Waihao Forks - Setting the Scene

Am_Fet Postulates:

After the baseboards triumphant return from its southern sojourn, the next task was to work out where all the scenic features were going to go.

A meeting was hastily convened at the monthly club night with plans and photos in abundance.  Some mad rash fool started scribbling with a pencil, and by the end of the evening we had the beginnings of what (we hope) will be a very attractive scene.

And...no one had a camera to record the moment...Doh!

So instead, lets revisit my favourite photo of the station from the 1920's:

The three structures that really anchor the scene are the goods shed, the stock yards and the pub.  The goods shed was a stock 60' by 30' shed but with a strangely steep pitched roof.  As it was a known size, it became the "anchor structure" of the whole precinct, meaning it was sited first and we used its place to position the minor structures that related to it, such as the station platform and shelter shed and the loading bank.

Then onto the pub (what a grand idea!).  As the building was separated from the precinct by the road, we first needed to make an arbitrary decision on what looked like the acceptable width for a 1950's metaled country road.  Once this was drawn in, the pub was located in relation to the goods shed and station shelter.  It became apparent that the pub will need to be "split" at the baseboard edge, but discussions came up with a good way to make the most of the situation.

The stock yards were next.  We made a call on the position of the stock loading race and then drew the rest of the yards in position based on this.  As with the pub, the position of the road was critical and this was also drawn in.

The final structure to complete the scene is that non-descript corrugated iron shed on the roadside past the pub.  It will serve as a counterpoint to the obvious railway designed structures, being a simple rural shed seen in thousands of places around the country.

Final job was to rough in where the scenic landforms will sit.  There is a perceptible dip to the left of the track in the photo as well as the small hill the photo was taken from to include.  numerous lines were scribbled until something believable was deemed to be acceptable.

Apologies for all the words (lack of photos of the process is a bug bear) but I thought it was important to record how the process went.

And to finish off, here is a more recent photo from Joe Wallace.....its a brilliant photo for landscape detail.  The old loading bank and road can still be seen, and the roadbed leading up the hill to Mcleans can be discerned climbing up out of shot to the top right.