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A little tip on adding "snow" to your model work...
I found that baking soda sifted carefully onto the scene, makes the best snow. It has a subtle sparkle to it and it vacuums up easily if you watch the humidity. It does seem to have an adverse affect on Mini-Metals chrome. Not long after this shot, the chrome plating disappeared slowly...hubcaps, bumpers and all..., until there wasn't a trace left. Hummm...?
I saw this old school marvel a couple of weeks ago at the invitation of its owner. The layout is 35 years old and runs on basic DC using block and cab control. It features handlaid Code 100 nickle silver rail. This weekend I've been invited to an operation session using vintage (30-40 year old) locomotives.
I took this shot at my first visit...I hope to take a few more as we run the vintage steam.
...summer of 1984. Sifting through a storage unit revealed some pics I took 26 years ago when I had better eyes and a bigger budget. I started it in 1983, just before I went to NCO school. It was a single track folded dog bone that went under itself. Built it from job site scraps so I could concentrate on motive power and rolling stock. You could have had a brawl on it and it wouldn't have dinged a rail. Just before I went into Bible College in '90, I left model railroading for about 2 years and donated the whole smack to a local club. Still see bits and pieces of it all over their N-trak and permanent layout.
The Eastern Shore Line was a mythical operation that theoretically ran the length of the Delaware/Maryland/Virginia Peninsula. Locals like to think of it as the state of Delmarva. Please forgive the yellowed and grainy pictures.
Once in Berlin Yard, we find a New Haven Pacific wondering where the heck are we?....My roads were done with 400 grit emery cloth with seams finished with plastic model putty. Once down, I'd paint the lines and go over it all with Dulcote.
Route 113 is two lanes through Maryland. Here it is passing the ESL Berlin Yard office to the left and Harrison Hall hotel to the right. That Pacific was an Atlas product and quite a good runner, one of my best locos and capable of pulling a string of 15 cars up the 3% grade into town.
That bus was a Wiking product I picked up on a whim. When I realized how European it was, it was too late to return it, so it became my first foray into Prototypical Plausibility Stretching 101.
The ESL's one bridge over what was since named Confederate Gap, near the town of Snow Hill, a quiet reminder of where the Peninsula's sympathies lay back then. In 1986, the remains of a Confederate soldier were found near there and buried with full military honors some time later. (True story, only the location has been changed) My bridge was built one piece at a time, in place, with trains in operation. I would glue the ties directly to the bottom of the rails and, once halfway across, removed any temporary support. A little hairy for my LPBs but, it kept the trains rolling.
Looking east into Berlin Yard and Roswells Processing Plant....
A glimpse of my control panel can be found in this shot, built on company time in the sheet metal shop My two most faithful runners, a Life-Like F unit and a Con Cor PA (gee, I miss them, sigh) idling at the ESL's Selbyville servicing facility. As seen on the panel, with some clever positioning of track, I was able to stuff in a 3 track mainline on a layout only 2'6" x 3'8" in size.
The last shot shows Route 113 passing through farm country. The gray house to the right was one of my first scratchbuild projects, a farmhouse built in a crumbling condition, using cardboard and split match sticks. It is in the first picture, shown with the junkyard that grew around it. One can barely make out Bubba's puddytat standing on the railing of the house on the left. My trees were lichen spray painted dark green then rolled around in a box of ground foam, then poked onto a twig trunk. Hope you enjoyed this little excursion into my modeling past.
The story goes about a man who found himself surrounded by rising flood waters with no means to escape. Being a godly man he turned to God in prayer for deliverance.
Shortly a gentleman in a high stepping 4x4 offered to drive him out. "No thank you," said the man, "...I've asked God to deliver me from this flood." The truck departed and the floods rose higher.
Soon, a gentleman in a boat came along, offering to float him out of the flood. Again he said, "No thank you kind sir, I've asked God to deliver me from these rising waters." The boater departed and the floods rose higher still, forcing the man to seek refuge on his roof.
With that, a rescue helicopter came along, offering him the last chance to be rescued before the floods overcame his roof. Again he declined, shouting, "God shall deliver me!" as the waters slowly overtook him.
When he drowned, he was greatly relieved to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus but somewhat distressed as to how he got there. "Lord, I've always been faithful to wait on you for everything...why could you not answer my call to be delivered from that flood?" With a loving look that can only come from God towards His beloved redeemed ones, He said, "I sent a truck, a boat and a helicopter to you---weren't they enough?"
Now...what's all that got to do with R/C planes?
In the last two years, I have been given no less than four complete R/C plane kits. "No thank you," I says to myself, "...a minister of the Gospel has precious little time to pursue such things, model trains are hobby enough and I'm blessed at that." At which I dutifully send them down the road to someone else.
A windfall of R/C parts and engines (three engines no less) comes my way..."Aye, " I says, "...a great way to pay for my children's Christmas as a minister of the Gospel has no time for such frivolous things."
Another windfall of R/C parts comes my way, AND a boat load of tools specifically designed for building and finishing these balsa beasts. "Nay," say I, "...but, I can use these in my model train endeavours because---after all---I am a wise and frugal model train person/minister of the Gospel."
Then this shows up on my doorstep...
Yes, it needs a bit of TLC...but...I have all the pieces necessary (even the muffler) to fix it up---remember the parts windfall earlier?
It is so easy to over spiritualize our walk of faith...
Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. (John 6:28-29)
And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. (Colossians 3:17)
So...I don't know about you, but I will continue in the track (or airfield) laid before me and glory not in what I can or cannot do in Him and do what I do in these pursuits as unto the Lord.
Say...is that a Futaba 4 channel radio I see over there at that yard sale table?
NOTE TO NEWCOMERS: It took almost 35 years to put that together...one tool at a time and at yard sales, train shows, auctions and flea markets. You don't need them all yesterday...
...hey, this counts as a kit.
Down here in hurricane country, this is your kitchen, so you jump at any and all discounts. In my case, I bought the base grill as a well weathered outdoor floor display, the monies saved went to all the trimmings.
My grilled salmon is revered by all, my name spoken in hushed, reverential tones by even the best local chefs. A drizzle of olive oil, some salt and pepper, grill it for three minutes on each side, then let it rest on a plate covered in heavy foil for 15 minutes...
Well, what do you offer your guests after a ops session---coffee and donuts?
...in 1955. From page 124-125 in the book "Model Railroading", written by Harry Zarchy, in the chapter "MAKING SCENERY", here's what is suggested for covering your window screen wire mountains...
"Ordinary asbestos furnace cement can also be used. Mix the powdered cement to a putty-like consistency, adding a little water at a time. Apply it to the screen with a putty knife, or your hands, modeling it at the same time as though it were clay. Do one small section at a time...Powdered asbestos is sometimes mixed with Portland cement or plaster of Paris to make a covering for wire screening."
Been a while since you could go down to your local hardware store and pick up a bag of asbestos powder...
Apparently it was a readily available and popular modeling medium back then. From a caption under a picture on page 26 in the book "Scenery for Model Railroads" by Bill McClanahan...
Andy _____ uses a mixture of 20 parts asbestos powder, 2 parts plaster of paris, 1 parts paper hanger's wheat paste, 9 parts water (all by volume) to make tacky plaster that he applied to screen with wet fingers...
I tend to buy most of my figures as unpainted castings. This way I can modify them as I see fit so that there is no repetition in poses. The girl on the pier is a composite made from no less than three figures, the embracing couple is done with five. I make a plastic putty from the casting sprues by dissolving them in Testor's Plastic Glue. I apply lumps of it where I'd like to add hair or enhance features, allow it to harden about 24 hours, then carve it to shape and paint. My workbench can look like Frankenstein's lab at times...
...and I thought my stack of modeling magazines taking over the head was pushing it.
My inner 13 year old would have a small locomotive mechanism inside of a rubber rat.
Yeah, I know...too cool...
...beats Hogwart's Express any day.
Not exactly the Christmas train around your granpappy's tree, is it?
I took this one several years ago and could kick myself for not keeping the original shot, it just screams Norfolk and Southern...
Is there really a need to explain why I like this one?
Eastbound and down loaded up and truckin
Ah we gonna do what they say can't be done
We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there
I'm eastbound just watch old bandit run...
The definition of poverty in America is a rather loose one. My car is 14 years old, I rent and I make several thousand less a year than the powers that be say I should therefore we fall within that definition---in the eyes of some. As one who sponsors missionaries in a third world nation, the picture of my two children, warm, dry, fed, healthy and gleefully tearing through their small pile of presents, was not one of poverty. Because we don't spend a whole lot or allow requests for a particular gift or buy big ticket items, our children could not tell you from one year to the next how we were doing financially based on what lay under the tree.
This year, like most, found my beloved and I facing whether we'd allow ourselves any gifts, preferring to have a little more under the tree for our children. Unlike years past though, there were no last second "rescues" and thus no gifts. However, with a son bouncing off the walls, light saber in one hand, Nerf gun in the other, and a daughter vibrating from the excitement of landing an impossible to find doll and her own mp3 player, one would be hard pressed to say that we had no "gifts" for each other yesterday.
Then my beloved and her mom ran off to the bedroom with a twinkle in their eyes. Out they came with a large something covered with a blanket. Pulling it away, I found my wife had, on her own, made a custom fitted cover for my diorama, using foam core art board, hot glue and some aluminum angle. My artwork had been taking a serious beating lately (note the church steeple and the trees behind it), enough that I pondered dismantling it to save what was left. Now it is protected and freestanding, with velcro securing it on all four corners...
Pictures don't do it justice, it really is a well built, tight fitting lightweight cover that will allow me to bring my work to local train shows, as well as keep it protected as I use it for a photo set.
And yes...I got to sneak in some of her favorite dried dates and candies...I kinda pity those who only got what they wanted this year.
...features ceramic houses and figures made by my mother over the years and dimestore decorations I've known since I was a child.
The LGB locomotive, cars and track were an amazing yard sale find.
...here at the B&MC Railroad shops.
This year I'll be taking the regular layout around to several locations that include at least one children's ward and one nursing home. I'll be setting up my LGB 0-4-0 Stainz locomotive and two coaches around my own tree this year.
This will give me an opportunity to place my mother's handmade ceramic houses under the tree to be enjoyed. She's also made an exceptional ceramic Santa collection, I'll have to see if there is room for those as well.
