;s amazing, Dear Readers' what a difference a building (or two) makes to a layout - it (IMHO) starts tio give a layout 'personality' - or at least give an indication as to where things might eventually lead. . .

All of which is by way of telling anyone interested (as you are of course Dear Reader's - aren't you (please say yes. . .), that the Waitekereru Tramway (WKT) of the Tickford Valley Railway Co (London) Ltd (TVR), now has two structures in residence at Konake (pronounced Ko nack ee) - a station and a Goods Shed.  Progress indeed.

Both structures have been made from my preferred medium - Matt (Picture Framing) Board, and after being drawn-up, had 1 foot-wide 'weatherboards' scribed in place prior to being cut from the sheet of board I was using for the purpose.

The Station and Goods Shed are both essentially duplicates of the ones that are at Helston, on the TVR's Kereru Branch, and which are illustrated in Komata's Blog (the colour photo of Helston shows this type of station especially well). 

They are both essentially slight variations of TVR standard designs, modified to suit the locale.

I have described the station building before, so won't reiterate the details here, except to say that it is placed on the inside of the curve at the RH end of the layout, , while the Goods Shed is located on the bottom RH corner of the layout, and is placed so that its verandah faces out towards the viewer, over the siding (spur) that is Konake's goods road.

The shed is the of standard TVR small good-shed, with a roof that slopes towards the rear.

It is essentially similar to the shed at Helston (also in the photograph), but has the rearmost door on the back wall, not on the side towards the viewer as at Helston

The front Wall is (Scale) 20 foot tall, and 30 feet long, the rear, 17 feet, and also 25 feet long, with the side walls being 20 feet long, and (of course) 20 feet tall at the front, and 17 feet tall at the back.

I duly cut everything out and assembled it, and felt very pleased with my efforts - the soon to be completed shed looked very good indeed!

It was at this point that I decided to do a test-fit for the location 'Just in case' (and to drool over my efforts - as we do LOL), and discovered that the shed was in fact rather too long to allow the passage past of the 'Tram Plymouth Shunter locomotive! 

At its current length, it was very foul of the main line!! *@&%?!!!

And this after Four hours effort!! More *@&%?!!!

A period of intensive trimming and re-trimming followed - with little improvement, and a lot of damage to the building, so the decision was taken to start over and reduce the overall length of the side walls by 5 feet, to a 25 feet length overall .  Unimpressed!!

So, back to square one, following the same processes, until eventually, (after checking for room this time - repeatedly!!), we again reached the stage where the shed  essentially complete (well at least the walls were all in place)l! 

Each long-wall of the shed as it now stands, has a door (6ft wide, 10 feet tall), located half-way along the wall, and five feet off the ground, with a 2 foot-wide 'concrete' loading dock (made from cork underlay) below each opening.

 I was wanting to have both the shed doors opened, with the viewer being able to look through the shed as a result,  and to convey the fact that each door was on runners - and being able to slide to the right along the front of the building.

A 1 foot-wide strip of file card cut to fit, was then glued to the LH end of each of the door openings to simulate the door surround, but this was not done along the top!  The reason? 

As I wanted to make a cover over the supposed door runner, I glued  a 12 foot-long strip of Matt Board above the top of the door, and off to the right of each opening.

This simulates a 'runner-guide' with a bit of mild steel over the top for weather proofing (common practice in New Zealand) and was placed each door (the bit of card that had been cut out of the doorway) so that it was to the right of the door cut-out and looked as if the door had been pushed to one side, allowing access to the interior.

The overall result looks very effective, and the addition of an interior floor (scribed to simulate floor boards), completed the basic structure.

A verandah was then constructed, again out of Matt board, and attached to the front (the rail-side) of the building, and two coats of a mixed Burnt Sienna and Red Acrylic tube paint (it makes a reddish-brown colour) was applied to the walls, while the loading dock was painted grey.

The interior walls received the same colour, while the floor was given an additional dry-brushing of blacks and greys to simulate heavy, long-term use.

After teh paint had dried, a roof followed and after addition of 'Corrugated Iron' (ribbed wallpaper from the local Goodwill shop) to both it and the verandah, these items were also painted a medium grey shade.

The whole assemblage was then weathered and placed in its intended location.

It actually looks really good and trains can go past without any problems!! (Funny that!)

So there you have it Dear Readers - 2 buildings on the Tea Tray, and another milestone for the WKT;  progress may be slow, but it's progress none-the-less, so thank you for reading this far and for your interest.

The Tea-Tray will, invariably, make an appearance again, but until it does have a great day, and, as always. . .

Happy Modelling

Komata

"TVR - serving the Northern Taranaki . . . "