On the Layout: Spring Cleaning

There's been a building on the layout that has needed some TLC since it was placed in the Don Valley scene. The model of the Toronto Hydro substation on the corner of Gerrard St. East and Blackburn Street started out on my childhood layout.  It's Woodland Scenics's City Cab Co. building. 

Image from the Woodland Scenics webpage

    I did a little kitbashing to make this building fit the space I needed it to fit in.  I ended up taking the two parts of the building apart.  The garage part is in the GO Transit Don Valley yard.  The two-story section became the Toronto Hydro building.  I've always liked the scene.  The substation is an old Walthers resin kit and the structure fits perfectly between the highway overpass and the substation.  It's just always needed to be repainted, and the roof needed to be repaired.  I did both during my vacation this spring. 

    Using an image off of Google Maps, I saw that the Blackburn St. building was two colors.  What would a modeler be without Google Maps?  

Google Map image taken from the Don Valley Parkway

    I spray painted the entire structure with a flat red primer, and the bottom third, along with the roof trim, was spray painted a flat khaki.  I then hand painted the window frames railroad tie brown.  Clear styrene was glued to the window frames and then covered with Woodland Scenics' Light Defusing Window Film.  The roof was repainted a flat black and reinforced, so the center stopped sagging.  I added a triangular prism on the roof that also appears on the actual building (there are two on the real thing).   A MiniPrints security camera was added to the corner of the building.  Although I consider the project done; I'd like to order some lights for the exterior.  Here's the finished product.