A Goods Shed for Wee Waa

The afternoon passenger train back to Narrabri awaits its departure from Wee Waa. . . a cloudless day, no doubt blazing hot. The residents sure could use a little Ray Pilgrim Photoshop sky complete with cooling thunderstorm!

Moving right along with the Wee Waa structure project. Got most of the station completed, and turned my attention to a "standard" 60' NSWGR goods shed. Many of the sheds, especially in rural areas, were built to a standardized plan, but with many variations such as length, type of roof, and the attached office. Wee Waa was no exception.

The goods shed is another piece built from Evergreen styrene. Windows and doors were salvaged from the "on hand" pile. I've still got to build a ramp for the good citizens to wheel their goods up to the top of the platform. The building isn't weathered yet, and I'll need to weather the timber base as well as replace a couple of the pilings that have been knocked off. But it certainly looks the part, doesn't it? (Chris Nelson's website has a photo of the actual item, circa 1975).



Here's the "Country Railway Stations of NSW" view of Wee Waa. Seems the station master gotten fed up with the Galahs crapping all over his Holden and has chopped the big shade tree down. He's wearing a regulation white shirt since being written up by the inspector for wearing a non-standard green shirt on the last surprise visit. Still has to put a blue hat on, though. . .

Since our last visit, I decided on painting the station a faded shade of the standard station yellow used into to the 1970s. The actual station by the period I model--1978-82--was painted in a very light gray with white trim. . .utilitarian, and cheap to paint, no doubt, but rather drab! So, I'll throw prototype adherence to the wind in this case. I hand-painted a couple of light layers of a cheap acrylic paint found at local craft mega-stores and Wal-Mart, the Ceramcoat brand. $1.39 a bottle. The shade is "Butter Cream," and it looks like the faded yellow structures found throughout the Country Railway Stations of NSW books. I brushed it on since I was too lazy to haul the air compressor upstairs and set up the airbrush! But it went on smooth and even.

Much yet to do; my Sentinel 5-tonne goods crane has been assembled and it's just looking for an appropriate concrete base. And that station building needs a good earthen bank to sit atop; then there's the load bank, and . . . .well, enough to keep me busy.

All for now. It's approaching midnight, and "real world" railroading calls in 6 1/2 hours.