Building sets for large scale modelling tend to be very expensive. Luckily my layout will not be very huge, so a smaller station will fit there just fine. That's why I went for a medium sized structure - PIKO 62040 "Rosenbach". The official price for this item is 144 €. Luckily it can be picked on Ebay for much, much less. That's where I made my purchase and a few days later a rather large box has arrived.
The size and weight of the kit were the first surprise to me. I did not expect anything small but this is really much, much bigger and heavier than any building kit I ever built. I guess I should get used to it, now that I'm starting to think seriously about my G-Scale layout.
Let's open the box. It contains two smaller boxes with parts, a lot of "protection paper", manuals, stickers, a bag with foliage and two tubes of glue.
The manual is rather short. It describes the entire build in just 14 steps. But it's also very clear and the small number of steps allows the assembler to easily notice patterns in the included parts.
Several sets of stickers are provided with the kit and they're in different languages, too. Transparent plastic parts for window glass and paper curtain imitations are also available.
Here are all the plastic elements. They're all big and solid-looking. No tiny details like in the N-Scale kits. This is going to be fun!
The base element (the floor) is not provided though. You have to buy one extra or come up with your own solution.
Unfortunately even with all this careful packaging, one part still got damaged during transport. Luckily it's not a huge problem in the large scale. Such damage can be easily fixed.
Let's start the build. The first step is assembling the walls. Here are the results of my first afternoon's activities. Very easy to assemble but also very glue consuming. The first included glue tube is already gone at this point.
After the second afternoon some of the walls are already erected and connected together. Window decorations are there, too. I also started working on the front roof and the chimneys.
Afternoon number three and we've got a building already. At this point I'm very impressed by how well everything fits together. For example: the roof installation requires several elements to slide into each other. It looks complicated at first, but then you try it and... it just works.
Oh, I'm out of glue already at this point. Luckily I've bought some more beforehand.
After the fourth afternoon, the building is complete. All that is left is the appliance of the stickers. The only part that did not fit perfectly is the front grey roof. I'm still not sure why that happened but it should definitely be aligned with the walls much better. Might be I did something wrong there...
Now for the stickers... Those are provided in English, German and French. I'm not surprised Polish ones are not available, so I'm just making my own.
My stickers are just printouts on a slightly thicker than regular paper. They're not weather resistant. So I cover them all with several layers of a clear lacquer that is supposed to provide the protection from moist and sun. If the product shown below does half of what is advertised on the box, my stickers will last forever.
So let's take a look at the final result. I have to say I really like what I've built.
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Summary
I had a lot of fun building the set. And the outcome is very satisfying, too. It's a very simple and not a very big train station but it seems perfect for a start. It will act as my main building on my new layout and I'll definitely extend it with a platform and interior lighting. The thing I'm worried about are my stickers, but luckily those are easily replaceable.Pros:
- easy and fun build
- parts fit perfectly
- clear manual
- some glue provided
- reasonable price (on Ebay)
- no base element
- not enough glue
- very high official price
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