Does anyone know of a kit that looks like this station?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
21

That’s good news, Dave. Here is my setup with the City Station on my last layout.

The mainline runs right behind the station.

Rich

22

Thanks for the picture Rich. The station looks good!

Dave

23

I had the space to install the platforms on either side of the station. But if your club layout lacks the space for the platforms on the sides of the station, you could install the platforms in front of the station iwith a track on each side of the platform.

Rich

24

I doubt you have a Menards in Canada but I just came from one here in northern Michigan. They have an HO station with LED lighting that is very close to your station. didn’t see the price. Should be on their web page.

25

Thanks for the suggestion Rich.

Dave

26

Hi ndbprr,

Is this the station?

https://www.menards.com/main/home-decor/menards-collectibles/train-stuff-from-menards/train-stuff/ho-gauge-train-station/2795010/p-1470660449719-c-13318.htm?tid=5191418534375532496&ipos=12

Sounds like we will be using the Walthers City Station kit but thanks for the suggestion.

Dave

27

Excellent choice, Dave. Will you be modifying the center portion of the roof to more closely resemble the actual Huntsville, Ontario station? That would really be the only significant modification to that structure.

Rich

28

I probably won’t be the one building the kit. That will likely be Henk so it will be up to him. I will make the suggestion.

Actually, there are a couple of changes that could be made to make it look more like the Huntsville station. One of them would be fairly easy, i.e. replacing the observation window (I don’t know the proper term - the one that sticks out the front) with one with square sides and removing the first storey roof where it runs across over the window.

As you suggest, the walls that separate the upper roof from the lower wings could be taken out as well, but that might require a whole new roof if the original roof doesn’t have enough material to change the profile. Even if it does, matching the shingle pattern on the seams would be a challenge. Doing the roof over wouldn’t be a bad thing because it would give us the opportunity to model the pitch change that the Huntsville station has.

Edit: I just did a paper mock up of the Walthers City Station roof to see if there is enough material to change the roof lines. My conclusion is that there isn’t quite enough to do the job. The problem lies in where the brick dividing walls cut into the main roof. Without those small sections of roof the main roof will have to be shortened which in turn means that the lower walls below the main roof have to be shortened as well. That seems to be getting into a lot more work than scratch building a new roof.

Edit #2: I just had another look at the Walthers station and I noticed that the main roof does have a pitch change part way up. Too bad they didn’t do it on the wings too.

Dave

29

Hi, Dave

Cutting the wall shorter should be rather quick surgery. If you fill-in the opening in the roof with styrene then lightly sand everything you can then cover the whole roof with laser-cut shingles.

CP_union by Edmund, on Flickr

I used these on a recent Walthers tower kit-bash I did and I’m really pleased with the ease of use and results of the shingles. I used Minuteman shingles but there are others:

http://www.minutemanscalemodels.com/category-s/159.htm

CP_union4-a by Edmund, on Flickr

I used sticky-back copper foil for the flashing because I didn’t want to apply individual cap shingles.

GTW_3734T by Edmund, on Flickr

Just throwin’ that out there…

Regards, Ed

30

Reshingling the roof after modifying it did occur to me but I’ve never been a fan of separately applied HO scale shingles. Having said that, your tower looks pretty good.

Dave

31

Thanks, Dave.

I forget exactly why I bought a package of those shingles but I had them hanging on the supply hook for a while. When I finally decided to do that roof I tried them out and to my surprise they worked out very well.

Turned out to be a nice mindless task with a movie running on the telly and a nice beverage nearby.

Keep them in mind for when you have a little project and the roof needs a little “something special”.

I have since done some sheds and section houses with them. At first I didn’t think I’d like them but I’m sold now.

Cheers, Ed

32

I just did a rough calculation of how many packages of the Minuteman shingles it would take to do the roof. Based on 36 sq. inches per package, the roof would require just under 4 packages. Unfortunately when I add in the $ exchange and shipping, the cost would be close to $70.00 Cdn. That just about doubles the cost of the kit. By itself it isn’t a huge amount, but we need a lot of structures to populate the club layout. Is it worth it just for shingles on one structure? I can just hear the debate between the modelling enthusiasts in the club and the penny pinchers![swg][(-D][(-D]

Dave

33

Depending on how much extra shingle material you’d need (size of sheets) buying the add-on shelters might be a cheaper option.

Wayne

34

All of this talk of roof modifications and re-shingling is worthwhile because with those modifications, it should be possible to produce a near look-alike to the actual Huntsville, Ontario train station. Take a look at the two structures.

Rich

35

That’s a useful comparison, Rich.

If the ends of the Walthers station were reversed so that the porte cochere was on the proper end, the walls and roof from the express/baggage wing could be used to re-work the operator’s bay walls and roof.

While it wouldn’t be an exact model of the real one, I’d leave the roof and end walls of the station, other than being reversed, as-is, as I don’t think there’d be enough roof material to make the main roof into the cottage-style of the prototype.
Removing the express/baggage portion also makes the structure shorter.

Wayne

36

Depending upon the location of the station, if the back portion of the roof were not clearly visible, you could cut out the necessary portion to make that front center roof portion. Then, replace the portion cut out of the back part of the roof with a suitable material.

Rich

37

Rich and Wayne,

All very interesting points. Thanks.

Dave

38

I just did some research on the available HO scale shingle products and I can tell you that there is no shortage of suppliers. I found 16! One of them is a company called JTT Miniature Trees. Walthers has a listing for their shingles and they show them as being in stock, but the only reference to the company in the forums was from 2012 and it concerned their trees, not their shingles. Has anyone worked with their shingles? How do they look? Their price is good, assuming that they look ok.

Thanks,

Dave

39

Dave, I cannot offer any help on the JTT roof shingles, but I went down to my layout and looked at the roof on the Walthers City Station. It is made of styrene plastic, and the individual shingles are almost imperceptible. When you look up close, the roof looks more like brick work than shingles. In fact, Walthers Brick Sheet could probably be used to make the necessary modifications.

While I was down there, I took a few measurements which may or may not be helpful to you. The width of the entire center roof is 8 7/8". The roof on the “dormer” in the center of the main roof is 3 1/4" wide, and the ridge on that dormer extends 2 1/8" forward.

Rich

40

There’s a good reason to redo the roof!

I calculated that the roof would require about 130 sq. inches of material to cover it, including waste, that is if you were using individual strips of shingles. However, if you were using larger sheets of shingle material it would require a lot more than that to give you all the surfaces required. You could save some material by doing some seams on the slopes facing each end of the building, but they would have to be invisible to be satisfactory IMHO.

Thanks Rich,

Dave

EDIT: Sorry, that should have been ‘JTT Miniature Trees’, not JJT.