David Beverley
Source: Gazette November 2019 (Vol 21 No.1)

Tollerton Junction station looking south with the Up station building on the left

I retired from the National Health Service five years ago and have always enjoyed doing things with my hands. A move to a village outside York provided the opportunity to build a model railway. The choice was between OO and O gauge and despite the price differential I thought O gauge offered something different from the usual ready-to-run locomotives that were available for OO. I started with a Connoisseur Model 0-4-0 tank and was hooked but I was having difficulty getting it to run smoothly. Someone at the York Easter Show suggested contacting the Gauge O Guild, so I joined and became a member of the local group four years ago. There I found a great group of people who are very supportive and who have a wealth of expertise and advice that can be tapped into.

Background

Tollerton station was on the East Coast Main Line just over nine miles north of York. The original station was to the south of the Sykes Lane overbridge but when the line was widened to four tracks in 1894 the station was moved to the north of this bridge for which building permission was granted in 1899. The station was closed on 30th October 1965.

The model

We moved to the Tollerton area in 2015 and our new house had a double garage in which I could lay a quadruple track with Tollerton station and the Sykes Road overbridge as the main landscape features. The web site Disused Stations (disused-stations.org.uk/t/tollerton/index.shtm) provided a mine of information with some excellent photographs of the station. A visit to the National Railway Museum provided a 1 to 500 scale plan of the station area and the proximity of the station to our home meant site visits were easy. The best photographs were of the station building on the Down-platform and I was able to make good drawings to enable me to build it, but the photographs of the Up-platform were less satisfactory with differences being evident from photographs taken at different times. Despite these issues I was able to complete this building as well, and its construction is described in this article.

Walls

The long side of the building was made from three LCUT creative components glued together. To ensure that the joins were completely even, the components were held flat with magnets on a steel plate whilst the PVA glue set.

Front of building from three LCUT pieces

The sides were then cut to the correct height. The gable ends were made in a similar way from two similar LCUT components. The shaping for the roof gable and the gable for the dormer roof over the waiting room were added.

Gable ends and dormer gable added with a horizontal pencil line indicating the tops of the windows and door

A line of bricks was then glued to the outer top aspect of the long walls to represent the corbel at the top of the brickwork under the eaves of the roof.

Corbel added with windows, doors and recesses pre-painted and fitted

The apertures for the doors and windows were cut sequentially in the front walls and each window or door was fitted before moving onto the next aperture. This ensured that no weakness developed in the front wall whilst cutting and fitting the windows and doors. Window headers and sills were added at this stage and because of this manner of construction, the window frames and the recess for the windows were painted before assembly making it easier to mask and spray paint the whole building once complete. The front and sides were then glued together using York Modelmaking corner magnets to ensure the whole structure was square with vertical walls.

Walls glued together, windowsills and headers added with doors and windows masked ready for painting

Once dry, two internal walls were glued across the building on either side of the waiting room and an additional wall glued between these to the rear of the waiting room. These added additional strength to the whole structure.

Roof

This was made from 3mm thick photographic mounting board. The ridge join was bevelled to ensure a good fit at the apex of the two sides of the roof and strengthening formers were placed at equal distances along the apex. Sufficient overhang was made to allow the barge boards to be fitted at either end and also for the guttering along the front and back of the building. A template was made for the dormer roof and fitted for size and then used to make the dormer roof from mounting card.

Roof carcass with dormer over the waiting room in place (upper) and apex strengthening formers

The flashing between the dormer roof and main roof was made from the soft metal of the type used for shaving cream tubes. The chimneys and their flashings were sourced from LCUT and corbels were added to the tops of each chimney stack. The chimney pots, when fitted, had Polyfilla applied around their base to mimic the cement holding them in place. The flashing for the chimneys was glued to the roof before the chimney stacks were added. Barge boards were painted and glued to each end of the roof and to the dormer roof and then the roofs were tiled using York Modelmaking tiles and ridge tiles. Careful marking of the roof was necessary to ensure correct spacing of these.

Flashing in the dormer gullies and chimneys in place

The photo shows a series of marks on the roof showing the different options before choosing one that fitted the ridge tiles. These were exceptionally easy to place as they had a self-adhesive backing. Finally, finials made from cocktail sticks and a small bead were added to the apex of the barge boards.

Painting

As mentioned earlier the doors, windows and edges of cutouts were painted prior to assembly. The windows and doors were masked and then the building and chimneys were lightly spray-painted with Halford’s red oxide undercoat. Individual bricks were coloured randomly with a mixture of different brick coloured paints. Mortar between the bricks was highlighted with a dilute white acrylic paint that was allowed to run along the mortar lines, excess paint being wiped off the surface of the bricks whilst still wet. The brick work was then dry-painted with dirt-coloured paint to give the final result. The roof slates were painted with a dilute mixture of different greys and blacks. In places thinners was applied directly to the tiles and allowed to run down the slope of the roof, giving a natural streaked effect. The barge boards were pre-painted prior to fitting and only required touching up.

After initial painting with chimneys, barge boards and roof tiling in place

Finishing

To complete the model white metal guttering and downfall pipes from Skytrex Model Railways were soldered together before fitting to both front and rear of the building. Two free standing walls were also constructed to be placed around the gable wall end where the entrance to the toilet was hidden from sight. The wooden uprights on the mock Tudor dormer were added and painted. Doorknobs, from Timber Tracks, were fitted to all the doors and the windows glazed. An enamel advert on the station wall was printed from a photo, resized and printed on to glossy photographic paper using Adobe® Photoshop Lightroom software which completed the building.

Final thoughts

The finished model is shown in situ here, the building on the left being the one discussed in this article, the one on the right the one I had previously built.

The photo also shows the Sykes Lane road overbridge with the passenger stairs descending to the Down platform. In the distance is the signalbox and in the foreground a 20-ton brake van in the headshunt. On the tracks, a Connoisseur Models 0-4-0 tank loco is pulling an M&M Models Dogfish wagon and pulling into the Down platform a Connoisseur Models N10 0-6-2 tank pulling a rake of BR Mark 1 coaches. For comparison, an original photo of the station from a similar position is also shown.

Tollerton station taken from the Disused Stations web site and below is the completed building, (from the collection of John Alsop).

I am pleased with the result especially as I am new to model-making. Tollerton Junction will never be finished, with very much more work to undertake. However, I have found the stimulation of learning new skills extremely enjoyable and a fantastic challenge.

My thanks to Julie at York Model Making for bespoke windows and doors, members of York and District Gauge O Group for advice and support and my wife Michèle for her encouragement in the whole project.