Feb 08 Model Railroader

[asciibaron]

I am continually (and pleasantly) surprised by the number of people who have built the CC or some variant of it.  My current N scale project is another layout - this one for a book -- that examines what can be done in N scale in a size close to the proverbial 4 x 8 (it's actually about 3'-7" x 7'-9" -- necessary to get it up the basement stairs!).

this is what i have done in 5'x8':



not exactly an inspiration, but very prototypical and very easy to build.

-steve

[Wlal13again]

MR, without a doubt, hit its zenith among N gaugers with the series on building the Clinchfield.

Don't forget the Carolina Central.  I know that layout itself wasn't landmark or anything (might have been MR's first door layout though), but I saw more influence from that layout for beginners than any other.  Unfortunately most were exact copies, but I can only hope after ten years now that those modelers have expanded their imaginations.



Jason

My door layout is based on the Carolina Central with a few changes. Chalk me up as one that used it.

[amato1969]

I also recall a decent MR series about building a BN-themed layout in N -- upper Mississippi, I think?  Can't remember the track plan or operating arrangment, but I do remember the Tiger-striped Kato GP-something.

[wm3798]

Yes, the BN article was great, as was the Arkansas and Missouri one.  Yet another was a modern Appalachian setting with CSX and Conrail moving coal about an L shaped layout.  I'm pretty sure I have all three in the stacks upstairs.

I went back and re-read the "Bucket o' Trees", and I remain uninspired.  There is a casual reference to "puff balls" but pooh-pooh's them as too much work.  I stand by my remark that the bucket method is too much money, based on the cost of WS foam clumps (about $6-7 a package in most LHS) and the volume that the author appears to use.

To cover the area I've done with foam clumps from WS would cost close to $100, maybe more.  Instead, I've used about $2 worth of poly fill, and maybe $10 worth of ground foam.  Add the areas I've covered with my home-grown trees using the barbecue skewer foam clump method would have added another $50-60.  With the generally rising cost of everything related to the hobby, and the rest of life for that matter, why on earth would it be a good idea to dump a bucket of green into a bucket of green like that?

Lee

[John]

I agree completely Lee .. as someone who makes a lot of their own groundcover .. from sawdust, dirt from the backyard, etc .. every penny saved is another penny you can spend on something else ..

[asciibaron]

i was shocked when i went to buy scenery products last year for my N-Trak module - i had no idea how expensive it was.  there was an MR article in the mid 80's that detailed how to make your own ground foam - also an article, maybe Bob Hayden?  on sawdust ground cover. 

i can't put my finger on it, but there seems to have been a shift since getting away from reading the trade rags in the late 1980's and coming back to them a decade later - more people want to open the box and put the product on a pre-built layout.  the hobby part as i saw it - honing a craft or art - has been lost to the turnkey instant gratification crowd.

as i type this, i am staring at a Penn Central shell for a C630 that i bought knowing i would have to paint it.  it was a bargain at the price i paid - i could have paid more for a factory painted PRR shell, but the price was the key.  when i was growing up, my best friend's father had a layout that was base don a freelanced road - everything was custom painted and it was very nice.  if i can't paint a black shell green and slap some decals on it, am i really a model railroader, or am i just a guy who plays with trains?

there's the question for MR - what is the hobby?

-steve

[Nato]

  That Bucket-O-Trees really takes me back to the good old days,the mid 1980's to be exact. Brothers Kelly & Gill Newton,members of the Utah N Rail Modelers modular group ,now Wasatch N Scale"WNS" that I belong to constructed two nice six foot modules with a medium size rail yard ,and a corner module with a roundhouse & turntable. In those days our club was an N Quack (Trak) club and all our modules featured the optional Green Line Mountain division trackage. Needing a S**t Pot of trees in the background next to the Sky Board on the Green Line Kelly came up with a quick and fast method to manufacture trees. At the time he owned a Bar in Ogden, Utah "The Gray Moose Pub" so one night drinks were on the house for any patrons who wished to make trees. They were provided with round tooth picks,white glue,and clumps of Lichen colored in different shades of Green. After a brief explanatory lession on how to put glue on the pick end and stick the clump over the end construction began. I would estimate That this work yielded 60 - 70 trees, all pretty uniform in shape and size,but different colors of green. When planted in dense clumps they sort of looked ok. Maaybe six or eight years later another modeler Kent Hunt acquired these modules and with some help from myself and several others the scenery was reworked and decient trees manufactured from dried Sage Bursh Armatures, and foam. I saved several of the Gray Moose trees for historical purposes and have them squirrled away somewhere today.                                                    Nate Goodman (Nato).

[John]

Nate .. thats a good one .. what is even more amazing is that you got consistent quality out of the trees .. it would seem to me as the night wore on, the builders would have gotten less quality oriented

[asciibaron]

ossifer, i wasn't at a bar drinsking, i was building treseeeh for a models railroad

[3rdrail]

i can't put my finger on it, but there seems to have been a shift since getting away from reading the trade rags in the late 1980's and coming back to them a decade later - more people want to open the box and put the product on a pre-built layout.  the hobby part as i saw it - honing a craft or art - has been lost to the turnkey instant gratification crowd.

as i type this, i am staring at a Penn Central shell for a C630 that i bought knowing i would have to paint it.  it was a bargain at the price i paid - i could have paid more for a factory painted PRR shell, but the price was the key.  when i was growing up, my best friend's father had a layout that was base don a freelanced road - everything was custom painted and it was very nice.  if i can't paint a black shell green and slap some decals on it, am i really a model railroader, or am i just a guy who plays with trains?

there's the question for MR - what is the hobby?

-steve

Those comments would have you drummed off several forums. That is the absolute last question MR wants to answer. The truth is that the line between "scale" and "tinplate" has been hopelessly blurred. IMHO, tinplate has moved closer to scale than the other way around, though.

[asciibaron]

let's play trains.

[3rdrail]

let's play trains.

Yeah, Tom Mann, it's past time for another issue of "Outcome Based Toy Trains" or OBTT for short.  ;D ;D ;D

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Choo choo!!!

[asciibaron]

puff puff chugga chugga

[Dave V]

if i can't paint a black shell green and slap some decals on it, am i really a model railroader, or am i just a guy who plays with trains?

-steve

This is exactly why I stopped whining about PCM's M1a/b delays and built my own M1.  I had been lulled into believing my own work would never stand up against the beauty of the superdetailed RTR engines MR is always showing.  But then I realized that it's not about what's good enough for MR or Tony Koester or any of those guys; it's about what's good enough for me.

The upside I that whereas I used to dream about RTR Pennsy steam in N, now I look forward to kitbash projects that I do myself.  Others may not always appreciate the work I put in (especially if they assume I just bought them RTR), but I do.  It's what I believe does make me a railroad modeler and not just a guy the plays with trains.

Next month in MR: