Upgrading West Barre - Completed

A close look at the station platform and station prior to installation on the White River Division.

The Station at
West Barre, Vermont

I recently finished my upgrade to the West Barre station. I began this project with my post of Dec. 2, 2012. Once the drop-in base was cut from Gatorfoam, the RailroadKits cobblestone roadway was installed as a platform. I used one and one quarter sheets for the platform. I gave the cobblestone a wash of Hunterline stain followed by red chalk weathering and Bragdon dark rust and black. The rest of the base got a coat of my earth mix paint followed by ground foam and crushed stone. I actually had the whole base completed before I got to deep into my station upgrade.

I spent an evening going through my New England books to come up with a new look for my station. I decided on an all red structure as many of the Central Vermont and GT-New England stations appeared in the 1950's. For the station signs I went with what I have seen on many of the smaller GT stations. Signs such as the REA and Western Union are what I liked the best. I also wanted a slate roof although many of the smaller station had tar paper by the 1950's. On my layout the location is CV although the structure also reflects what I saw in photos of GT New England designs. This same colouring and signage reflects the CNR stations very well for the 1950's.

The West Barre station as it looked once removed from the layout. As mentioned in my past post the rear wall is still the paper wall covering painted flat black. This side has never been viewed by anyone other than me till now.The old station signs have been added to the interior walls adding to the heritage of the building.

The drop-in diorama is completed but the station is at the beginning of a remodel. The old roofing has just been removed.

The station has been painted but the roof and signs need to be added.

Station Upgrades
 All the blinds and window glazing was removed and replace with new material once the station was painted. The roofing was removed and what remained was painted flat black. The walls, trim and all the windows are airbrushed Floquil roof brown, then boxcar red while still wet. I brushed red chalk over all the walls followed by Bragdon weathering powder, dark rust followed by a little more red chalk. The window trim was brush painted aged concrete. 

The same phone box was used. It was originally black but was chalked white. For the roof I used Northeastern Scale Lumber Co. Gray Slate #HOSHG 1B1. This is my favourite roofing material for slate. I used two packages for this project but have lots of leftovers for future projects. I made a template for each angled portion of the roof using heavy paper. This I used to mark and cut the roofing sheets. I used Goo to position the roof panels as this gave me time to move it around a bit. I glued the corners with white glue. I did add some chalk weathering to the slate roof. A big chunky cast metal chimney from Juneco was added. This was painted roof brown followed by black and brown chalk weathering.

My favourite slate roofing material is made by Northeastern Scale Lumber Co. Some of the roofing has been installed in this view. The paper template can be seen on the left. The roof took two packages but  I did have a lot of left overs.

Signs
The West Barre station signs were designed on my computer and printed on a laser printer. The Railway Express Agency sign was made from a reduced size colour photocopy of a print. I had photographed the sign on the Ely, Vt. station this fall. The Western Union sign I found on the Internet which Don Janes printed on his colour printer at a reduced size using photo quality paper. The arrival and departure sign by the front door is actually a CNR sign that I purchased at the Vermont and Essex Ry. model display in Montreal. They have a hobby shop on the main floor which has some nice right of way details. It is from STT and numbered CN138. The billboard found behind the station on a fence is a colour photocopy from a CV timetable which was reduced to fit the space.

In my next post we will see how it looks set in place on the White River Division...George Dutka

The drop-in diorama  is finished and ready for use on the White River Division.