Your golden-era model railroads!

[p51]

Video of end-to-end run on my layout:

https://youtu.be/2nVCqDexa9c

-Lee

http://www.freewebs.com/willysmb44/modeltrains.htm

 

[p51]

Trackside Model Railroading, an online magazine, is coming over on Saturday to photograph the layout! https://www.tracksidemodelrailroading.com/ this shows what their work looks like: https://www.tracksidemodelrailroading.com/current-free-edition-preview/

I ran into them at a model train show in Seattle last month and showed them photos of what I had. They called last night to ask if they could come by this weekend to do the photography. They do all the work, and I’m really interested in seeing someone else’s take on what I have built. They’ve covered a few layouts around here in the past (the December issue on their website has a cover for a layout in Olympia that I’ve seen a couple of times in person). They’re out of Spokane, so they use a lot of stuff in the northwest corner of the country. They told me they were happy to document a layout with a southeast concept, as they have subscribers around the world. It’s not a free publication, though, so people are going to have to pay for the content to see it. I recently got a CD of a couple of years of their publications, and I liked their work.

 

[David Conwill]

Congratulations, p51! It's always exciting to have your hard work recognized. I used to love reading Model Railroader (a different mag, I recognize, but I'm a print junkie) and if I had any money to spare, I would probably resubscribe.

 

[p51]

Congratulations, p51! It's always exciting to have your hard work recognized.

Yep, 2017 has bene good to me in that regard. My model train work has bene featured three times' twice in an online magazine, and once as a feature article in the "On30 Annual" for 2017: http://on30annual.com/current-issue/. Oh, I also got a photo of my Dad's amazing 1/6 scale 14-pounder civil war field gun in the December issue of Fine Scale Modeler.
Next year, the Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette will publish another article of mine on my layout, and this other online publication will as well.

I used to love reading Model Railroader (a different mag, I recognize, but I'm a print junkie) and if I had any money to spare, I would probably resubscribe.

MR is the only magazine that wasn't receptive to my article ideas. Every other magazine I made a push for said they'd like to see what I had. MR isn't receptive to On30, as they don't appear to consider it a 'scale' track gauge. They also appear to have submissions years out. I've seen articles about layouts and in the profile of the builder, seen that the person who wrote the article had passed away a few years previously. That leads me to believe that they have a backlog of stuff to pick from.

 

[p51]

I was lining up some trains for a magazine photo shoot on Saturday, and decided to put all three of my wartime-painted ten-wheelers for the first time since I weathered them over a year ago:

And the other end...

 

[p51]

The Trackside Model Railroading magazine shoot went well on Saturday. They were there for about 5 hours and shot still/video the entire time (including a 360 video with a camera shaped like a soccer ball). I'm really looking forward to seeing the end results!

 

[p51]

The Trackside online 'magazine' came out yesterday. I love the finished product:
https://www.tracksidemodelrailroading.com/magazine/past-issues/2018-archive/jan-2018/
They put a lot of the video they shot on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHKCwwk9pRY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjP_oTcxqTs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIP4BYbtQZw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61IWV42arGU
Such great work. They were nice folks to deal with.

 

[p51]

This week, I got a lot completed. I took the remains of a busted Bachmann 2-6-0 and made a scrap load of the locomotive parts and a water car out of the tender:

I also lettered an excursion car with my own decals to make it an Army troop car, and weathered it with washes and powders:

 

[p51]

Before Christmas, I bought a white wood sign that was blank at a craft sotre, with the idea of making it into a RR sign for the layout. I printed out some letters on paper last night in a typeface that existed in the 30s, then transferred that to the sign, then painted over it. I was surprised how short of a time it took (just over half an hour from the blank sign).

Eventually, I’ll hit it with some sandpaper so it’ll look like it’s older than it is, but for now I need to paint to dry for some time. Here’s how it looks for now, as you walk into the room:

 

[scotrace]

Wow, P51, that's all amazing!

 

[p51]

This is on the wall at a 90-degree angle of the wall shot I posted above. If you open the door to the room all the way, you'll likely never see this.
The poster is obvious, but the plate is an original WW2 heavy flatcar one, pulled off the rotting car on a siding near Arlon, Belgium in the early 2000s. My brother bought it at a show from the guy who yanked it off the car before it was scrapped.
It took me some time to figure how to hang it due to the odd positions of the mounting holes. I used adhesive hooks, a 2-part design that the hooks had to be inserted at 9-degree angles from where they are now, then slid into place on the wall. Removing it from the adhesive bases is doable, but anyone trying to yank it off the wall would just break the hooks as otherwise, it won't easily come free.

 

[p51]

Trackside Model Railroading recently released DVD of video from my layout and another club layout. Guess who made the cover (and the fronts of both discs)?

https://www.tracksidemodelrailroading.com/ if you're really interested...

 

[p51]

I took some more photos recently...

 

[p51]

I got my layout in an article in the March/April 2018 issue of Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette, which just came out:

I wrote the article as if the layout was a real-world railroad and that I'd found photos taken during WW2 in a footlocker. But the editor changed that focus quite a bit and messed up some of the captions...

 

[p51]

Just playing around with my cell again...

 

[p51]

I normally don't post photos from this angle, as I normally take shots from O-scale eye level but otherwise I never get this water tower into shots (as there's no good background for it in any direction at a low angle).

 

[p51]

The ET&WNC decided to put sheet metal covers over the headlights on their tenders, due to the proximity of the coal load (to keep them from being crushed when the coal bunkers were filled). It's one of the key features of the WW2-era black paint jobs that Bachmann never addressed with their excellent models in On30. I had made some out of black styrene sheets, heated and stretched over a brass tube the diameter needed. But the styrene was really too thick and I never liked the look (the first photo shows one atop the coal pile for comparison). Over the weekend, I got some pre-made 1/2" wide brass strips and cut/shaped them over the same tube. They dropped right into place and after some simple paint work, I had covers that looked much better than the previous ones. Getting the fit right on # 12:

After the paint is done on the same locomotive:

I have three of these locomotives but had plenty of brass left, so I made several and used only the ones that worked out best. This is #11:

 

[p51]

I still can't believe it:

Two magazines on hobby shop shelves at the same time with articles I have written; the March/April 2018 Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette and the 2018 On30 Annual!

 

[p51]

I was experimenting with late-afternoon light through an open window again, last night...

 

[p51]

More random cell shots, taken last night: