It’s that time of year again when the evenings are drawing in, Strictly is on the TV and I need something to occupy myself to cope during all the waffling and therefore I get pulled back into modelling. This has certainly been the pattern the last few years that progress is made on modelling during Strictly and despite a slightly later start this autumn this year is no exception.

However, before I get onto the recent achievements I thought I’d start with a jump back to some work from earlier this year….

Most of my work over the last few years has been focused on the area around the country station and the level crossing that goes with it. This has included building some of the models to go along the road to the level crossing (the pub and some shops), as well as enhancing the signal box by adding lights and an interior.

The station is modelled on the Yorkshire look and feel that is present on lines such as the North York Moors Railway and the Settle to Carlisle line. The main station buildings are from the Hornby Skaledale range which reflect this area and are good quality resin models.

The main issue I’ve had with them since I got them back in 2017 is around the painting of the buildings, particularly when compared to the bridge and the some of the additional detailing such as station fences I’ve been working on. The bridge is the correct colour for the area in the deep red, however the buildings are all highlighted in green. This was highlighted to me last year when we went on the Settle-Carlisle line just how prominent the red colouring is.

So I decided to do something I’d never done before which is to re-paint an off the shelf model and also attempt some basic weathering of them. The later was driven from the recent Scalescenes models being more weathered in their general appearance making the Hornby models look to prestine

So earlier this year I jumped in, and using acrylic paints I’ve turned the models from having green highlights to having red. I started with the small station outbuilding as the smallest model to try out on, but once complete the impact was immediately noticeable, so the main station buildings and the signal box have now had the same treatment.

Overall I’m very happy with the result as it brings all the models together both in terms of matching better as they would on the same station but also in terms of being more representative of the actual area.

My next challenge in this area is to add a Station Masters house, as pretty much every station in that part of the world seems to have one as part of the standard set of buildings.