Finally, I have got round to creating the last building required for my Freshwater layout. There were two reasons for the procrastination afforded to this project. Firstly, the building is right at the front of the layout, and would get in the way, or be damaged, when working on other parts of the layout. The second reason was the severe shortage of images or information about the petrol station as it was in the 1940's or 1950's.

Having completed the rest of the layout scenics, excuse number one had evaporated. The Freshwater antiquarians also came up with a magazine photo of the flooding in front of the station in the mid-1950's which gave the clearest image I have yet found of part of the petrol station. The main brick built structure still forms part of the current petrol station, but the single storey shop building has gone, and the current garages are a later addition, so I had to resort to imagination for what might have been there.

I created a computer model of the main building and shop on the computer using Blender. This was kindly printed off for me by Peter Mabey, who is building his own model of Freshwater in N gauge. Here it is with a light spray of Halfords primer. The printing of the details is possibly better than acheived by Shapeways.

As I usually do, the window openings are sized to match etched frames from Brassmasters and/or Ratio where possible, and a groove is left along the roof ridge to take a ridge tile etch from Scalelink (now Fretcetera).

A wooden lean-to shed was built from plasticard and bits and pieces and the whole lot painted. Various signs and posters were found on the Internet and printed very small at 2400dpi on photographic paper. The shiny layer of the paper can then be carefully peeled off the main bulk of the paper using a scalpel to provide a thin poster for gluing on. The petrol pumps were Langley white metal, but have been modified to suit. The Regent dials were printed from Internet images, and the glass bowls on top reshaped from the BP shield shapes of the originals.

The main garage shed was freelance, and built from plastic card and Ratio window etches. Interior details come from ModelU, Severn Models and pieces of scrap material.

A white metal Morris 8, with wartime white painted blackout markings, and an MG TC were added to the scene. They have been in my gloat box for a while, so I do not remember who manufactured them. The MG had to have a windscreen added, and the Morris benefitted from flush glazing using canopy glue.

Altogether, the scene looks like this

I have more clutter to add to the scene when it is bedded down on the layout, hopefully this week, if the weather will cool down a bit. The layout is going to the OxRail show on Sunday 17th September 2023, so I have a deadline to work to.

Then:

More recently (chimney pots have gone):

Now: