Lochearnhead station building laser cut kit

[roundhouse]

I have always wanted to build a wooden laser cut kit but not found one that's been suitable for what I have been modelling and generally I am quite happy scratch building structures.

 

However whilst we were exhibiting a layout at the Perth show I csme across the lovely looking Scottish railway structures on the Pop Up Designs stand.

 

https://www.popupdesigns.co.uk/product-category/railway-scale-models/

 

The model of Crieff Station looked excellent but its quite a large one.

 

On looking at others I saw the one for Lochearnhead station. At £40 (its gone up in price since purchasing)  I Couldn't resist despite having no plans for a Scottish layout.

They had done a lot better at the show than they expected so had sold out of this particular kit but were happy to post to me.

 

It arrived in a flat pack box that fits through the letterbox.

 

I didn't make a start till after we came back from our recent two weeks trip to the Continent.

 

I have looked up the station online but as it closed in 1951, so far I haven't found any colour photos before thrn but plenty of photos of it now as it's a Scouts centre. I am tempted to paint tge doors etc red and steelwork cream as it currently is but not aware of such colours.

 

Anyway here are a couple of photos for now.

Edited August 12, 2022 by roundhouse

[roundhouse]

The  way its designed, the kit almost goes together without glue  so initial trial fitting of the parts was done as such till I was happy they all fited correctly, then the PVA wood glue came out. There are a few areas of the kit that I decided to alter.

 Firstly due to the thickness of the walls and that the corners of each wall have a 45 degree angle section of brickwork, this leaves a gap in the walls, so I used the waste timber form the thicker sheets to file and form an angled infill piece. Eight were required and once glued in the gap they were further filed down flush with the brickwork pattern. This pattern is hardly embossed so there is no real depth in the mortar joints. I therefore used an acrylic paint htinned down and then a wash applied over the walls. Once dry it leaves the mortar pattern visible through the paint. On the small filed infill peices I used a pencil to draw on the brickwork before painting. Its not pe rfect but it does the job when viewed form a normal viewing distance.

 

The roof ridges will also have an infill piece of timber and will have spearate tiling added.

Edited July 27, 2022 by roundhouse

[Vecchio]

I do like this station kits - probably I have a look at Rannoch station. I have a laser cut station on my current Austrian layout, which was a mixture of card and wood. The overall effect is great

 

The station on my current layout: Strobl (renamed for my layout to Donnersbachkogel)

IMGP5418 

IMGP5411 

[roundhouse]

9 hours ago, Vecchio said:

I do like this station kits - probably I have a look at Rannoch station. I have a laser cut station on my current Austrian layout, which was a mixture of card and wood. The overall effect is great

 

The station on my current layout: Strobl (renamed for my layout to Donnersbachkogel)

IMGP5418 

IMGP5411 

Thinking back I am sure that the kit I used on Dobris is a card laser cut kit. I didnt use a lot of the parts as it was heavily modified to look as per it did at Dobris.

[roundhouse]

In the last few days I have made moe progress on the building.

 

All the 45 degree angled corners have been completed and the laser cut roof sections fittted and most reidges infilled and filed down. I have also painted the window cills red and quite a few of the steel canopy supports painted cream. I decided to follow the  colour scheme that the building is currently in. As to whether or not this was correct when it was open I have no idea not knowing much about the lines history.

 

I wish that I had sprayed the canopy supports before fitting as they are quite slow to paint.

 

I have also started work on filing the end columns round and adding styrene tube over the lower section. The detail will be added back by using wire.

 

[roundhouse]

This morning I was in the workshop early addi g the canopy valance after priming it last night. Its a snug fit on the lugs on the ends of the canopy supports so once the tiny spot of superglue had dried I gave one side and end a coat of paint.

 

By 9 am this was dry enough to allow the lugs to be filed back flush with the valance and any gaps after glueing and painting to be filled. The canopy frames have just been placed ontop of the canopy supports for now.

[roundhouse]

With the canopy awning now in place and just awaiting a final coat, I have now started modifying the end columns. I haves rounded the laser cut sections then added wire to form the corbels. the lower mid section has flutes so to represent these I wrapped a piece of paper around the handle of a jewellers screwdriver and embossed the paper by running my finger nail in the indentations before lgunig it to the column.

The columns for the other end are now being modified.

 

[5944]

That's a very impressive kit, and an absolute bargain for the amount of detail included. 

 

I stayed at Lochearnhead about 25 years ago when I was in the Scouts. It's amazing to think they've looked after it for 60 years in a couple of days, and that it only saw service for less than 50 years.

[roundhouse]

5 hours ago, 5944 said:

That's a very impressive kit, and an absolute bargain for the amount of detail included. 

 

I stayed at Lochearnhead about 25 years ago when I was in the Scouts. It's amazing to think they've looked after it for 60 years in a couple of days, and that it only saw service for less than 50 years.

The price of these kits have gone up since I bought this one but I still think that they are a very good price for what you get. Speaking with the producers, this one is the first one of this kit that they have seen painted so I guess that many just build them as is but with a little work they can produce quite a nicely detailed model. I might yet try a few more of them but I have very little spare space to put them once completed. I do fancy getting the old Fort William station building .

 

I hadnt realised that Lochearnhead station closed so early on in BR days till I started looking up the information about it after purchasing the kit, so it is great that it has been looked after and in the last few years has won an award for the restoration of the canopy.

[grow45]

I have had a long standing interest in Lochearnhead and produced a Plan of the Month based on it for the May 2011 Railway Modeller.  I can send you a pdf copy if it is of  interest,  One of the things I found fascinating about it is that because it closed so early there are hardly any photographs of it in use.  Most of the ones I have are actually publicity postcards from the  railway and a few are shared below.

[roundhouse]

On 10/08/2022 at 09:05, grow45 said:

I have had a long standing interest in Lochearnhead and produced a Plan of the Month based on it for the May 2011 Railway Modeller.  I can send you a pdf copy if it is of  interest,  One of the things I found fascinating about it is that because it closed so early there are hardly any photographs of it in use.  Most of the ones I have are actually publicity postcards from the  railway and a few are shared below.

Thankyou for posting those photos. I have not seen them before and didnt realise that the track curved away on to a viaduct.

 

Yes I would be interested in seeing your track plan.

 

Regards

 

Ian

 

 

Edited August 11, 2022 by roundhouse

[grow45]

4 hours ago, roundhouse said:

Thankyou for posting those photos. I have not seen them before and didfnt realise that the track curved away on to a viaduct.

 

Yes I would be intyeredted in seeing your track plan.

 

Regards

 

Ian

 

 

I have sent you a message with the article.

 

The viaduct still exists.  It is a pretty substantial structure so it was probably easier to just leave it rather than demolish it when the line was closed. This is it about ten years ago. ten years ago  

Edited August 11, 2022 by grow45
Duplicate photo removed

[TheQ]

as most of it's life it was a Caledonian Railway station the colours would have been,

 

 The bulk of the woodwork on CR buildings was painted in a brownish-yellow shade known rather fetchingly as ‘Duck’s Foot’…..this was used for the planking, canopy valencing etc. The framing, doors, metalwork etc. were painted in purple-brown, which was much more of a brown shade than a purple and in fact seems to have been very similar to LMS buildings brown. Window frames were white.  The inside & underside of station canopies were painted cream, no doubt to give as much light as possible.  Station name boards & other notice boards were blue with white lettering, while poster boards were painted black with white lettering showing ‘CALEDONIAN RAILWAY’ in full….an unrestored board recently came up at auction which finally confirms this color scheme.  Some enamel signs were white with blue lettering; happily, this should be clear from a B&W photograph.

the above was clipped from..

 

Caledonian Railway | The Concrete Construction of Colorful Railway Stations (stationcolours.info)

 

I'll be building a model of Loch Earn  for  my layout... That is the Macbraynes MV Loch Earn . God created the world and all it contains.. but the Hebridies, they belong to MacBraynes..

the sister ship Loch Mhor

Edited August 11, 2022 by TheQ

[grow45]

Just found another photo

 

 

[roundhouse]

1 hour ago, grow45 said:

Just found another photo

 

 

Thats a lovely photo. I wonder if there are any drawings of that type of signal box.

[roundhouse]

7 hours ago, TheQ said:

as most of it's life it was a Caledonian Railway station the colours would have been,

 

 The bulk of the woodwork on CR buildings was painted in a brownish-yellow shade known rather fetchingly as ‘Duck’s Foot’…..this was used for the planking, canopy valencing etc. The framing, doors, metalwork etc. were painted in purple-brown, which was much more of a brown shade than a purple and in fact seems to have been very similar to LMS buildings brown. Window frames were white.  The inside & underside of station canopies were painted cream, no doubt to give as much light as possible.  Station name boards & other notice boards were blue with white lettering, while poster boards were painted black with white lettering showing ‘CALEDONIAN RAILWAY’ in full….an unrestored board recently came up at auction which finally confirms this color scheme.  Some enamel signs were white with blue lettering; happily, this should be clear from a B&W photograph.

the above was clipped from..

 

Caledonian Railway | The Concrete Construction of Colorful Railway Stations (stationcolours.info)

 

I'll be building a model of Loch Earn  for  my layout... That is the Macbraynes MV Loch Earn . God created the world and all it contains.. but the Hebridies, they belong to MacBraynes..

the sister ship Loch Mhor

Look forward to seeing your layout.

 

I have painted the building in the red and cream that it currently is. If I were to build a layout it would probably be a what if it had stayed open till present day.  We shall see.

[roundhouse]

The roof tiling sheets arrived in the post today so a, start has been made to add these thin laser cut ones.

[lmsforever]

Pop Up buildings are a brilliant additton for Scottish modelers  I have made up quite few of their kits for my layout and have found them to be very high quality and very true to the prototype. Also the service from them is amazing and they are very friendly and make it worthwhile supporting the like yr model now build a layout for it.. Chris

[roundhouse]

11 hours ago, lmsforever said:

Pop Up buildings are a brilliant additton for Scottish modelers  I have made up quite few of their kits for my layout and have found them to be very high quality and very true to the prototype. Also the service from them is amazing and they are very friendly and make it worthwhile supporting the like yr model now build a layout for it.. Chris

One of the thinner laser cut sheets hadnt come out properly. They soon sent a replacement within a few days. So agree they have given superb service to me so far.

 

I am very tempted to get a few more kits.

[roundhouse]

The roof tiling is just about complete apart from the hip ends at the eaves requiring a trim.

Tomorrow I hope to paint the tiles then it's onto the canopy glazing and the windows.

[MJHCSC]

Currently sitting in the very station you are discussing, having stumbled over this thread whilst checking for colours of notice boards during the Caledonian era...  you may be interested to know that as part of our current refurb we are about to restore the colours to the pre-unification Caledonian colour scheme with the brown and cream. Glad you are enjoying building the station - as we are refurbishing it!

[roundhouse]

9 hours ago, MJHCSC said:

Currently sitting in the very station you are discussing, having stumbled over this thread whilst checking for colours of notice boards during the Caledonian era...  you may be interested to know that as part of our current refurb we are about to restore the colours to the pre-unification Caledonian colour scheme with the brown and cream. Glad you are enjoying building the station - as we are refurbishing it!

Thanks for posting the photo. How much of the canopy area has now been enclosed?

 

Look forward to seeing more photos as the refurb and repaint is completed.

 

Ian

Edited August 20, 2022 by roundhouse

[MJHCSC]

A pleasure, the Loch side of the canopy is mostly enclosed, forming a dining room and at the end a series of washrooms. The front and goods yard end are still open. Photos of the repaint may be a while - the weather is not great for painting outdoors!

[roundhouse]

The roof tiling is now painted. Just requires tge flashing around the chimneys.

 

I have now started drawing up the inner part of the window frames on the Silhouette cutter software. The laser cut windows will have part of the frame moved so that there is the red outer and white inner frame.

[roundhouse]

As I could not get back to sleep in the early hours  I went into the workshop and set the silhouette cutter going to print out the inner window frames  in thin card. In the past I have used styrene but the card would stick better to the laser cut windows after cutting out the inner frames. The first photo shows these on the left before cutting the inner frames and on the right a completed window.

 

One side is now complete with the other side under way.

Next will be to complete the canopy glazing.

Edited August 23, 2022 by roundhouse