tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36691963679689094612024-02-20T15:03:57.211-08:00MP Railway"The First Transition Era - Wood to Steel"MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-90599196543441421992021-08-04T06:02:00.001-07:002021-08-04T06:02:33.359-07:00Malcolm Furlow's San Juan Central - A Rare Survivor<p> Not many model railroads outlive their creators. Fortunately, this one hasn't, but has survived several changes of ownership and multiple moves, and has come to rest at least temporarily at the <a href="https://www.californiarailroad.museum/">California State Railroad Museum</a>, thanks to the generosity of Bob Brown of the <a href="https://ngslgazette.com/">Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette</a>, the current owner. </p><p style="text-align: left;">Malcolm Furlow's San Juan Central, built as a project railroad for <a href="https://www.trains.com/mrr/">Model Railroader</a>, is a rare exception. Interestingly, the engine servicing facility section (identified in the plans and articles as "Montrose") bears a striking resemblance to pictures of the "Cascade Creek" section of his original Denver & Rio Chama Western. On this section of the railroad, as on others, the scenery is used judiciously to split the railroad up into sections, with trees, hills, or buildings providing a sense of separation between the portions of the railroad. This furthers two purposes: it makes the layout seem larger than it is, and it makes the discrete scenes easier to photograph, since a hill or a line of trees, properly positioned, make an effective compositional element and prevent other scenes from crowding into the shot.</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyADGVetF2WMRZAbh3_oxPPZSyBN8p7eaRKDyzs5Zd_jGAkdJ-3TnIJAUS5uuhf5EEqWTqRr-kG8Oc8Bsf2vXgjo0aUoSOdKJR_dAwsEMX7FkgONdHj2irXwq6CUYwqj_7EnVlLvBQL6nX/s2048/4F38BBC3-0CC3-431F-ACD1-B6B3FDA0CCCA.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyADGVetF2WMRZAbh3_oxPPZSyBN8p7eaRKDyzs5Zd_jGAkdJ-3TnIJAUS5uuhf5EEqWTqRr-kG8Oc8Bsf2vXgjo0aUoSOdKJR_dAwsEMX7FkgONdHj2irXwq6CUYwqj_7EnVlLvBQL6nX/s320/4F38BBC3-0CC3-431F-ACD1-B6B3FDA0CCCA.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Montrose Yard</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One of the most remarkable aspects of the layout is the sheer amount of visual interest that's packed into a small space. Even thought I have his book, and have a good visceral idea of how much space it takes up, my instinctive reaction on first viewing it was how small it seemed. Stepping back to take a couple of views, I got a good sense for how much is packed into a very small space.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLYYa9KcEd5-Ao5EWdT3eRlffX1D4TLVuC_I-I-0uNZDJhovxwGTk19dNHrJSL2CQDMA9HRWZOLnjTMkJDe5swvIcOX_xEtQYW9Uk-sxM-NNKyTtlVGml8CRgAU_wNPodJRt_k0HZD-Ouu/s2048/7E33E08C-7E33-4F18-B5DD-191B10A74A1B.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLYYa9KcEd5-Ao5EWdT3eRlffX1D4TLVuC_I-I-0uNZDJhovxwGTk19dNHrJSL2CQDMA9HRWZOLnjTMkJDe5swvIcOX_xEtQYW9Uk-sxM-NNKyTtlVGml8CRgAU_wNPodJRt_k0HZD-Ouu/w320-h240/7E33E08C-7E33-4F18-B5DD-191B10A74A1B.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Station and buildings at "Tincup"</td></tr></tbody></table><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In spite of its comparatively small size, the vertical scenery limits your ability to survey the entire layout from any one point, even if you stand back a bit. The picture above and the picture below were taken from opposite sides of the "lobe" that holds Tincup - but the hill makes a very effective scenic divide, with each isolated from the other.</div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></blockquote></div></blockquote><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHL-DWJrbbrMLvaXTziFg3JcluPviq1nccZ0pUuBO6uxN5k2gOxZ_f2JojD1CWT-CofB7NyYVaIsGJqR6Y1HzudedO9iVYf2IevbEEKTicc2QJcVdxlHDYIhl6SnYPI2J_8To9pLLXur9/s2048/8B742B48-719F-47B0-ACAE-222BF978D8D1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHL-DWJrbbrMLvaXTziFg3JcluPviq1nccZ0pUuBO6uxN5k2gOxZ_f2JojD1CWT-CofB7NyYVaIsGJqR6Y1HzudedO9iVYf2IevbEEKTicc2QJcVdxlHDYIhl6SnYPI2J_8To9pLLXur9/s320/8B742B48-719F-47B0-ACAE-222BF978D8D1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Although the layout is not big, the vertical scenery helps to disguise the fact</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">While Malcolm used many commercial structures, he also built his own bridges, and expended considerable effort to ensure that they "fit" the terrain - not just in the sense that they are carefully embedded in the ground, but they fit our image of the era. He was willing to take that so far as to use lumber of smaller-than-scale size to create an impression of "spindliness" in the viewer. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomyrUNIvk_9V1h8ldDCPd0rq9-hjW_eFQVVxWbUF-HsimekiBLSfrB6Q-zfKXyRD2g5bIQnxsNF5H0t4RMRrNbUgKpktUJ-fZ7JSABKxH8ORZDWePGV-fX3PFnbKZEeRxZwvgHK18nV-S/s2048/29B1CCBE-8A79-43B4-B860-99CF4DF2A374.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomyrUNIvk_9V1h8ldDCPd0rq9-hjW_eFQVVxWbUF-HsimekiBLSfrB6Q-zfKXyRD2g5bIQnxsNF5H0t4RMRrNbUgKpktUJ-fZ7JSABKxH8ORZDWePGV-fX3PFnbKZEeRxZwvgHK18nV-S/s320/29B1CCBE-8A79-43B4-B860-99CF4DF2A374.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fascia boards subtly emphasize the elevation changes</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Furlow's great scenic interest has always been vertical terrain and its concomitants - pine forests, white water, and the slopes, peaks, and gulches of the Southwest. Using foam and a great deal of effort, he managed to avoid one of the great scenic problems of the typical layout - the effect of a tabletop.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixnHEaUOCZd6YY-gt1J5Uy7jI5ZFQQTBTv7acrxAI8fW2WmYM7l5amBn3yL-4abY__gs4xFzA5HQLo5a3AVETlcsVnGCeDzyXHJUlY2l9lNoo4W5GDA91IzkFbVd3BAVUgukLFUrCchBvI/s2048/43A0E715-F571-4AE6-945A-18C4FDA89297.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixnHEaUOCZd6YY-gt1J5Uy7jI5ZFQQTBTv7acrxAI8fW2WmYM7l5amBn3yL-4abY__gs4xFzA5HQLo5a3AVETlcsVnGCeDzyXHJUlY2l9lNoo4W5GDA91IzkFbVd3BAVUgukLFUrCchBvI/s320/43A0E715-F571-4AE6-945A-18C4FDA89297.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Consistency of finish helps to create a unified scene</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Because it was envisioned as a project layout, virtually all of the structures come from kit sources, and are recognizable as such. They range from the ubiquitous and highly adaptable Woodland Scenics cast building kits, like the yellow structure in the picture above, to the high-end Scale Structures Miners' Union Hall and Rick's Place, both adapted to fit into the small pie-shaped wedge of buildings at the center of this picture. Some were classic shake-the-box kits, like the AHM Rico station in the picture below, which was shorn of its baggage room. Probably no more than $9.95 back in the 1980s, good preparatory work and attention to the finish of the building ensure that it "fits" seamlessly in with the more expensive and elaborate craftsman kits.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrEUow1TTCrovXtj40fA6yRkwdjEma6LryTWJL-DOwOveK5U-n5WrnBdIUrJRu-CdsBNeP8QUk9D_OJsXgHSFFuJGUQgqr_PB8h8FMYJ2AnyC3h8nzJi7S5P0aZdV89KQcdfKQ6nZG4sl/s2048/787D8CD9-B92D-4493-AA3C-2596EC3B8B91.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrEUow1TTCrovXtj40fA6yRkwdjEma6LryTWJL-DOwOveK5U-n5WrnBdIUrJRu-CdsBNeP8QUk9D_OJsXgHSFFuJGUQgqr_PB8h8FMYJ2AnyC3h8nzJi7S5P0aZdV89KQcdfKQ6nZG4sl/s320/787D8CD9-B92D-4493-AA3C-2596EC3B8B91.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Station at Tincup</td></tr></tbody></table>Almost the only completely level space in the photo above is at track level - a phenomenon that aficionados of Colorado railroading will recognize. The bridge on the other size of the scene is the centerpiece of the kind of modeling he liked best - high mountains, deep chasms, water and bridges. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy45n3QHLSZf88b5Um1b467HvXiRFpn3BpOQ8WIT3WPhEgN38JziQz2Z2CSD7a_j3Gou0Xzbm8M6O1JZxeOtzfblU9uL3NOeEtJd8j6b5xW9ajb0wcjEmuL8RIqoHbSaIBBDsktxdreTz0/s2048/7994669F-517F-44D8-81C4-145E4C7E9D3C.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy45n3QHLSZf88b5Um1b467HvXiRFpn3BpOQ8WIT3WPhEgN38JziQz2Z2CSD7a_j3Gou0Xzbm8M6O1JZxeOtzfblU9uL3NOeEtJd8j6b5xW9ajb0wcjEmuL8RIqoHbSaIBBDsktxdreTz0/s320/7994669F-517F-44D8-81C4-145E4C7E9D3C.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">He was never averse to using commercial products if they suited his needs, and the Montrose yard is a good example of how it can be done without a great expenditure of money. I am not ordinarily a fan of commercial backdrops, but I found the blending of the old <a href="https://www.walthers.com/">Walthers</a> mountain scene into the foreground to be a surprisingly effective effort.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp8wn-nzDhg4QuwnzFhcz-hzVxiIckaHucjynqYKZvUZuYYvBQ2o_ZJTVag6y5Di8wVVLuv748X1vR_nuBz6H39QCrohuopkI3SbNwQjWJq6tHMugo1IUxj5XVm-6H9V61RwsXCPQbayXG/s2048/A91FCBBC-52F3-4BF5-B89F-5EC277646AD6.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp8wn-nzDhg4QuwnzFhcz-hzVxiIckaHucjynqYKZvUZuYYvBQ2o_ZJTVag6y5Di8wVVLuv748X1vR_nuBz6H39QCrohuopkI3SbNwQjWJq6tHMugo1IUxj5XVm-6H9V61RwsXCPQbayXG/s320/A91FCBBC-52F3-4BF5-B89F-5EC277646AD6.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Atlas turntable at Montrose is an inexpensive and space-conserving solution</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I spent a lot of time looking at the layout and making the mental notes that would turn into this article. The layout repays close study, and there is a lot to be learned about the design and building of scenery from it. While it has never been a surprise to me that <a href="http://gdlines.org/GDLines/index.html">John Allen</a> started out as an artist, after viewing this layout I can see how Malcolm Furlow <a href="https://www.invaluable.com/artist/furlow-malcolm-ueg5hphx7v/">ended up as one</a> - because in this project layout, he created something that was designed to be viewed, photographed, and enjoyed, and he did it very successfully. I'm grateful to Bob Brown and to all of the other people whose efforts allowed this layout to survive so that the public can enjoy Malcolm's artistry.</p>MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-77586836709090124122021-07-08T12:49:00.000-07:002021-07-08T12:49:13.186-07:00Building A Fleet<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Last month's Model Railroader article on freelancing made me think the topic of freelancing a fleet might be of interest to period modelers. Over the last year or so, I have been working on developing a fleet that looks like a fleet. It's proverbially the case that most equipment on a railroad belongs to that railroad, and that was even more the case a century ago than it is today. When traffic was mostly short-haul, the cars stayed closer to home, and to give a freelanced layout the look of an actual railroad, it's important that you should have a lot of cars that carry your railroad's name and logo.</div><p></p><p>You can certainly slap decals on cars, but one thing to remember is that every railroad changes its presentation over time - so no fleet is completely homogeneous. Railroads vary their liveries, logos, mottoes and color palettes over time, so even a fleet of home-road cars can be pretty varied. Here's my take on how I tried to capture the look of a fleet over time. One caveat: still at the stage where equipment comes on and off the layout fairly frequently, so nothing yet has been weathered, just painted, lettered, and covered with a protective lacquer layer to preserve the paint. </p><p><b>Beginning (mid-1870s)</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpIgXf0ycDtNgda_YhkMUNPmTodamkZMiCkDJUDQiWN_Cr_U3SC4VhYQeisipV_y58-Slbt6OexSIIWXuP_E-gxl_9pldxEBYSJ4ieap7gr1MyCb1YJTnoH7qy7XsSESEgxk39BTE8aM72/s2048/6AC8701B-CAF5-435B-9541-2D8B28C32C58.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpIgXf0ycDtNgda_YhkMUNPmTodamkZMiCkDJUDQiWN_Cr_U3SC4VhYQeisipV_y58-Slbt6OexSIIWXuP_E-gxl_9pldxEBYSJ4ieap7gr1MyCb1YJTnoH7qy7XsSESEgxk39BTE8aM72/s320/6AC8701B-CAF5-435B-9541-2D8B28C32C58.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Early equipment markings were sparse, to say the least: usually just reporting marks and a car number. These two cars were built from <a href="http://www.btsrr.com/">BTS</a> <a href="http://www.btsrr.com/bts9507.htm">USMRR kits</a> with <a href="https://www.riograndemodels.com/">Rio Grande Models</a> 5' trucks. The decaling is reflective of the practices of the Central Pacific and other western carriers of that pre-1870 era: very minimal markings, and little or no guidance to the shipper or operating crews about things like load and capacity limits or clearances. With a monochromatic scheme (<a href="https://www.minutemanscalemodels.com/category-s/127.htm">Scalecoat</a> <a href="https://www.minutemanscalemodels.com/product-p/10026.htm">Oxide Red</a>), <a href="http://www.microscale.com/">MicroScale</a> <a href="http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Session_ID=f1fffd645653cec6eb435c175a76f64f&Screen=PROD&Product_Code=90001&Store_Code=MD&search=railroad+roman&offset=&filter_cat=&PowerSearch_Begin_Only=&sort=&range_low=&range_high=">Railroad Roman</a> decal sheets provided most of the individual lettering for these cars (and most of the others on this page). Applying individual letters is a time-consuming process and demands care and concentration, but if done properly, it can give a very good look on a sheathed wooden side. Key to the process is the finish: I start with Scalecoat paint, which gives a glossy finish, always essential for decals. I use a decal softener (usually something heavy on the vinegar, like Micro-Set decal softening solution, and use <a href="https://www.walthers.com/">Walthers</a> <a href="https://www.walthers.com/solvaset-decal-setting-solvent-2oz-59-1ml-bottle">Solvaset</a> (which is the strongest solvent I have found) to dissolve the decal film and hold the decal in place; a good absorbent cloth to blot the excess fluid is essential. Once all the decaling is complete, I put on a flat coat (<a href="https://www.walthers.com/dullcote-clear-finish-3oz-88-7ml-spray-can">Testors Dullcote</a> or a similar product) to remove the sheen and cover the decal film. <div><p><b>Maximilist and Minimalist (late 1870s-early 1880s)</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDSUAxTyVGpxbEwnYiHDuUVhcPbSsxFO95E-adFfCuTwP4O6PybLl5cziVqbID58CjhRvFAZTr4E-ABTiO29NySq_X7TMXj7nY5DV6jZQicbd69dqUhLzkzSKT23V1UWbmN9s3h5k0UH4W/s2048/61D04D75-3DA5-48BB-A86F-BB491E74733E.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDSUAxTyVGpxbEwnYiHDuUVhcPbSsxFO95E-adFfCuTwP4O6PybLl5cziVqbID58CjhRvFAZTr4E-ABTiO29NySq_X7TMXj7nY5DV6jZQicbd69dqUhLzkzSKT23V1UWbmN9s3h5k0UH4W/s320/61D04D75-3DA5-48BB-A86F-BB491E74733E.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>These two cars have liveries that are typical of the late 1870s-early 1880s. Boxcars tended to be simpler, because they were built in large numbers, so the lettering on this one closely follows elements of that in this sample model on the website of the kit maker, also BTS.<div><br />Refrigerator cars, on the other hand, were individually built at a cost that would have bought multiple boxcars, so they got the fanciest schemes that the Gilded Age could devise. The car itself is scratchbuilt roughly to a set of diagrams for a 28' refrigerator car in the 1879 "Car Builders' Dictionary." The livery was applied one laborious letter at a time, and closely mimics a D&RG scheme from the early 1880s that is featured in Bob Sloan's "<a href="http://www.quickpicbooks.com/files/2ndcent10/2ndCent_10.html">A Century Plus Ten Years of D&RGW Freight Cars</a>." Only the font is different, since I used <a href="http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Session_ID=f1fffd645653cec6eb435c175a76f64f&Screen=PROD&Product_Code=90002&Store_Code=MD&search=railroad+roman+black&offset=&filter_cat=&PowerSearch_Begin_Only=&sort=&range_low=&range_high=">Black Railroad Roman decals</a> from Microscale. The arched lettering was applied with a template, the rest was done with a ruler and great care. The lettering is not identical to the D&RG car, but it is very close. I would love to have two or three of these, but one is probably eye-catching enough, even apart from the time consideration - when you're applying this many decals by hand, it is a laborious process!</div><div><p><b>Faint Glimmers of Branding (early 1880s)</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTaZ3x0E6-Uyf39fF9x5uRVvGQsp9uvqTYoKTQzja6g5uGdBGEqMJxdPq_kPppUAtuFYRlgElA2wber9LIA07mqBYgKjDCMBRdBZgf-kSLoLr_HwILzsP7wIHbawE9CcrBO0wLjty5EM9a/s2048/4BD291E8-74B3-4D71-8BE3-C6ECBDD3F932.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTaZ3x0E6-Uyf39fF9x5uRVvGQsp9uvqTYoKTQzja6g5uGdBGEqMJxdPq_kPppUAtuFYRlgElA2wber9LIA07mqBYgKjDCMBRdBZgf-kSLoLr_HwILzsP7wIHbawE9CcrBO0wLjty5EM9a/s320/4BD291E8-74B3-4D71-8BE3-C6ECBDD3F932.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br />These two cars are sisters to those in the preceding section - a BTS <a href="http://www.btsrr.com/bts9426.htm">PRR XA 28'</a> boxcar on the left, and the second of two refrigerator cars I scratchbuilt using the 1879 plans (the side on this one was resin-cast using a mold that was made from the side of the white refrigerator previously shown, which was built up from wood, castings, and strathmore paper). All told, I used three schemes for five 28' boxcars of the same type; this was meant to reflect the application and reapplication of liveries to the fleet as they changed over time. In addition to the basic railroad name and car number, each car 28' boxcar comes with a capacity marking and a build date. <br /><br />The paint schemes reflect a pair of early 1880s refrigerator cars, one a DSP&P refrigerator and the other a D&RG car. I did not originally intend to lay out similar schemes for a reefer and a box car, but I liked the "eyebrow" look, and so I experimented with it on the boxcar after doing it on the reefer - obviously, I used different fonts and templates, which accounts for very different looking curves. I liked the "eyebrow" look, but not enough to settle on it as "the look" for the fleet. Like the text-heavy reefer, a very few cars are enough to be eye-catching, and they make a nice and prototypical variation from the "standard look" that you should aim for with the fleet - once you find it.<br /><p></p><p><b>Finding a Look..... (early 1890s)</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzhikyrNckV8Q1zGNlkdanOMhfw7581AuSjDXsC74OPn9mnu8N9LLKHdKUePRnIYCDHJuXIXBFI937hT0Mx_FyC3k2Z_wqtBRQ85nHdFE9e-zyBsYYKWCz5SOfEPrfcnyJztxFFdwOziWJ/s2048/5E4487FA-7A42-4DEC-A977-1F8D2BDE6FC7.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzhikyrNckV8Q1zGNlkdanOMhfw7581AuSjDXsC74OPn9mnu8N9LLKHdKUePRnIYCDHJuXIXBFI937hT0Mx_FyC3k2Z_wqtBRQ85nHdFE9e-zyBsYYKWCz5SOfEPrfcnyJztxFFdwOziWJ/s320/5E4487FA-7A42-4DEC-A977-1F8D2BDE6FC7.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br />After the eyebrow experiment, I decided to letter the last three of the BTS cars with an "arched" scheme, using a smaller lettering font, that mimicked a pattern used by the Northern Pacific in pre-WWI days. The "sunset" look was perfect - and when I found a good picture of an NP reefer in Schenk and Frey's "<a href="http://store.nprha.org/np-engines-of-growth-1887-1905/">Engines of Growth</a>," I felt like I had the look I wanted - eye-catching, but not too elaborate, and with plenty of extra space for the extra legends that cars acquired as the years went on - capacity markings, build dates, safety compliance markings, etc. I adapted the NP scheme to fit a freelanced 30' scratchbuilt reefer that was loosely based on the car in the photograph- albeit with some physical changes to make it look like a Tiffany patent car. This car is a little cruder than most, as I tried out some techniques to replace castings with fabricated components (strathmore door hinges, a wire door lock system, handmade queenposts, etc. The elaborate paint scheme helps to draw the eye away from some of the less successful elements of the job.</div><div><br />The NP car dated from the early 1890s, and one of the elements of the scheme that really attracted me was the diagonal "air brake" legend on one end of the car. I first saw this years ago in a woodcut in "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Railway-Trains-Railroads-People/dp/1796902438">The American Railway</a>," a volume originally published in 1888 to commemorate the first anniversary of national railroad regulation in America, and a great source of "period" information. Before air brakes were universal, marking the side of an equipped car was a great aid to crews, since air braked cars had to be blocked together at the head of a train for the brakes to be usable. I liked this scheme enough to decide that eventually, I wanted to use it when I painted and lettered new equipment in a post-1900 scheme. <br /><br /><p></p><p><b>.....And Sticking To It (post-1900)</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAMV6GWb4UXIKjmnN1qcBJvMDBHkTD_gKQBTyHIIc58NQayLdbedHV-6IxloG1qqEPJZcwPwGwLYjtHVbNNC4iNRRMSGaE2mqAz1WsTgyz5G92Eew3vzq87uXTiArsaNEVWIWAM4cr-m46/s2048/717E9A64-E3FA-49D9-8B44-665BFA070650.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAMV6GWb4UXIKjmnN1qcBJvMDBHkTD_gKQBTyHIIc58NQayLdbedHV-6IxloG1qqEPJZcwPwGwLYjtHVbNNC4iNRRMSGaE2mqAz1WsTgyz5G92Eew3vzq87uXTiArsaNEVWIWAM4cr-m46/s320/717E9A64-E3FA-49D9-8B44-665BFA070650.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>These cars exemplify the post-1900 look I wanted, and the two box cars were built from 34' Labelle Soo Line kits. Each came with a full set of decals for the smaller data markings, so I only needed to hand-decal the company name, number, reporting marks, and the "air brake" legend. I had some Tuscan Red I wanted to use up, and that color went on the center car, here; the left hand car was done as most of my boxcars are, in red oxide. The Tuscan Red makes the lettering "pop" a bit more, and although I will probably do most of the boxcars in red oxide, the Tuscan Red cars look great. The Soo Line cars are marked as built in 1888, and are small for their length, but the grabiron positioning in the kit diagrams is right for the post-1911 era, and they include a little decal (lower left hand corner of the car in these pictures) stating their compliance with the 1911 Act, so they're perfect for 1913. </div><div><br /></div><div>The yellow reefer is a good example of an old 36' Roundhouse car, bought second hand for less than ten dollars, painted but unlettered. The lettering was the hardest part of the kit, but a pair of these added color and modernity to my refrigerator fleet, adapting the lettering scheme used on the other cars. Taken as a whole, these cars give me about fifteen cars clearly marked for my home road, which (when combined with ore cars, gondolas, log cars, etc) is a sufficient number to give the "home road" feeling. <br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><b><br /></b></p></div></div>MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-24174201145416828622021-05-28T10:24:00.000-07:002021-05-28T10:24:32.986-07:00Finding Furlow's Denver and Rio ChamaMalcolm Furlow has always been one of my favorite modelers. He started building a model railroad in the 1970s, and photos of his work were soon in print in all the major modeling magazines. He was a constant presence (and a controversial one) for about a decade before he departed the hobby to pursue a successful career as a Western artist. <br />
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He built several layouts, but his home layout, the Denver and Rio Chama Western, is to me the most interesting. It was the subject of numerous articles, typically "how-to" pieces, that detailed the construction of individual scenes, as well as two in-depth profiles; one ran in <i>Railroad Model Craftsman</i> in 1978, when he was just getting started, and the other in <i>Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette</i> in 1982. <br />
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For all of its coverage, there was always an elusive quality about the D&RCW: when you see it in magazine photos, the pictures are almost invariably close-ups of a particular scene; when Furlow did a long shot that encompassed an entire segment of the layout, it was carefully done to make the whole appear as a single scene - there was never a point where the camera seemed to pull back far enough that you could lose your sense of seeing a discrete scene, and form a picture of the whole layout. I think this was probably deliberate: one criticism that I have read of the railroad is that it was essentially a collection of large diorama scenes, and that it "worked" visually only in photographic formats: when seen from the kind of visual perspective that personal viewing gives, the crowding of scenery, tracks, and buildings together seemed overdone. The phrase "Disneyfied," is sometimes used, and I have seen it asserted that the curves were so sharp that most locomotives couldn't make them if the lead wheels were in place.<br />
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As criticism, this is fair enough, but I think the builder's intent matters in these kinds of things, and Furlow clearly built it to be photographed: if the pictures worked, than the railroad accomplished his goals; QED. I happen to think that the pictures <i>did</i> work in some way, and if you Google his name with "Denver & Rio Chama Western," you find approximately 186,000 results, many of them photographic. Many of the photos that pop up show models in the state of total disrepair that he loved: obsolete equipment, rusty and dirty, and frequently of outlandish design and construction. Not all of these results were inspired by him, of course, but many of them were - and for all that he meant his photography to be the ultimate end product of model building, there are relatively few pictures of his own work that show up. <br />
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In other words, the Denver & Rio Chama Western is as elusive as ever. But I think it's important to understand that people are using Furlow's work as a touchstone, even if they aren't still looking at the pictures themselves. He is clearly an inspiration for a lot of modelers, and so it's interesting to take a look at the pictures and see what they tell us about the railroad.<br />
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Interestingly, Furlow originally <i><u>meant</u></i> it to be a set of modular, diorama-like scenes. He was inspired by pictures of a module built by John Olson, and published by Railroad Model Craftsman in two articles in January and February, 1975. The Olson articles included a lengthy discussion on what it was Olson was trying to do. He wanted to build a railroad that was, in essence, a series of scenes, with each capturing the look of a different region or locale. Olson called his first effort "Stop Gap Falls," and it was clearly inspired by John Allen's work, which was widely available in the modeling magazines and books in those days.<br />
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Olson followed Stop Gap Falls up a year later with an article about a second module, called "Mule Shoes Meadows." Where Stop Gap Falls was a crossing of a river gorge deep in a mountain range, Mule Shoes Meadows was a division point on a small logging railroad, somewhere in the Wooded Sierra foothills. When I later saw pictures of Mather on the Hetch Hetchy Railroad, or some of the larger camps on the Pickering and West Side lumber railroads, it was Mule Shoes Meadow that I thought of: they seemed like plausible prototypes.<br />
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By the time Model Railroader ran its fiftieth anniversary issue in 1984, John Olson's layout was sufficiently well developed to be the month's featured layout- and both his "Mescal Lines" and the Rio Chama were sufficiently well known to warrant a "visit" from the special "anniversary train," headed by an allegedly resurrected <i>Hiawatha</i> engine. The track plan and photos for the Mescal Lines showed that Olson had largely followed through on his original vision, for the layout was in fact a beautifully executed series of distinct scenes, featuring high desert, Sierra foothills, river valleys, and even a port. Neither of the modules made it into a track plan, but there was a tantalizing dashed line, suggesting that they might yet find a place in his miniature world. Sadly, it seems neither ever did; the Disney career that was sparked by his modeling took off, and the layout went into storage. The <i>Gazette</i> suggested a few years back that he had plans to revive it, but if they have come to fruition, I missed the report.<br />
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Furlow started out with this modular concept, and the idea of placing it in the Rockies. He found his inspiration in the San Juan Mountains of Southwestern Colorado, and his goal was to translate their precipitous mountainsides and white water into a model. Since he was working in a space that was small, in terms of floor area, the ruggedness of the terrain actually made it easier to model, because he built his scenery up and down into unoccupied or unusable vertical space, creating the illusion of high mountains in a relatively small area. <div><br /></div><div>By the time his layout was featured for the first time (in <i>Railroad Model Craftsman </i>in September, 1978), he had a working design. The layout was to be shaped like an E, and he began at the ends, building two sections he labeled "Chama Creek" and "Cascade Creek." The track plan that was published in that article is unfortunately covered by copyright, but it underwent substantial revision (reflecting changes he made to the layout), and when the <i>Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette </i>published an article covering the Rio Chama in its May/June 1982 issue, the track plan had changed substantially, with the "Cascade Creek" section change substantially, with a section labelled "Sheridan" added either in place of or around Cascade Creek This added a town clinging to a mountainside, adding considerably to the scenic drama. </div><div><br /></div><div>While it is possible to trace some of the changes and improvements made to the Rio Chama over the years in back issues of <i>Model Railroader</i>, which published many articles by Furlow about his techniques, and many individual photos, MR never published a full article devoted to the D&RCW, which was highly unusual in those days. Typically, when they had an author whose work appeared repeatedly, they often ran an article on that author's layout, since the pictures and descriptions in the articles often raised readers' curiosity about how it all "fitted together" on the author's home layout. In those days, of course, the media saturation point was far lower than it is today, and a splashy cover shot with a name familiar to readers helped attract magazine sales, and Furlow's appearances were frequent. He built project layouts (one of them, the San Juan Central, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/192373853@N06/51002034611/in/album-72157718547893733/">famous enough to be housed</a> in the California State Railroad Museum's <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/192373853@N06/sets/72157718547893733/">exhibit on model railroading</a>). He wrote articles on how he built <a href="http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=26905">other people's railroads</a> - but MR for some reason never devoted an article to the topic of the Rio Chama. <br />
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<a href="http://www.ecmodell.at/rio_grande_52264874.html">This site</a> has an interesting collection of pictures from the D&RCW, and it includes a track plan which is derived from the NG&SLG plan. The accompanying photos were clearly taken at different times in the layout's life, and are identifiably different. Several of them are colorized versions of photos that were published in the 1978 RMC article in black and white, while some of the others were taken at more advanced stages of the railroad's existence. The very topmost picture must, I think, show the railroad in its later stages, since it shows Silver Canyon with the road bridges and highway running up to Sheridan that were the topic of one of Furlow's last articles for MR. Conversely, the bottommost picture is a colorized version of one that was published in black and white in RMC in 1978. This is also true for the pictures identified as "Chama Creek," while the picture of engine 8 comes, I think, from the Cascade Creek area. Another useful aid is provided by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDBHMDpd090">this VHS-quality video</a> which shows the layout toward full build-out. </div><div>
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<br /></div>MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-47327847504237568172021-05-23T06:40:00.002-07:002021-05-23T06:40:55.452-07:00Colors of the Nineteenth Century<p> An interesting new Google Docs posted from Josh Bernhard and Evan Abma of the Early Rail group: some background research on the always-controversial topic of <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jbXGfg9V3cY0awKamkrwM2JlLSQepapDwU9A3Dx43-M/mobilebasic">paint colors</a>.</p><p>This is a hard enough question for <a href="https://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php?1,335760">historical researchers working on real engines</a>. For modelers attempting to replicate the effect of a color when seen at a considerable distance, it’s a lot of guesswork and some time with the color theory experts (although British modelers like Iain Rice, who have a more complex and varied palette to deal with, have produced some interesting how-to pieces).</p>MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-52024138070645142512016-10-02T16:14:00.001-07:002016-10-02T16:14:46.959-07:00A new type of locomotive kit?I have often wondered over the past couple of years whether anyone in the US would ever offer another steam locomotive kit. Since <a href="http://www.bowser-trains.com/">Bowser</a> and <a href="http://www.athearn.com/Products/HO/#rnd">MDC</a> dropped their product lines, the only source has been Ebay, which seems to be circulating a lot of the unbuilt kits. Prices have seemed to decline over time, so I wasn't optimistic, in spite of the potential for interesting novelties that's inherent in 3D printing. <a href="http://eightwheelermodels.com/">Eightwheeler Models</a> announced a Civil War 4-4-0 kit in 2011, but it hasn't yet materialized. <br />
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But now a couple of the bright creative lights behind the Yahoo Early Rail group have come up with something that uses not just new technologies, but a new marketing model. The team of Gerry Dykstra, Al Mueller, and John Ott have<a href="https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/EarlyRail/conversations/topics/43129"> put together</a> a near-kit - a set of <a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/gdykstra">3D printed pieces</a> that can be used (with John's beautiful decals) to customize a<a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/HO-Scale/19128/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=mantua+general&_sop=1"> Mantua General</a> 4-4-0 (kit or RTR) into one of two Civil War-era engines - either the USMRR's "Lt. Gen. Grant" or the famous Western & Atlantic "Yonah." Pictures are <a href="https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/EarlyRail/photos/albums/1327260970">here</a>. Links to more detailed description at the Early Rail group, including Al's email address, are <a href="https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/EarlyRail/conversations/topics/43129">here</a>. <br />
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To do this, they are marketing the detail parts through Shapeways, available <a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/gdykstra">here</a>. Guidebooks for the <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/alan-g-mueller/the-mantua-general-becomes-the-lt-genl-grant/paperback/product-22879567.html">Grant</a> and the <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/alan-g-mueller/building-the-yonah-a-3d-printed-ho-engine/paperback/product-22872104.html">Yonah</a> are sold separately, through a print-on-demand site. You can contact Al Mueller directly for crosshead guides and for a set of John Ott's beautiful decals (<a href="http://www.ottgallery.com/">his site</a> gives you an excellent indication of his skills, his sense of humor, and his imagination). For those who are interested in a third option, Al has been experimenting with the possibilities of this for some time, and his book on tweaking out a Mantua General is also available as a print on demand book, <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/alan-g-mueller/mantua-general-rebuild/paperback/product-21346236.html">here</a>. <br />
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They aren't doing this for the money - obviously - but it's intriguing to see how they have cleverly leveraged other people's business models to create an appealing-looking kit with minimal requirement for the investments that have in the past made this such a tricky business: no need for dies, molds, or a massive initial inventory investment that takes a lifetime to sell off. I hope they succeed - and I hope their success encourages others.MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-77694544032426069572016-01-02T13:26:00.001-08:002016-01-04T05:42:54.566-08:00The Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette Disc ReviewIn model railroading, particularly if you are modeling something that's a niche interest, you're well advised to get it while the getting is good. Much of the "product" is made in small runs by individual craftsmen, and you never know from one year to the next whether the guy who's making it will be there to run another batch: this is a low-margin, high-risk business, after all.<br />
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One guy to whom those particular laws of gravity have never seemed to apply is Bob Brown, publisher of the <i>Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette</i>. I was five when he transformed his previous newsletter efforts into the <i>Gazette</i>, and ten when I saw my first copies - a pair that my parents picked up for me to keep me occupied on a trip. Even allowing for the fact that the <i>Gazette's </i>s<i></i>tyle is highly serial (which gives the odd picked-up issue an <i>in medias rex</i> kind of feeling), it was one of those "wild-eyed on a peak in Darien" moments that mark every modeler's life: I had found some people who were doing something inspirational and wonderful, and knew it at a glance. That was in 1982; he's still at it today, and still producing a great product.<br />
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In a world where most periodicals are surviving by turning themselves into a multimedia experience, the <em>Gazette</em> has been stubbornly resistant to change: it still publishes on a bi-monthly basis, and its website is frustratingly minimalist. On the other hand, if you call or email, Bob usually answers himself, which is a lot coming from a guy who's publishing a magazine that plays the same role of the hobby's fans of the light, narrow, and obsolete that <i>Vogue</i> once played for fashionistas.<br />
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He did hint to me in an email last year, when I was looking for a back issue, that something was coming, and with the help of Bob Hayden, it's <a href="http://bobhayden.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=16&products_id=102">here</a>: the whole kit and caboodle on DVD: not only the <em>Gazette</em>, but its predecessors, in a simple and easily usable format, downloadable and printable as a PDF. It's worth every penny. If you're unfamiliar with the <em>Gazette</em>, there's a wonderful index hosted by <a href="http://wisemanmodelservices.com/">Wiseman Model Services</a> at <a href="http://www.wisemanmodelservices.com/gazette/">this website</a>, which will give you an excellent idea of the talent and the topics that the magazine has covered over the years. If you like it, you can reward Bob Brown by ordering a copy, and reward yourself by enjoying it.<br />
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<br />MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-49525804047500300202014-03-09T08:22:00.001-07:002014-03-09T15:42:57.878-07:00RIP, Earl SmallshawI never managed to meet him, but I was saddened to hear that Earl Smallshaw has died. He published many interesting articles on modeling over the years. He was always a pleasure to read, because he was a craftsman who could explain his techniques without becoming didactic or boring. <br />
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His family has generously consented to keep his <a href="http://www.smallshawrailroad.com/home.htm">website</a> online so visitors can see and enjoy his Middletown & Mystic Mines Railroad, which is a curious but strikingly effective amalgam of Western mountains and a Connecticut river town. There's a definite "Ash Can School" quality to his city scenes, which capture the crowding and dirt of a New England mill town at its height, and I am also partial to his bridges, buildings, and masonry: he could make a prosaic retaining wall into a thing of real beauty.<br />
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This is a great example of 'modeling as folk art,' but it also highlights how sadly ephemeral a model railroad can be. They sometimes outlive their creator, but not often; usually, the buildings and rolling stock are dispersed among friends or at an estate sale; the rest winds up in the alley. That's understandable; after all, it's a lot to ask the family to give up a room to the trains when the builder is alive to work on it. After he's gone, people want or need to turn the page, and it's a lot of work to keep the railroad running.<br />
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For all these reasons, the photos are nice to have, particularly when someone was as good a photographer and modeler as Mr. Smallshaw was. I always enjoyed his articles and pictures, so even though I never met him, it's nice to have access to these photos for a little while longer- they give you a wonderful idea of his skill and his sense of humor.MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-3435749323472939332012-08-23T10:18:00.002-07:002013-09-26T13:10:00.438-07:003D printing for the Nineteenth Century Modeler And what variety there is! Here are some of the designers working with Shapeways to bring out products that you might not otherwise find:<br />
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<a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/panamintmodels">Panamint Models</a> Truck and component designs from the mid-XIX century<br />
<a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/bonevalley">Bone Valley Models</a><br />
<a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/imagereplicas?s=0">Image Replicas by Walter B. Vail</a> Some interesting experiments with locomotive bodies - and a Michigan-Cal shay model for less than $25!<br />
<a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/mynermodels">Myner Models</a> Mostly HOn30 stuff.<br />
<a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/nvrr49">Hurley's Model Railway Supply</a> Interesting detail parts<br />
<a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/lightscalemodels">Light Scale Models</a> mostly narrow gauge and mining equipment<br />
<a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/tdhostlermodels">The Dalles Hostler's Models</a> Houses, dog and out, and detail parts<br />
<a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/sierrastudios">Sierra Studios</a> Log bunks<br />
<a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/austinrp">Austin Rail Products</a> Alternative bodies for MDC cars, to add some variety to the fleet<br />
<a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/trains">Singular Trains</a> Trucks and some beautiful Canadian-prototype passenger equipment<br />
<a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/EIGHTWHEELERMODELS">Eight-wheeler models</a> Trucks, paper wheels, and turn-of-the-century charactersMP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-4585274991506449012012-08-15T20:50:00.000-07:002012-08-15T20:50:03.098-07:00The Next Big ThingIs <a href="http://www.shapeways.com/model/519813/t82s-ho-allen-california-v-amp-t-archbar-trucks-x8.html">this</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing">3D printing</a> is not new; if it were, trucks and other major components would be an idea, rather than a product. But it's a great idea, and it has incredible potential, because it promises to get around one of the requirements that has always bedeviled model railroading - the challenge of volume. <br />
<br />
The key problem in tooling for an expensive and inflexible manufacturing process like die-casting has always been volume - how do you generate a sufficient number of sales to recoup your investment? Given that casting and molding have usually been preferred techniques for mass production, since they minimize manpower requirements, the challenge has been to maximize the potential sales volume for your investment. Alternate methods such as etching have been tried, but they've always been low-volume methods, because the combination of cost and skill level have combined to keep the number of potential customers low - which in turn forces costs upward. Resin casting, which is cheaper and easier, has been a step in this direction, since you can easily make rubber molds and cast parts and pieces in 2 part resin.<br />
<br />
But 3D printing literally breaks the mold: you invest not in a set of molds that can be used to replicate the same object, but a printer that can be programmed to produce a tremendous variety of objects. Obtaining the unusual, in other words, is no longer a matter of being one of a group of at least five thousand people who are willing to put up the money to obtain it; it's now a CAD drawing away. <br />
Reactions to this are naturally mixed. Tim Warris, the creative mind behind the beautiful Port Kelsey Railway and <a href="http://www.handlaidtrack.com/">Fast Tracks</a> has a typically perceptive <a href="http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/8013#comment-65020">take</a>: it's the ultimate disruptive technology. Tim thinks that's frightening, and I can see why he would think that: he's engaged in the sort of William Morris-style craftsmanship that every Industrial Revolution threatens to engulf. I'm less pessimistic than Tim is. After all, Fast Tracks wasn't put out of business by Atlas or Shinohara; it followed them by a couple of decades, just like William Morris followed the Industrial Revolution.<br />
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As someone who engages in an occasional act of attempted craftsmanship, there are a couple of great merits to 3D printing: not only does it make things available that would otherwise be attainable only at great cost in time or effort, it allows me to focus my work on areas that I'm really interested in. For a guy like Tim, who loves to handlay track, that could mean obtaining hardware such as switchstands. Many carriers had their own switchstand designs, and commercial manufacturers further increased the range. Today only a relatively limited number are available from manufacturers in the larger scales, because of the economics of the manufacturing process. But I'm anxious to see what else come down the pike, because I'm an optimist on matters of this kind - and much as I love to build wooden kits, the fact is that every new method or technique I have seen has ultimately served to enhance the range of choices in the hobby, rather than reduce them.MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-19450728386662686862012-02-26T10:44:00.009-08:002012-02-26T16:51:49.646-08:00Annus Mirabilis<div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl4pJwcE7JI&noredirect=1">Here's</a> another great period British film - this one from 1963; it depicts the recovery of British Railways from a heavy snowstorm. The British Invasion-style soundtrack fits curiously with the railway scenes, many of which underscore the awkwardness of Britain's transition from the industrial age to the modern era. This may be 1963, but only the film quality and the diesel engines distinguish the railway scenes here from those of "The Night Mail." Not much had changed since 1936: the manually-operated signal boxes were still warmed by coal fires, and all of the employees are well past middle age. The film clearly means to convey some sense of the importance and usefulness of the railway system - can't miss the passengers chuckling over all of the cars stuck in the snow - but it's a defensive assertion, made in the face of encroaching modernity, a last argument for the preservation of Things As They Are.</div><div> </div><div>Philip Larkin designated 1963 as a watershed year in his famous "Annus Mirabilis," for reasons that have less than nothing to do with this blog:</div><div> </div><div>"Sexual intercourse began</div><div>In Nineteen Sixty-Three</div><div>(which was rather late for me)</div><div>Between the end of the "Chatterley ban"</div><div>And the Beatles first LP."</div><div> </div><div>It was certainly a memorable year in Britain, for a lot of reasons, intimately connected with the culture: apart from that LP and the ending of the Lord Chancellor's longstanding ban on the publication or sale of D. H. Lawrence's <em>Lady Chatterley's Lover, </em>there was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profumo_Affair">Profumo Affair</a>, another one of those salacious incidents that leave the impression of ineradicable change.</div><div> </div><div>And of course, there was also the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_Axe">Beeching Axe</a>. In March, 1963, the British Railways Board published "The Reshaping of British Railways," which recommended the wholesale closure of large segments of the railway system. In spite of rising losses and the clear need to conserve funds for modernization of the surviving system, there was an immediate outcry - the press dubbed the proposed plan "The Beeching Axe," after its author, Dr. Richard Beeching, and the folk singer Cyril Tawney commemorated it <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUAwMioG7TM">in song</a>. In spite of the outcry, the government went ahead and pursued mass closures. Many branches vanished, as did the Great Central line from Nottingham down to London; the great Midland line from Settle to Carlisle narrowly escaped closure.</div><div> </div><div>So when you see this video (or, for another taste of the same period, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BndXSRwftpc">this one</a>), you are seeing something of more than normal interest: this is a cameo of British Railways before the Beeching Axe fell. Steam has four years to run yet in revenue service; the Chatterley ban is still in force, and women wear white gloves in Pullman cars, while men run locomotives in frock coats. You might be forgiven for wondering what decade it is - because it's one of those moments where things are in the process of going two ways at once.</div>MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-35544782553938246332012-02-24T14:05:00.002-08:002012-02-24T14:32:26.143-08:00The Night MailHere's a unique little find - "The Night Mail," a famous British documentary from 1936 that followed the passage of the "Down Postal" from London to Glasgow over the line of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. <br /><br />Here it is, in three parts:<br /><br />Part 1: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WO7JxYlhOM">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WO7JxYlhOM</a><br />Part 2:<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pQJzZDIQTs&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pQJzZDIQTs&feature=related</a><br />Part 3:<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=902G8widi00&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=902G8widi00&feature=related</a><br /><br />The poetry is an Auden piece, commissioned specially for the film. The scenes are slightly shocking, in the way films of the past always are: they dressed so differently, and they did things differently, too: no special protection before you duck under a train in those days, and no computers - those men working in the signal towers are manipulating primitive lever-operated mechanical interlocking machines. It was still a world firmly in the steam age. <br /><br />There's something touchingly tragic about the organization and the technology that's on display here - they're superificially impressive, but already a bit outdated: when <em>The Night Mail </em>was made, the first jets were less then ten years away. This was an England that was passing slowly away: Stanley Baldwin was Prime Minister for the elderly George V (whose cipher you can see on the mail vans: "GR"), and George Orwell was somewhere out there in the dark in the Midlands gathering the material for <em>The Road to Wigan Pier.</em> <br /><br />So all that being said, how on earth do you improve on a classic like this, while simultaneously conveying some impression of how the world has changed since 1936?<br /><br />Easy - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpFPVe26Ewk">you do it with Legos</a>!MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-20010925533396144332010-12-07T08:04:00.000-08:002010-12-07T08:10:21.900-08:00Midland Terminal video<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsGeVybQPes">Here</a>! No doubt about it - looks like it's all post-WWII, with the majority of the footage of the ex-Army 2-6-0s. But plenty of footage of the ex-CM steamers, in the District and on Ute Creek Pass - the closest you'll ever get to seeing authentic color footage of the Colorado Midland Railway.MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-25561913530027036742010-07-16T14:41:00.000-07:002010-10-22T12:00:08.013-07:00(Almost) Completed engine<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl85qRJtmDrTYRB50ySs5EWTGBsfn3-lgWA3IGrp8Yg3hlUHKPQlBsc3t9I-QQu1J3kEJFNpp5Jwlbp6ITxn9KIJWWkyN21wigtoVQR-rbyzjejCRMzXIVUvAkZMV95_2u3QVQtBIl0FIf/s1600/100_1374.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530946084602861890" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl85qRJtmDrTYRB50ySs5EWTGBsfn3-lgWA3IGrp8Yg3hlUHKPQlBsc3t9I-QQu1J3kEJFNpp5Jwlbp6ITxn9KIJWWkyN21wigtoVQR-rbyzjejCRMzXIVUvAkZMV95_2u3QVQtBIl0FIf/s320/100_1374.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div>So here it is: not a bad little engine, really. I did decide to leave the handrails in their raw brass form (and substituted brass wire to get the full effect), thinking that might be a good look for a well-kept turn-of-the-century express engine, but I'm not wholly satisfied by the look: it's a little toylike, I think. But the trailing truck worked out well. It required no modification; in fact, the engine ran much better with it than it did with the original truck, probably because that bar I thought I might have to replicate on the replacement truck shifted too much of the engine's weight onto the lead driver. I have to admit that I never counted on the simple possibility that the design might be bad, but it worked out well, and the engine is no longer slippery.</div><br /><div>As initially built, it ran poorly - it shook, and the gears ground, so I disassembled the engine and removed the motor, gearbox and motor mount. Then I slipped a small piece of notebook paper, folded over, between the motor and the mount, and this cut the vibration and noise way down. Now it runs well, and creeps right along; at some point I have to paint and weather the motor mount, but I'll get to it in good time; for now, it's just nice to have it running.</div><br /><div>A few other improvements: I'm going to replace the lead wheels with spoked wheels, which always add a certain period flair. The arch-bar trucks on the tender are going to go, too - I'm waiting on some PSC 4 wheel NYC-style fabricated Commonwealth trucks that look appropriate for passenger service, and I'm considering taking a mulligan on the tender paint job: I'm not totally happy with the decaled lining-out, although I do like the look. I have a spare MDC tender shell, and I periodically consider redoing it - although that might put me on the wrong side of the borderline between nitpicky and neurotic.</div><br /><div>I also made some fairly small modifications to the boiler that greatly improve the look of the engine. First and foremost was the bell; Roundhouse engines generally come with an integrally-cast bell that has neither bracket nor hanger, and looks like a small pen cap sitting on the boiler. A good bolt-cutter will take it right off, and you can file the sprue flush. Once that was done, I bored out a hole where the sprue had been, and a very simple Cal-Scale bell and hanger assembly made a big difference. I also bored an .020" hole in the right side of the cast whistle, and fabricated an actuating arm out of a small piece of brass wire. Before I installed the cab, I bored .010" holes on either side of the backhead space, and ran two pieces of .010" brass wireout of them. Then I installed the cab, clipped the wire to length, and glued it to the bell assembly and the whistle actuating arm, taking care to put a very slight curve in both (a very tiny touch of ACC secures it nicely to the dome, retaining the curve). Then I used an 000 brush to paint the wire a slightly different shade of black, so that it stood out just a bit against the boiler. This was not hard to do, but it added some nice visual interest to the model. I bored a pair of holes in the smokebox ( the rivet pattern and the handrail lines allow you to space them correctly), installed some black-painted classification lights, and replaced the stock pilot truck wheels with some PSC 33" spoked wheels - which give a much more elegant front end, reminiscent of the early Western Pacific ten-wheelers.<br /></div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><div></div>MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-83040743741931730362010-07-16T14:32:00.000-07:002010-07-16T14:40:32.309-07:00Modeling the modern........is not generally something I care much about. I'm moved mostly by the things I see in museums, not Silverliners. And yet.....when I saw <a href="http://ihphobby.tripod.com/">this website</a>, I have to admit I felt a bit of a twinge. I've climbed on a Silverliner at 30th Street more times than I can count - and their dinginess always feels a few steps removed from the weary wooden coaches I love, or even the South Shore car I rode as a young boy, back in 1982, when they were just weeks way from the deadline. <br /><br />And yet....seeing these, it's hard not to think of what you could do with them, and how they would look on a model of the Northeast Corridor.MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-12607609940799469932010-07-08T13:26:00.000-07:002010-07-08T13:27:25.507-07:00If you like interlockings........I have the <a href="http://www.streamlines.ca/towersim.html">site for you</a>.MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-59503435629504603632010-06-18T11:23:00.000-07:002010-06-18T11:49:30.844-07:00Age of the Decapods: A ReviewThe <a href="http://www.coloradorailroadmuseum.org/">Colorado Railroad Museum </a>has released its much-awaited (by me, at least) Rail Annual, "<a href="https://shop.coloradorailroadmuseum.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=5851">Age of the Decapods</a>." This book, which is Bob LeMassena's latest, is a very good effort, nicely produced and worth the money. The title is a touch misleading, but not in an annoying way, for it's the rare misnomer that promises more than it delivers. "Decapod" to most people means "2-10-0," but Mr. LeMassena extends it to cover every five-coupled steam locomotive class used in America - including a pair of narrow-gauge Decapods built for Mexican service, the Virginian's massive 2-10-10-2s, and a unique 1903 Baldwin 2-10-2 with slide valves and Stephenson valve gear.<br /><br />In arrangement and content it is a perfect companion to his <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Articulated-Steam-Locomotives-North-America/dp/0913582263">Articulated Steam Lcocomotives of North America</a></em>, and it should be understood as a sort of primer on the topic - not the last word. Just as in the earlier effort, he catalogues each class of engine on the basis of design and road of ownership, recataloguing them when they switch owners or the road changes identity - a feature that will require the casual browser to resort to other publications, perhaps, for the details to fill in the blanks, but one that ensures room is conserved for the photos that tell their own story of transition and change.<br /><br />It would be easy to criticize it for the things it omits, but it's important to understand that a work of this kind takes an extraordinary amount of research, and that it's meant to be a catalogue, something that can cue the interested reader or modeler to look for more detailed information in other sources. He made a deliberate decision to omit the dimensional data that he included in the earlier work in favor of a simple statement of weight on drivers and tractive effort, which I rather regretted, but apart from that, my biggest complaint was the cursory treatment of the Baldwin standard light and heavy Decapods of the 1920s. As a class and an idea, these got a shorter treatment than they received in Kalmbach's <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Guide-American-Locomotives-Railroad-Reference/dp/0890242062">Guide to North American Steam Locomotives</a></em>, while the Pennsylvania's I-1s got a lengthy essay. In LeMassena's defense, it's only fair to point out that something like 598 of the 700-odd decapods built in America were I-1s, but their existence and traits have been thoroughly documented elsewhere; a guide like this could profitably have dwelt a bit on the reasons why Baldwin decided to try to develop the market with the light and heavy designs in the Twenties, and it could also have noted the class distinction between light and heavy Baldwin decapods in the individual entries. The dimensional data that was provided certainly comes in handy, for a glance at the weight on the drivers will suffice to reveal the distinction without further reference, but I would have liked to see a bit more - for that brief criticism aside, more of anything Mr. LeMassena does is always welcome on my bookshelf.<br /><br />Modelers and buffs alike will find this an interesting book, and an excellent reference to the topic.MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-78636099124146605092010-06-14T09:23:00.000-07:002010-06-16T05:48:32.822-07:00Progress!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxl-6JqTGGtPeObGPNuXMjXVJmIla8evGw-yOPtCzl3tsUnmBe0U-AOpgqWGHqeWnjxh-9BFRDde2xuVBUUzivJ8bp38epjNgAXyqk8Kd4zPrakc8oSIeLFpxFkE69G7xuEsSZ94reVRNi/s1600/4-4-2.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483351668540359618" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 278px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 207px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxl-6JqTGGtPeObGPNuXMjXVJmIla8evGw-yOPtCzl3tsUnmBe0U-AOpgqWGHqeWnjxh-9BFRDde2xuVBUUzivJ8bp38epjNgAXyqk8Kd4zPrakc8oSIeLFpxFkE69G7xuEsSZ94reVRNi/s320/4-4-2.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div>And here it is - with the toughest part done (the tender is still a substitute, but that will change as soon as I get the body shell weathered and assembled). The real challenge with these models is the chassis, valve gear, and motor; get those working (and more importantly, working once they've been painted), and you're in business. </div><br /><div>There are always some challenges, and this kit was no exception. The valve gear was generally easy to get together, but some of the punchings were too small to accomodate the rivets, so I had to bore them out. Once it was all together, it was just a process of assembly, testing, disassembly, fixing, reassembly, retesting......and eventually it all went together. The crossheads gave some trouble, but a lot of filing (of both the crosshead and the rails) and a little lubrication finally put things right. </div><div></div><div>Once the mechanism was perfect, I tested it with the boiler and cab, which will provide most of the weight. While wheel arrangements are really not a good indicator of anything, this engine did have some prototypical qualities: like a real Atlantic, it had "too much git, and not enough dig." It did have power - but it's so light on the drivers that the engine slips very easily, and I don't expect it to start a heavy train. I may try to remedy this by pouring some low-melt alloy metal into the boiler to add weight. As you can see in the picture, it still has the stock trailing truck. This has a surprising importance - it's not just decoration. The rigid wheelbase is very short, and there's a definite tendency to tip backwards if the trailing truck isn't installed. The stock truck comes with a flat plate atop the truck structure, which serves as a slide bearing for the rear of the frame. It looks like I'm going to have to do something with the Hodge truck to ensure it can bear the frame, perhaps install a small u-shaped brass plate, which may take some doing if it's going to be kept inconspicuous. </div><br /><div>All the paint on this engine is Scalecoat; I put on a base of loco black, weathered it with Bragdon's powder, and then added a flat varnish layer. The rods were done in graphite, and the results are subdued, and with a light dusting of reddish and yellow powder give the appearance of road grime. I masked off the driving wheel tires, and I'm pretty happy with the results; the look is of a well-maintained engine that's been logging a lot of road time. </div>MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-47996682646259039202010-05-18T05:26:00.000-07:002010-06-15T12:55:49.318-07:00A Tale of Two DepotsThe whole issue of plausibility, and its tenuous relationship with reality, informs a lot of modeling. The problem of getting the 4-4-2 that I'm building "right" spurred me to go back and take a look or two at a couple of other interesting models that have grappled with the same problem - one a model of an actual station, and the other, a model of a model. Since my next planned project after the 4-4-2 is, likewise, a model of a model, I've been giving this point some thought.<br /><br />Sometimes the prototype is perfect - just what you need. Other times, the prototype comes close to what you want it to be - but you want to modify it just a bit. One good case in point is the Colorado Midland Railway' station in <a href="http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?20004937+CHS.X4937">Granite, Colorado</a> (station is unfortunately just out of view to the left of this photo). This was built in 1887, and at the time, Granite was the seat of Lake County. The station was a two story split-level affair, and when I first saw photos of it I never associated it with <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/Timberline-Models-Granite-Station-Silver-Pass-Coll-/370376546819">this</a>.<br /><br />The model you see in the picture is a 1970s-era craftsman kit, known as "Granite Station," manufactured by a small and apparently defunct company called Timberline Models. I've been partial to this model ever since I was a kid. My dad picked up a copy of the old "Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette" for me when I was ten, and it contained a piece on sprucing up one of these models; the image stuck in my mind (as the work of a lot of 1970s-era modelers like John Olson and Mal Furlow did), and when I came across it decades later, I started searching online in hopes of finding it, and discovered the kit, the maker, and the prototype.<br /><p>I was surprised to find, however, that the real Granite depot was a very austere structure by comparison - those marvellous windowframes, for example, were a product of someone's imagination. The real Midland was too cash-strapped for fancy ornamental windowframes, and settled for simple double-hunge windows - and it didn't bother with a canopy, supported by fancy posts and the elaborate bracketing for the eaves. When I realized the Timberline model was unaffordable and went back to look at Dan Abbott's <i>Daylight Through The Divide</i> in hopes of finding plans, I was surprised at how simple the prototype really was. It was like seeing someone famous without the makeup on.</p><p>Similarly, I've always been fond of the logging diorama John Olson built and photographed for Model Railroader in May, 1976 - his "Mule Shoes Meadow" layout. I've always been partial to the high mountain parks and valleys, and I thought the Mule Shoes layout is a very fine mix of the railroad and the deep woods. It's a little modern for my taste, but backdate it a few years and you can plausibly imagine something of the kind as a junction for a branchline on a slightly larger railroad at the turn of the century. The original photo essay captured several shots of the depot, from various angles. It was a less adorned building than the Timberline structure, and so far as I know it was scratchbuilt, but I always liked the look of it - a big,rambling frame building, one third depot, one third office, one third cooking and living space. Apparently I'm not the only one, because <a href="http://www.locopainter.com/store/product.php?id=72">Wiseman Model Services </a>seems to have used it as a rough prototype for their <a href="http://www.locopainter.com/store/gfx/photos/10072/full/10001.jpg">Horseshoe Meadow Depot</a>, which is currently available (and worth the price, I might add).</p><p>I bought one on the strength of the initial resemblance, and did a closer comparison once I had it at home. I was surprised at some of the variations the kit builders introduced - the pitch of the roof, for example, is noticeably steeper on the mass production model. I had not initially noticed this, but something about it strikes me as noticeably unnecessary - the steep pitch makes the building a bit higher, but doesn't provide much in the way of additional covered space. I understand that buildings in snowy areas need a steep camber to shed the snow, but the camber is so steep that it would require a lot of additional roof space, but would not generate much in the way of usable additional floor space - if you look at the second floor, for example, you can imagine that the interior's basically a cathedral ceiling. They also added a shingled roof on the bay window, which protrudes out just a bit further on the Wiseman model than it did on Olson's original, and of course, the cast chimneys are more ornate. </p><p>It's not a bad-looking result, but it does sort of raise an important question: is it worthwhile doing something just because "it looks good?" And does it look good because it's well-engineered, or does it look good because it conveys an impression you wish for it to convey? I'm open to either answer, actually. The fact of the matter is that I like both manufactured models. I also like the Granite depot as it was built, and I like Olson's depot enough to have retained an enduring impression - for I first saw it in the library at Oak View Elementary School at the age of six, when I paged through a bound volume of MR during library time, and I remembered enough to recognize the photo essay when I saw it again decades later. Something made each of these structures memorable, and beautiful. Plausibility is a part of that beauty, because it contributes to the suspension of disbelief, without which there can be no effective modeling. There's a tension between brute reality and beauty, sometimes, and the trick lies in the resolution. I've been working at this on my 4-4-2, and hope to have a photo up in a couple of days; we'll see then how well I've resolved that tension!</p>MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-73086084272054395722010-05-15T06:21:00.000-07:002010-05-18T10:27:34.893-07:00Next projectSo in true model railroad fashion, it's off one project, and on to the next before the first one's wholly finished. My next project is the Model Die Casting ATSF 4-4-2 you see <a href="http://railroad.union.rpi.edu/displayimage.php?i=23138">here</a>. I just bought it a few months back, but I suspect it's fairly elderly, because the boiler is wholly die-cast Zamac, rather than the plastic-coated Zamac MDC went to on some of its models in the last years of kit production. I don't know whether they ever retooled the Atlantics; I suspect this kit dates from the early '90s, since it does have a can motor. I'm frankly glad it doesn't have the boiler detail in plastic; I find metal a bit more forgiving. Plastic needs a lot of care and non-abrasive treatment, so you can't buff your errors out, at least not so easily, and I tend to be heavy-handed.<br /><br />I'm also going to customize it a bit. As it is now, four things mark this engine - almost irrevocably - as Santa Fe property: the trailing truck, the train indicator boards, the cab windows, and the front end. I'm going to leave the front end as it is, because I like the number plate at the center of the smokebox, but the trailing truck has to go. The Santa Fe used an early built-up truck, and it has a clunky, dreadnought-era look to it. I got a Precision Scale Hodge trailing truck that's essentially the same as the trailing trucks used on the USRA engines, and since I have a couple of those already, the different truck will, I hope, impart a slight look of mechanical commonality. My Bowser 2-10-2, for example, has a similar front end and an identical trailing truck. The cab is another matter; I have given some thought to fabricating one out of brass or just picking up a PSC cab kit, but I haven't quite made up my mind yet. It's not ugly, and it certainly has an era-appropriate look, but the paired arched windows are distinctively Santa Fe. The same can be said for the indicator boards, but those are easily disposed of. It's amazing how different an engine looks when a prominent feature like a train indicator board is removed - the additional advantage, in this case, being that there's no piping to rereoute or alter, as there would be with most appliances. Pictures will be posted as construction progresses, and we'll see how my notions work out in practice.<br /><br /><br />One of the problems with freelancing is that at some point, you start to notice the divergent lineages of the different pieces of equipment, and more annoyingly, the provenance of the models. With a model like this one, it takes a frustratingly large amount of work to avoid that problem, particularly since the piping and a lot of the detail is cast into the boiler. Big changes, like switching the trailing truck, at least distract the eye away from the stuff that's eradicable only with excessive amounts of work, and I think when bashing an engine like this success depends on correctly identifying those big things and changing them to fit your own design.MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-6565062634496760342010-05-14T09:13:00.000-07:002010-05-23T07:16:28.222-07:0028' boxcars<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgese_hrEJ3DfEr3eSokcGNtL1a1uYblhdliOWiOT0sccbKHfe222lk-cn23mH2Jrs4G3k2f8tXBzGX8DUuLz1_qjB3S1fzlTe2IyIRO-_CCfpMgSxRoho4agY-egeIVFp0CdX6JHgOm_I0/s1600/DSCN0956.JPG"></a><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4fVBH30DlTwggLjmZypU177d1O4F1a7NQfSdb6Pd9k7dbfRfT9Nvo5VG0D_VaGvR0VeRZVQ6cIX1wcsU03v9eAJb9dh6PWXd8Qe9TuOg-aZHlgGhsbqBb2cuqQdtZdVaEtTrt8K13khAG/s1600/DSCN0947.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471161520911408994" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 186px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4fVBH30DlTwggLjmZypU177d1O4F1a7NQfSdb6Pd9k7dbfRfT9Nvo5VG0D_VaGvR0VeRZVQ6cIX1wcsU03v9eAJb9dh6PWXd8Qe9TuOg-aZHlgGhsbqBb2cuqQdtZdVaEtTrt8K13khAG/s320/DSCN0947.JPG" border="0" /></a> So this is the project I’ve just completed – a set of five <a href="http://www.btsrr.com/">BTS</a> Pennsylvania Railroad <a href="http://www.btsrr.com/bts9426.htm">XA-class </a>28’ boxcars. Twenty-eight foot cars were very common in the period between the end of the Civil War and the First World War, and they were state-of-the-art in the 1870s, when the XAs were built: they have a definite “shorty” look, even compared to the 34’ cars that replaced them. Like a lot of modelers, my freight car fleet began with the injection-molded MDC 34’ and 40’ boxcar kits that have been on the market since time immemorial, and I never thought much about anything else until I started doing some research on the 1870-1910 era; I had sort of mentally walled off small boxcars as Civil War/Central Pacific-era equipment. My reading on the Colorado Midland confirmed this prejudice: the Midland was built in the late 1880s, and its boxcar fleet was all 34-40’ cars, and you don’t see much small foreign road equipment in the pictures, probably because the Midland restricted the number of non air-braked cars that could be included in trains. I was therefore very surprised when I found a pair of tables that catalogued the numbers of box cars on the Philadelphia and Reading at the turn of the century and shortly thereafter, and found that a substantial number of 20-22 ton cars (which were probably about 28’ long) were still in revenue service. But this seems to have been fairly typical, particularly for roads that had been around for more than twenty years before the turn of the century.</div><div> </div><div>This turned out to be great; I had always liked the look and the proportions of the shorter cars, particularly the original Central Pacific equipment (I still have one of <a href="http://www.riograndemodels.com/">Rio Grande Models’ </a>CP <a href="http://www.riograndemodels.com/Images/LargeHO/3099.jpg">ventilated boxcars </a>on a shelf awaiting my attention), and they have certain aesthetic and operational advantages. They’re shorter – here’s a picture showing how five 28’ cars fit in the space occupied by four 34’ cars – they tend to emphasize the age of the layout, and they don’t dominate the surrounding scenery and buildings. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjiqYbRiIKGOFagpu99pkklwXZIX7kowBGCkcDGmTxSAUFb2EkYD1GP2shHOwO0L0KCgaW2_3CGIxRJtLc1mbPuC-vlJens5EU6Iej8PJNvI32oSV9mTl6e0J36nQ1FEmiFj3oKPSWCudS/s1600/DSCN0956.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471161877060123442" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 257px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 168px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjiqYbRiIKGOFagpu99pkklwXZIX7kowBGCkcDGmTxSAUFb2EkYD1GP2shHOwO0L0KCgaW2_3CGIxRJtLc1mbPuC-vlJens5EU6Iej8PJNvI32oSV9mTl6e0J36nQ1FEmiFj3oKPSWCudS/s320/DSCN0956.JPG" border="0" /></a> I was looking for cars that could, once built, become a sort of rolling scenic background. Not everything can stick out on a model railroad, and not everything should. I was looking for decently unobtrusive equipment that would be era-appropriate without distracting the viewer away from the structures, locomotives, or specialized equipment that deserves a prominent place. I also wanted a group of cars that looked the same, to provide the “fleet” feeling you get on a real railroad. </div><div><br />All of these considerations made the BTS cars a natural choice. They were also economical: they are sold individually for $22.95, and you can get a five-pack for $99.95, which is a $14 savings - almost enough to order a sixth car. They don’t come with trucks, but I wanted a 4’6” wheelbase truck with a high diamond arch bar, and <a href="http://www.bittercreekmodels.com/">Bitter Creek</a> had just the thing. You can put bigger trucks under them, of course, but at some point you run into a proportionality problem, because they look too big for the car – some of the early BTS cars on their website, for example, were built with the generic-looking MDC arch bar trucks from those 34’ boxcars, and they look just a bit too big. I have used Rio Grande Models CP arch bars (as seen on the ventilated boxcar) in the past, but I decided to try the Bitter Creek trucks, and I like them. They’re the perfect length, and they come assembled, so you just have to paint them. </div><div><br />The BTS kits are laser-cut, and they build up very well. When you do five of them at once, you can assemble them all together, and this saves a considerable amount of time. At some point I’m going to letter them, but it may be months before I do that. I recently saw a nice picture of some NP boxcars in Bob Lorenz’s book on NP steam, and the consist included several cars that were obviously of the same class, decorated in the same way. In a nice “period” touch, the “Northern Pacific” was painted as a sort of arc on one side of the car, and I really liked the introduction of the curve into a surface that’s otherwise wholly linear – boxcar lines, after all, are pretty much linear or angular. </div>MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-44646523897531572432010-04-29T07:10:00.000-07:002010-05-04T10:37:26.047-07:00A ten-drivered Harmonic Convergence!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1nUX5dA-v25dxTFwiPWaHREl3l9jndBeQuWAVpgb6WDPSFuNsnimFS-p_8FusGbESN04c3eKhfTCZuJm5aljaHdQiXQZf-77439hdov_GRoTYEokEkTPX1SxwhxkMxScE7fj8goaDoZfA/s1600/imageCA5605ZF.jpg"></a><a href="http://www.brasstrains.com/home.php">Dan's Train Depot is</a> <a href="http://www.brasstrains.com/product_detail.php?p=015721">offering</a> <a href="http://www.brasstrains.com/product_detail.php?p=015720">a</a> <a href="http://www.brasstrains.com/product_detail.php?p=015719">whole</a> <a href="http://www.brasstrains.com/product_detail.php?p=015717">slew</a> <a href="http://www.brasstrains.com/product_detail.php?p=015716">of models </a>(including the <a href="http://www.brasstrains.com/product_detail.php?p=015714">pilot</a> <a href="http://www.brasstrains.com/product_detail.php?p=015715">models</a>) of an all time favorite of mine, the D&RGW <a href="http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00009732+OP-9732">F-81 class 2-10-2</a> in two configurations: as they looked in the 1920s, and the 1940s (more photos <a href="http://www.drgw.net/info/index.php?n=Main.DPL-F81">here</a>). Both were imported by Pacific Fast Mail in 1978, and all of these models appear to have come from the PFM collection, which Dan's seems to be liquidating. At 32 years of age they stand an excellent chance of outlasting the prototypes, which were turned out from Alco's Brooks Works at Dunkirk, NY in 1917 and went into the furnaces at Pueblo, CO in the early 1950s. When L.F. Loree <a href="https://shop.coloradorailroadmuseum.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=5795">surveyed the Grande in September, 1917</a> they were working between Minturn and Salida as helpers, but they soon went to Utah to lug coal drags over Soldier Summit. When they were built, they were the biggest nonarticulated engines in the world - and the Grande crews promptly nicknamed them "submarines." Someone composed a quatrain:<br /><br />they built me for a submarine<br />but they had no guns<br />so they sent me to the Rio Grande<br />to haul ten thousand tons.<br /><br />They did, too- they were rated for 81,200 pounds of tractive effort, which was big even for a 2-10-2.<br /><br />There are some pictures of them as delivered in Jackson Thode's <a href="http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?author=&title=george+l+beam&lang=en&isbn=&submit=Begin+search&new_used=*&destination=us&currency=USD&mode=basic&st=sr&ac=qr">book of George L. Beam's corporate photography</a>. There have been two runs of brass imports- the 1978 PFM Crowns, and a 2004 Precision Scale run. Neither captures them precisely as built, but for my money, the PFM early version probably comes the closest. Aesthetically speaking, the earlier version is more appealing - there are no awnings to conceal the curve of the arched cab window, and the engines themselves are cleaner - there are fewer appliances, such as the overfire air jets, which no doubt improved combustion (Brooks engines were notoriously poor steamers) at the expense of appearance. The earlier versions also include a tiny little Vanderbilt tender that's nothing but curves and catwalks, with a little doghouse perched <a href="http://www.brasstrains.com/product_detail.php?p=015723">slightly off the centerline </a>just behind the coal bunker. T<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbeDUWfl7tNTY89_sRIXzOUOorDgjSyV5gcSXxo10OASWux0Nn91wEvfJKJW1sZR2OnYs3Jkj6gGMdst82M2GYihQHO_RpjlIY6Ef3N7i5y5ii5IU7Sqnd8JpCpVdlBetbTVLbrWhICGJT/s1600/imageCA6BR12C.jpg"></a>hese were always a reminder of just how far the infrastructure of the "Dirty, Ragged and Greasy" lagged behind its locomotive purchases, but they were a requirement - longer tenders would not have fit on most of the turntables the Grande owned in 1917. As an aesthetic thing, I think small tenders always improve the appearance of a steam engine - they make the engine appear proportionately larger, and it's nice when they have as much visual interest as <a href="http://www.brasstrains.com/product_detail.php?p=015723">these</a> do.<br /><br />Coincidentally, the <a href="http://www.coloradorailroadmuseum.org/">Colorado Railroad Museum </a>chose the same moment to announce its latest Rail Annual - Bob LeMassena's <a href="https://shop.coloradorailroadmuseum.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=5851">book on Decapod locomotives</a>. It sounds as if they've stretched the definition of "decapod" to "five coupled engine," which is fine - save for the old PFM book on the Texas types, there aren't too many studies out there, and lots of interesting classes are almost unchronicled - the Northern Pacific's interesting pair, the Lehigh Valley engine that gave the type its name, and the Baldwin heavy, to name only a few - so I look forward to the treatment. And at $60, it's a lot cheaper than those pilot models!MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-5291059516471518232010-04-15T11:59:00.001-07:002010-04-15T12:00:03.582-07:00Good newsBowser assures me that most of the Cal-Scale parts will remain in production, and the Bowser parts will remain available.....for a while......which is very good news!MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-23622817096968791742010-04-14T06:55:00.000-07:002010-04-14T08:26:47.947-07:00Cagney locomotivesSo I opened Shorpy the other day and found....<a href="http://www.shorpy.com/node/8016?size=_original">this</a>! And I thought, wait, I've seen one of those before - and sure enough, I <a href="http://www.strasburgrailroad.com/fun-extras.php">had</a>!<br /><br />There are still a few of these knocking around, and they're even more delightful now than they were when first built - after all, steam was pretty ordinary in 1905.MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-69911635542864386802010-04-12T07:10:00.000-07:002010-04-15T08:18:00.121-07:00Report from the Great Scale Model Train ShowThis weekend, I attended my favorite quarterly event: the <a href="http://www.gsmts.com/">Great Scale Model Train Show </a>in Timonium, Maryland. I discovered it a few years back, in the sense that Columbus discovered America: it was a giant entity full of people who knew it well, and I just sort of happened to bump into it. I don't think it's the biggest show going, but it's probably my favorite, and it has a lot going for it. The target audience has traditionally been the brass-buying, scale-model-building hardcore model railroader, but it's not so narowly targeted that there's no room for others, particularly children. The show is the most kid-friendly I've seen, and they do some wonderful grace-and-favor activities for kids that must cost them some coin, but that return nothing but good will - for example, they put out a gigantic rug and a big pile of Thomas trains, and let the kids play under the supervision of their parents; they also had a little table where enthusiasts took a lot of time helping little children build paper-plate dioramas with some of the less expensive components of the hobby, like trees and foliage. These activities delighted my children, and I suspect that they're the product of the same mind that conceived the show in the first place.<br /><br />That mind belongs to <a href="http://www.zanestrains.com/">Howard Zane</a>, the successful entrepreneur who retired to spend his time building his model railroad and and running the show he conceived. Howard's one of those one-in-a-million minds that you find in the hobby once every couple of decades. He was trained as a graphic designer and worked for Raymond Loewy's firm; he went into the Army and became an aviator. After building a successful aviation business (I believe he repossessed airplanes), he retired. The show and his <a href="http://www.zanestrains.com/layout.htm">Piermont Division</a> are his retirement activities. What background could better prepare a man for a role as a model railroading kingpin? He understands how businesses are run, how they grow, and how they fail; he has the artistic ability to conceive, design, and build beautiful things, and I was struck by the fascination his table of model structures exerted on my children. The power to create delight is or ought to be the essence of artistic ability, and it's nice to see it combined with a real business sense, because in the cottage-industry world of model railroading, you need real acumen to keep a small business afloat.<br /><br />I suspect that acumen is going to make a big difference in the coming year, because I was struck by the thinness of the crowds. It was not as crowded as it usually is, and my own very imperfect survey of the brass tables suggested that things were not moving much, either. It's sort of in the nature of things that shows are markets, with each individual seller making pricing decisions, and word of mouth and the Internet providing such information sharing as there is; voluntary efforts like pricing guides certainly help, but pricing information is naturally dynamic, and hard to capture.<br /><br />I think I’m in good company if I say that I really come to train shows for two reasons: one is to find discounts (hopefully deep discounts) on items I already want. Another is to find those items that I’m not able to get elsewhere – particularly brass. I find as I get more and more deeply involved in the “building" (kit and scratch) side of the hobby that I have a greater need for both discounts and assistance in getting increasingly hard-to-find items at lower prices. Both the brass market and the steam detail parts market are increasingly subject to the economics of scarcity, complicated by the economic situation, and it’s anyone’s guess what this will mean.<br /><br />There are some differences between the two markets, however. While the supply of brass models does continue to increase slightly, the overall market size should be fairly stable. Short of a trip to the basement floor or a poorly executed house move, the supply of 1950-1990 era brass models isn’t going to decline much. It will fluctuate slightly as the models come in our out of the market, based largely on factors that are, strictly speaking, external to the market – the number of estate sales, for example. Detail parts, on the other hand, will get used up fairly quickly. And they are already becoming scarce. It’s not clear what parts Bowser will continue to make, but some of the Cal-Scale parts are already off the market, and prices are rising. I will give you an example, from this week’s GSMTS. I found a very nice Cal-Scale Hodge trailing truck, and inquired about the price. On being told it was twenty dollars (and knowing that Precision Scale charges $17 for an unassembled brass kit), I asked the dealer why it wasn’t sixteen dollars, the price scribbled on the label. He replied, not entirely politely, that I now knew what he paid for it. I put it back; I’m not yet so desperate that it looked like an appealing price, and to be honest, I’m not altogether sure that this isn’t simply overpriced. But one of my favorite detail part makers, Greenway, is pricing their Hodge trucks at $45, which may be a sign of things to come.<br />Is this a permanent situation? I don’t know. The steam kit situation is pretty bad right now, the worst, in fact, that it has ever been. When Bowser exited the steam kit business last year, the domestic steam kitbuilding industry essentially died, and the trade now survives on Ebay and at shows. The detail parts business was collateral damage. There will continue to be a demand for detail parts, of course, because people will still want to redetail ready-to-run steam power, and the supply of kits and kitbashable locomotives will probably not be exhausted for a decade or so – although I would guess that the prices will continue to escalate on Ebay. But even at this lower level, at some point the supply will dwindle. If the prices become high enough, Bowser might conceivably decide that the economics are such that they warrant market re-entry, but I frankly doubt it – their inventory was largely Pennsy and USRA power, and those two classes of engine were among the first the RTR market provided.<br /><br />Given the stability in the supply, the situation in the brass market is a little different. That supply will diminish somewhat in growing years, but I would suspect that the course of nature will mean a lot of stuff that’s currently off-market will return as big collections are liquidated. I think some of this is already happening; you can look at the frequency with which the results of estate liquidations now appear on the sites of the bigger brass dealers like <a href="http://www.brasstrains.com/home.php">Dan’s Train Depot</a>. But part of me suspects that the question of supply will take a back seat to the bigger issue of the overall condition of the economy. It has long been a truism that “brass will always increase in value,” but I wonder whether that’s true. I don’t know whether anyone who will discuss it has researched the matter, but I would bet that the buyers’ market has contracted – which confronts sellers who have a substantial brass inventory with a real problem. They’re a low-margin operation to begin with; cut your price too much, and you trim that margin to nothing; cut it too little, and your inventory sits, maybe losing value, maybe gaining it. That’s not a retailer’s dream.<br /><br />I admit to being a bit of a jackal on the fence on this. I didn’t buy any brass this weekend; I can’t help but feel the prices are still just a bit too high. Perhaps I’m right, or wrong – I had a few desultory exchanges with vendors who responded to my request by allowing they might be able to go as low as $Y or $Z – but only a few of those seemed attractive, and none was attractive enough to move me. I hope that's not a feeling that's widely shared - because a lot of the businesses that sustain the hobby are low-margin operations, and lean years can hit them hard - and in a hobby that's heavily dependent on cottage industries, we will regret them if they go.MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3669196367968909461.post-62293796395612538232010-04-06T09:44:00.000-07:002010-04-14T10:27:06.138-07:00Why a LaBelle model?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilL0OxqhdPL-ysVp7v0p9Gg5iylsrGTRGIl3DFYfoO6LNnq3EFfrcFfpSzUj6PuRz548-0SF7s5VpMYeYwauQgnGHJnakJiIVd0evrLK0VfrfkMWOAoFWTz-lj_3hzIhSmARMcn6BBGvY_/s1600/IMG_9363+copy.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457070731127373154" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 96px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilL0OxqhdPL-ysVp7v0p9Gg5iylsrGTRGIl3DFYfoO6LNnq3EFfrcFfpSzUj6PuRz548-0SF7s5VpMYeYwauQgnGHJnakJiIVd0evrLK0VfrfkMWOAoFWTz-lj_3hzIhSmARMcn6BBGvY_/s200/IMG_9363+copy.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>So this is the latest project I've managed to finish - a wooden LaBelle model of a circa-1902 Pullman observation car, painted and lettered as the Denver Northwestern and Pacific's "<a href="http://www.museumnwco.org/railroad.php">Marcia</a>." Not a perfect model, alas: time constraints kept me from chopping it down from the actual length of 78 scale feet to the more prototypical 68 feet, and I couldn't add some of the "extras" that would have improved it. It's a presentation model for a friend who's retiring, and the overriding need was to get it finished on time. It took about a month of evenings, but it was time well spent.</div><br /><div>Why bother with a wooden kit in this age of breathtaking resin-molded cars? It's a reasonable question. <a href="https://www.labellemodels.com/">LaBelle</a> kits have been around for a long time, and they look like it. They can be improved, sure, but it's hard to get the breathtaking perfection that's now available in a Westerfield kit, or even the <a href="http://www.btsrr.com/">better laser-cut wooden kits</a>. They don't come with trucks or couplers, and when you open them, you're basically confronted with a sheet or two of plans, a handful of castings, and a big pile of sticks. </div><br /><div>This is a real criticism in an age when you can easily get your hands on an <a href="http://www.btsrr.com/bts9426.htm">easy-to-build</a> and practically foolproof car kit, but it's also the secret to their appeal. A LaBelle kit is the perfect jumping-off point if you want to learn how to scratchbuild. There's no laser-cut built up core: you have to do it yourself, from the instructions they give you. That's a task, but it's not impossible, and once you're done, you have a very good idea of how you would go about building another car of the same type - or, if you felt like it, five of them, because a quick trip to the <a href="http://www.northeasternscalelumber.com/">Northeastern</a> website will get you much of what you need, and at an economical price. It's true that there are no tabs or prefabricated connections - but again, these are strengths, not weaknesses. These kits are forgiving of errors and do-overs in a way that a lot of plastic and resin kits are not, and the supply of stripwood is plainly calibrated for the needs of the ham-handed modeler. </div><div></div><div></div><div>They're great kits - and if, like me, you're interested in the wood coach era, you will quickly find that LaBelle basically owns the market. It's a niche, and very few kit manufacturers support or provide much passenger equipment for the 1890-1913 era - there are plenty of excellent <a href="http://www.riograndemodels.com/HO.htm">open platform cars</a>, and a few <a href="http://www.bethlehemcarworks.com/Products/Sparrows_Point/index.html">special-interest models </a>of unique prototypes. But for the workaday wooden Pullman sleeping and parlor cars, coaches, baggage and RPO equipment, LaBelle is it - and I for one hope that they remain on the market for a long time to come.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div>MP Railwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08882674285044049741noreply@blogger.com0