Box cameras? Pass the roll film? No, not your actual Mr. George Eastman’s, Kodak box Brownie, but more a box with a camera – or two. In fact, a large box with a camera – or two. So, what have box cameras got to do with model railways? And why do I need one? And why a large one? Well, the box is a signal box. A large signal box. A very tall, large signal box. And the camera (or two) is CCTV.

A little of the background of my railway may help explain why. I ‘inherited’ my garden railway, part built, with the house purchase some 14 years ago. Back then, it was a very basic affair, although built on substantial brick piers 2 to 3 feet high with the baseboards supported on hefty wooden beams, it was a simple twin track rectangle, with relatively tight curves and little imagination – straight-turn, straight-turn, etc.

Even the inside the shed section was very basic - enter through a cat flap, straight along the shed with a quite tight 5 foot radius turn through 90 degrees at the opposite end (where the station was obviously planned to live) and exit the side of the shed through another cat-flap. The shed is a fairly generous 20 x 10ft, and the garden is also occupied by a 5inch gauge ground level line.

Once I started to take interest in the railway about a year or so later, having been away from railway modelling since my early teenage years, I decided that I was not happy with the arrangement and would like to gradually rebuild the layout. A little more interest was desirable, especially along the garden run and to have buildings and the like added, to give a flavour of the East Coast Main Line.

The line was eventually completely reconstructed, deviating considerably from its original plain rectangular form (being somewhat dictated by the ground level 5 inch gauge track that I was then in the throes of building) and by utilising nice sweeping curves the minimum radius out in the garden is now 11 feet. Outside structures have been built from various materials - wood, plastic, resin, steel and aluminium, and some use of concrete for viaducts and embankment retaining walls.

This lasts and weathers quite well, but can still be subject to the odd crack appearing due to frost. In fact, not too long ago, a reasonable size earthquake here in the UK, not far from me, left a crack in one of the viaduct piers. Strangely, the insurance company appeared not to be amused when asked if the viaduct was covered by the house insurance. I also have some nice station buildings, goods shed and two signal boxes, made by Geoff Penzer, from, as he states, ‘cementious materials’, which have been suitably modified to change them from a Southern to a North Eastern flavour. They do a good job and appear to last quite well. I do take them in during the winter months for frost protection, but apart from that, they are usually out all weathers in the running months, from March to November.

Recently, I have built some Skytrex lineside resin buildings to cover point motors, and these are proving to be a good success. The shed section has also been completely redesigned with sweeping 10ft 6in minimum radius curves and nice flowing track work - the buildings are also starting to take shape nicely.

The railway is quite extensive, being a scale two miles, running through cuttings, bushes, tunnels, round trees and over bridges. Consequently, a good portion of it cannot be seen from any one point. To make it possible to be controlled by one person – namely me, when I don’t have visitors - I installed the closed circuit TV, so I can now control the whole railway (and, hopefully know where everything is) from ‘mission control’ in the main train shed.

The CCTV setup is a relatively cheap, four camera, B grade set from a Maplin’s special offer. Although the colours, in some instances, do leave a little to be desired, it does a decent job on the whole and I’m quite happy with the quality.

Having decided on the locations, the need to hide the cameras so they didn’t destroy the feel of the layout was apparent. To do that I needed to house them in convenient, purpose built buildings. The question was what kind of buildings would suit the purpose, both for location and size.

Windeledge Bridge basks in the sunshine over Windy Ridge cutting.

You may recall, some time back, in the Gazette, the article ‘A bridge too far’ (Vol 17, November 2009) about the construction of Windeledge Bridge – a road over bridge for the cutting. The bridge, made from PVC window ledge, has now been in place for over four years and has stood up to the weather extremely well with no bowing or distortions of any kind and looks almost as good as the day it was put in place.

Having had success with the bridge started me thinking about making buildings using similar material and construction methods. As I mentioned in the previous article, garden railways get extremes of weather. No matter which country you live in, there will probably be extremes of weather and temperatures, from the summer sun, plus wind and rain, through to the opposite extremes of winter frost, snow and ice. And in the case of our summers these last few years, floods appear not uncommon. I’ve found that constructing buildings for outside that are going to last creates problems sourcing usable materials that are capable of dealing with all of these elements.

‘Five Is Alive!’ CCTV cameras with no clothes on.

A good friend suggested a signal box, but it would have to be a very large one to fit the bill. It was not just a large signal box that was required, but one of some height. It needed to be extremely tall to accommodate the height of the cameras. So, where was there one that tall? Well – the answer just happened to be quite local to me and still in existence at Grimsby Town station - Garden Street box.

This structure is a very tall and very imposing brick building and after scaling down photographs to 7mm, the size was exactly right for what I needed. With just one or two slight alterations, this box fitted the bill exactly. What’s more, the name just couldn’t have been better.

Garden Street Box, Grimsby town Station in the mid-Fifties. Photo: J. H. Price - courtesy of Dave Hewins from his book The Railways around Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Immingham, and North East Lincolnshire. P K King & D R Hewins

The main construction of the box was as per Windeledge Bridge, from 175mm wide PVC window board, from Wickes. The basic shapes were cut to size, pinned with stainless cladding nails/pins and glued together with Wickes plumber’s Solvent Cement (normally for use on plastic plumbing pipes). As the required size of the box was both longer and higher than the 175mm board width, the boards had to be joined somewhere. I decided that I would deviate from the construction of the original box at the back and make it as a complete brick structure all the way to the roof instead of the wooden construction of the upper back portion of the original.

This served my purpose better and made construction a little more straightforward. It was constructed with the window boarding running vertical, the 35mm turndown edge acting as the back/sides right angle corners, so the board could be cut to the full height of the back and the two boards be butt jointed in the middle with an off-cut overlapped, glued and pinned over the joint. The cladding nails/pins also help to hold the joints tight whilst the adhesive hardened. The front wall is a laminate of two layers, the inner layer made in the same way as the back and the outer layer was made with the board positioned so that the 175 mm width was set in the vertical, and the 35mm turndown, tucked under, acting both as stiffening and a part base to the building, allowing the full outer length to be in one piece. The full height was finally achieved by adding another strip to the top, glued and clamped in place against the inner layer whilst the adhesive hardened.

The sides were then cut to suit and the whole assembly pinned and glued and clamped together while bonding took place. Using the 35mm turndowns in this way, gives stiffness to the structure, both in the vertical and horizontal planes. As the outer walls are chamfered back at a 45º angle up to the main floor area, they were chamfered with a plane before fitting.

The inner layer had been reduced in thickness with a tenon saw, to 4mm, just below the window aperture (so that fitting the windows at a later date wouldn’t present a problem) and was also planed to match the wall top angle after fitting. The back of the corner uprights were also milled out of the 9 mm thick PVC to 4mm thickness, making an angle section. Before you tell me that you don’t have a milling machine, I also use saws, knives or any other method that is appropriate, to cut the boards to size and shape and in some cases to bevel or reduce the thickness with a plane, so you don’t really need a miller to do the job – since I have one, I make use of it.

The access door in the front wall was milled in – a simple, quick job in the plastic, and as with the hut on the hill, simply drawn to size and milled. I should have done this before I started assembly, but a senior moment grabbed me and I forgot. This meant that I had to set the box up on the mill table, which then meant that it overhung the table quite considerably on my little mill. This overhang now meant that I couldn’t access the main table feed wheel/handle to turn it.

This senior moment turned out to be, not a pain in the butt, but a godsend…for those yet to reach the point of having a senior moment, it went something like this: “Hmmm, problem. Now, if I use a screwdriver in the end screw that retains the handle wheel. Oooh, I wonder, why not use the drill/driver? Great, that works a treat. Now I have a variable power feed for the tables. Much easier and more consistent than winding by hand. Hmmmm, I can use this in future”

The loo/vestibule was moved from its original position on the prototype at the back of the box, to the end. As I said earlier, I also have a ground level 5in gauge track around the garden and it passes pretty close to the O gauge line at this point – exactly where the box was to fit - so if the loo was out the back as well, then you were likely to catch your ear on it when riding by- ouch.

The vestibule was made from off-cuts, again pinned and glued together and the door, as before, milled into the plastic and fitted in place later. As I said before, it is a quick and simple job to do – quicker than fabricating from styrene – and it’s not likely to come apart either.

An oblong hole was cut in the end panel for the access door - corner drilled, then cut in between with a junior hacksaw blade and a separate piece milled to the panelled door shape and glued in from the back. The roof was marked for the tiles and skrawked in. This took about an hour a panel to do and looks quite effective. The ridge tiles were made from the rounded edge of the turn down of the window ledge, sawn off and then planed on the underside to a V to fit between the roof panels, pinned and glued.

As I wanted the roof removable for future access to the cameras, I decided that the finials could be made as a nut and bolt assembly to hold it in place. They were made from 1/8 in square section nickel silver rod, turned in the lathe for the male and female parts. The securing plates on the gable end and the roof were made from 0.028in nickel silver sheet and these were pinned and glued into place with overlays of PVC off-cuts to strengthen the joints. The use of nickel silver for the finials on this model have prompted all future exterior building finials to be made from nickel silver – they are bird beak proof. Like the bridge pillar caps, seagulls, pigeons and the like love to peck away at them. So now, if you come across a bird with a bent beak, chances are he’s visited my railway.

The top windows in the gable ends were, once again, milled in and the planks skrawked, the final window woodwork being added from styrene strip. The gable ends were then pinned and glued in place. The barge boards were cut from 0.020in styrene sheet. All four half boards were bolted together through the ornamental holes, on to a 20swg mild steel pattern, and simply cut round and filed to finish. These were then glued into place on the ends of the finished roof along with the top weather strips.

The whole of the brick area of the structure was then clad in Slater’s plastikard, glued onto the outer walls, once again using plumber’s pipe adhesive. You have to work quickly with this stuff as like all solvent adhesive, it goes off quickly. And, a word of warning - try not to trap adhesive in the laminate as this will bubble up at a later date, causing all sorts of ugly warts and bubbles.

The lower stairs were mounted onto a separate PVC baseboard, skrawked for a paving finish. The support beams under the stairs were made from 1/8 in square section nickel silver, silver soldered together. A little note here; with any nickel silver or brass construction for outside use, I tend to silver solder rather than soft solder, wherever possible, as with the ravages of the weather, soft solder joints can tend to break apart occasionally. The bottom of these supports were drilled and tapped 8BA and the stairs constructed onto the PVC paving, the assembly being screwed from underneath onto the support board. This enables both the stairs assembly and the main building to be removed separately reducing the risk of damage to the stairs if either is removed.

The whole building was then painted and colour washed with acrylic paints and finally given a coat of exterior varnish – which unfortunately generally comes in gloss only, so a flatting agent is added to get a slightly matt finish - the ravages of the weather soon finish the job and create a full matte finish. CNC milled window frames, along with one of the sliding windows. Milled out acrylic slides on the backs of the opening windows. Note the sliding window with extended clear acrylic glazing.

Until now, the box (in use for a couple of years) had looked a good bit out of scale with just large slats at the top of the brickwork, denying the model its true sense of size, but the finishing touches sorted that.

The main window frames were made in four sections, CNC milled out of 5mm acrylic sheet. Each section is milled in one piece, including top and lower boards, which make them far stronger and a lot easier than fabricating.The windows were drawn up in CAD and converted into milling paths for the CNC Miller. Since I have a CNC miller, why not use it? If I hadn’t had one, then I would probably have either had them laser cut by one of the model laser cutting companies or I would have fabricated them from acrylic strip. I do tend to use the CNC Mill wherever I can, mainly for accuracy and repeatability.

The name boards are also CNC milled, from white on black, laminated plastic sheet, of the type used on electrical control panels. The frames were painted with acrylic paints and when well dry, suitably weathered using a much diluted mucky mix of acrylics, dabbed on with the aid of a washing-up sponge and left to run down and dry. The glazing of 1/16 in acrylic sheet, cut to be oversize by approximately half inch on the lower edge of the windows to enable secure fastening when glued in place and then simply attached to the back of the frames with MEK (methyl-ethyl-ketone).

The left-hand end window and the righthand side window had to be made to slide back to give a clear view for the cameras. The slides were manually milled from 8mm acrylic sheet. The windows were then attached from the inside of the building, which meant bonding acrylic to PVC, so plumbers pipe adhesive was used once again as per the main construction.

The balcony is made from 3mm brown acrylic sheet, as were the foot boards over the point rodding, suitably cut and skrawked to represent planking, the underside front edge being chamfered to give the effect of thinner planking. The rear edge of the acrylic board was drilled from the side, parallel to the top face, to accept stainless cladding pins, which are used to strengthen the glued joint between the balcony and the box. The railings are made from nickel silver wire, the uprights being threaded at the lower end, so that nuts and washers could be used to retain the railing to the balcony. The use of all these pins, nuts and threaded rod may seem a bit of overkill, but for anything used out in the garden, belt, braces and a big buckle are pretty much the order of the day. Buildings components for indoor use could just simply be glued together, but outside, birds, cats, squirrels and even the odd human being have to be accommodated.

The finished building is mounted over the cameras and held in place by three self tapping screws from underneath to a piece of PVC window board permanently attached to the camera mounting structure, so that it can be quickly and easily removed whenever needed.

And finally The building has now been out in the garden for over 3 years and has stood up to all kinds of weather in that time, with very little or no damage from flying debris or even the birds that peck in the night and into the bargain have protected the CCTV cameras as well. Whilst I shall still use resin for platform edges and small buildings and the like, the excellent long-term results of this method of construction has now prompted me to make every large building outside by the same method.

Windows in place with the left front window slid back to give a clear view for the camera.