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Grandview station
I'm currently working on two American layouts. The new Potomac Street a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad station set in the Washington suburbs and Grandview an Alaskan Railroad station. Work on Grandview is a conversion from circular to end to end and improvements to the passenger facilities. When looking for a suitable prototype for the station I was pleased to find that the real Grandview had a makeover in 2006-7 as part of the Whistle Stop Service in Chugach National Forest (below for details).
The facilities are generous with toilets, two shelters, notice boards and bins. These station facilities seemed adequate for Potomac Street. All fired up I tried to order the styrene I needed from Hatton's. Unfortunately the roofing styrene was out of stock. The next problem was a careful measure showed that the platforms on both layouts were too narrow to take even the planned compressed version of Grandview. I therefore was reduced to British style bus stop shelters. To Americanise them I used board and baton walls and tar paper (felt) roofs. The felt is fine wet and dry was cut to 8 by 4 sheets before being stuck on. This gives a more prototypical appearance but is a tad tedious but not as bad as the headend house on Willis Bluff that had over 200 sheets. I painted Grandview's in the nearest colour I could find to the prototype and Potomac Street is painted in B&O cream. Some years ago I asked Earnest what was the best paint for my felt roofs. He told me of a specialist paint with aluminium powder that floats to the surface when setting giving a reflective surface that makes the felt last longer. If it was helpful in tropical Epsom it would be even more appropriate in Washington. Hence the garish roof. I then added homemade posters extolling the Chugach Forest and the B&O. The huts were then stuck on the layouts and details added. I was Spartan with details as neither station would see many passengers.
The Whistle Stop Service
is designed encourage tourism in the Chugach National Forest. The work includes
providing five stops between Portage and Seaward with stations and a double deck
DMU the Chugach Explorer to run the service. The DMU is impressive it seats 185,
has space for 125 standees, and a snack bar. So that the public get a good view
of the scenery the explorer has panoramic windows on the upper floor and on both
floors fore and aft windows something we have missed since the withdrawal of the
first generation DMUs. Why can't we have similar for our scenic lines?
