RPM EAST 2023

I'm heading up to Youngwood, PA tomorrow to attend the Railroad Prototype Modelers Meet (for more details on the meet see http://www.hansmanns.org/rpm_east/. 

I'll be premiering a new clinic - an overview of my HO scale Richford Branch, on Saturday morning. 

In preparation for the clinic I got enough of the Sheldon Junction river crossing done to take a photo. 

Hope to see some blog readers there - and if you're at the meet be sure to say hi! 

Modeling the October Scene - Now on Video

Progress proceeds slowly (very slowly!) on the  Missisiquoi River bridge project. I'm rapidly growing to loath the Central Valley bridge kit - but at least I'm making steady, if somewhat frustrating, progress. 

In the meantime, you may have noticed I've been on a bit of video kick lately - my offering today is a recording of my "Modeling the October Scene" clinic. I recorded it at my desk over the weekend and uploaded it to my YouTube channel. You can find the video by clicking on the link HERE

Ultimately I'd like to do a video step-by-step showing how I make scenery but that's currently beyond my technical abilities. 

After Action Report: Macro Modeling Clinic

 As a rule I prefer to give "how-to" clinics - I figure at least the audience members can look past my clunky presentation and at least pick up a tip or two! 

But when I asked to present the keynote for the Railway Modellers Meet in British Columbia I decided to step outside my comfort zone and offer not a "how to" but a "why to do" clinic. Unfortunately I missed the chance to give this presentation in person, but I did an online virtual talk last night.* 

In general the clinic went well. Nobody threw virtual tomatoes at me, and I didn't have any of the "CLINIC HELPERS" that I've written about before! 

I'd give the clinic a solid C+. If we're grading on a curve I'd bump that up to a B-. Not bad considering some people (who I've never spoken to by the way) have written over the years to say I don't seem all that bright. 

What's with this "Macro" Modeling? 

The idea behind "Macro" prototype modeling is while we as model railroaders have gotten really, really, good at locomotives, rolling stock, some structures. But even if the individual models are superbly and accurately detailed sometimes our layouts fail to look much like the real world. 

The talk somehow got split into two, not necessarily cohesive sections. The latter half focuses on three ways to make a layout look bigger - Selective Compression, Forced Perspective, and something I called "Controlling Viewing Angles." With some clarification and some more specific how-to examples I think these would form the basis for a talk titled "Expanding Your Layout Horizons" or some such. 

That leaves the first half of last night's clinic. It seemed to me that it got a little muddy - I talked about the importance of identifying signature elements - those items that are "must haves" that firmly set the scene in a place and time - and I also mentioned how knowing what story you want to tell is an important aspect of model railroad design that's sometimes overlooked. In other words, a bunch of the pieces were there - but I don't think I clearly made the point. 

Here's one slide from the clinic - I included it because I wanted to emphasize the "know what story you're trying to tell". Modern theme parks, such as Disney, MGM etc... spend buckets of money to create "immersive" experiences. Perhaps that idea should have been the basis on the first half of my clinic? A clinic that focuses on model railroads as "Immersive Story Telling" experiences?  

Are model railroads Art? 

I didn't attempt to answer this question in my clinic and I won't be so bold as to elaborate on it here. A short answer is "I Think Model Railroads Can be Art." Detailed model building is really considered more of a craft - not "fine art". 

I'm sure someone is already posting comments on how "such and such ... is a model railroad artist." Most of the time when we try to answer this question we focus on model railroads as visual art - after all really good artist/model railroaders use fine art techniques - they've mastered color, texture, and sculpting, augmenting that with mastery of the craft of model building - all that mechanical stuff like tight joints, no visible glue marks or out of scale elements.  

But what if we expand our thinking beyond visual arts to include other art forms, such as story telling? Consider this - when someone asks you to describe your layout do you engage your left brain and rattle off a bunch of specs and minutia? Or do you relay the story your layout is trying to tell? 

Close, But no Cigar

One of the keys of "Immersive Story Telling" is to immerse the viewer in the builder's vision. Upon reflection, I should have tied this back into the "Controlling Viewing Angles" portion of the clinic. I sort of did with this slide - which shows how the "alcove" area on my layout can be divided up into "interest zones" in order to make the layout seem larger. 

I could have taken this a step further and shown how this relates to the design of a theme park - with visual view blocks between each of the key "vignettes,"  an approach not only intended to make the layout seem larger, but that also contribute to immersive story telling. 

Who knows, maybe I'll pursue this further. But I'm probably not qualified to ... you know, I'm not all that bright. 

*The Railway Modellers Virtual event continues on the next three Thursday evenings - starting at 7pm (Pacific time). You can find clinic descriptions etc., HERE.  

"Live" Clinics and even a "Live" Visitor!!

 

Of course, you never notice things like the "chipped paint" on the sill - actually a decal issue - or the bent handrail in front of the cab - UNTIL you take a photo!!! 

I did an in person version of the scenery clinic at the local NMRA division meet this past weekend. 

Thrilled more than a couple of people showed up. I didn't get a head count, but I think there were 40 or so people in the room - it certainly seemed full. Got several questions, and no one snored so loud that they woke up the person next to them ...

All kidding aside, after doing remote clinics for the last two (?) years I’d forgotten how much I missed the interaction and immediate audience feedback - not so much for feeding my ego - but for getting a feel which portions of the clinic are perhaps more interesting than others. 

Also, jokes actually land - ever try to tell a joke during a virtual clinic??? …. Result is always the same - Crickets!!!

After the clinic, and the always exciting door prize drawing (I won a Bowser GL hopper) I grabbed lunch with Bill Schultheiss and Rich Steinmann. Bill had asked to come by and see the layout - he actually grew up in the Richford area so I was interested in hearing his thoughts on the layout. We had a great visit. I think he was pleased - hope he can stop by and visit again sometime. 

Since I didn't bother to take any photos either at the Division meet or of Bill standing in front of the layout you'll have to settle for a shot of SNE RS-3 1854 running north of Williams Creek. 

Modeling the October Scene Clinic Hindsight version Wrap Up

Creamery Curve is getting close to completion. Still planning to add some weeds to the creamery siding and between it and the main. The Branchline creamery kit (with a scratchbuilt boiler room addition) makes for a nice stand in. It may be replaced with a scratchbuilt model at some point, but there's lots more work to do on the layout first!

Happy to report that my Modeling the October Scene clinic was well received. I wanted to record it but we had some sound issues so that didn't really work. I am doing the clinic again on November 6, this time live and in person, at our combined Potomac/James River Division meet. 

Late last week I got so busy finalizing the clinic that I neglected to add a new update on progress around what I'm calling the "Creamery Curve". In many ways, this is another update to the mainline curve realignment. 

After cutting the Martin Wellberg mats to into strips and gluing them in place (let these dry overnight!) it was time to blend them together and create the look of an overgrown pasture. 

I mostly used static grass to fill in the gaps between the mat sections, but I noticed the edge of the mat was still a little too visible. I found it was easier to use the grass and foliage net material, teased out and cut roughly to size, to fill the larger gaps and blend the mats into the rest of the ground. 

The last step was to add a scattering of electrostatic grass. 

I'd like to add some weed grown track and some scattered weeds to the wide gap between the main and creamery siding, but need to experiment on some track samples first. 

Trimming a Clinic to Length and more "Field Testing"

Taking a break during a busy day to post a few thoughts now that I've just about got my Modeling the October Scene clinic completed. 

1. I'm actually going to present only the first half of the full clinic. (I'm doing the same clinic in person for our local NMRA Division in November - but the Hindsight Clinics are only 30 minutes long! So this one will cover scene planning, grasses and ground covers, and trees. The "season specific" stuff is going into the second half hour.... 

2. One thing I DO want to address is which specific "Fall" I'm modeling. After all, "Fall" ranges from all green (basically summer) to snow covered (essentially winter) and everything in between. My current layout is set in the "Past Peak" portion of the season - the leaves are still on the trees, but are no longer in full "neon" bright colors. The grasses are a mix of greens and tans, even in the same area. I did locate one photo (taken by Dave Sweetland) that shows "my" season:

3. I thought the area across the tracks from the creamery appeared just a little unfinished. It's one thing to allow for "white space" but another to just slap some ground textures down and call it "done"! I added a fence line, shown in the photo below, which certainly helped. But often you'll see a wildly overgrown strip between the railroad right-of-way and the field. I wanted to try and capture that. 

4. After seeing and hearing great things about Martin Wellberg's line of scenery mats, I purchased a couple of the fall mats through Scenic Express. At this point I've cut one or two up into strips and started arranging them. Obviously I still need to fill in all the gaps  between the intense overgrowth of the mat and the plain ground. Jury is still out on this one ... but it's fun to experiment. 

5. Speaking of experimenting - I've been playing around with making corn shocks (basically the corn "teepees" that were once commonplace in farm fields in the autumn. I've tried little pieces harvested from real grasses and weeds, wire with ground foam, and even trying to carve them from balsa foam. All of these met with zero success. I did have a package of Walthers "corn" sitting on the shelf so on a whim I simply duplicated what the farmers did - and cut the individual stalks off the sprue and arranged them to look like a corn shock. Obviously version 1.0 shown here needs a lot of work, but it's the most promising approach to date. 

Hindsight 2020 10.0

 The virtual Railroad Prototype Modelers Meet (Hindsight 2020 10.0) has announced the lineup of presentations and presenters. Here's the flyer and the particulars on how to register etc, ... :

There's some great clinicians and clinics on the docket. And of course, me.... 

I'll be offering my "Modeling the October Scene" clinic. I was shocked to find the last time I'd presented this particular clinic was back in 2016 - five years ago - so I've taken this opportunity to update some of the content. I'm also using this clinic deadline as a motivating factor to add the "second layer" of scenery to the "cove scene" (search through the blog to see the scene I'm referring to - it's the only part of the layout that's scenicked!

This is actually the second time I've presented for Ted, Ryan, and Hunter - the gang of three who put on these virtual RPMs. 

Last fall I did my Modeling Prototype Structures clinic for Hindsight 2020 2.0. I did that same clinic for the local NMRA division a few weeks later - so you can see the recording of that version of the structures clinic on the NMRA Potomac Division You Tube Channel by clicking HERE. 

Tips of Researching and Building Prototype Structures - now Virtual

I've presented my Tips for Building and Researching Prototype Structures several times - once in person at last year's Mid-Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers meet, and twice virtually via zoom - the first time in September on one of the Hindsight 2020 virtual RPMs, and again earlier this month for the local NMRA division. 

Although I'd thought the Hindsight presentation was recorded - I don't think anyone has ever posted it (it's fine if they do, and if you've happened to stumble across that one please let me know!)

The most recent presentation to the local NMRA division was recorded and uploaded to You Tube - you can find it here:

https://youtu.be/kFMH13SzXuw

I haven't watched the video - so I have no idea how I sound or how it looks. I was planning to actually record the presentation and upload it to my You Tube channel, but frankly life has been getting in the way a lot lately. 

Anyway, thought some may be interested. 

Let me know what you thought of the clinic if you're brave enough to sit through it. 

Weekend Report

Had a fun-filled model railroad weekend. Started off early Saturday morning, when about three dozen modelers from Northern Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania gathered at the club house in our neighborhood to listen to Steve King and his two-part Timetable and Train Order clinic. 
After the clinic the crowd broke for lunch, and I hightailed it the block or so to our house to prepare for an open house for those same clinic attendees. 
The open house went well. I got comments, some obviously tongue-in-cheek, others not, about why I didn't fill the other 2/3rds or so of the basement with railroad. Obviously, those folks haven't been reading this blog for any length of time. Or perhaps my reasoning (SEE HERE) wasn't as obvious to them as it is to me? 
Highlight for me was having Lance "approve" of my execution of his design - and he agreed the addition of the East Berkshire scene in place of a staging yard was an improvement. 
So good things, all around. 
After the open house I kept working on the standing seam roof on the implement dealer. I'll have a more detailed follow up on that project sometime later this week. 
Sunday morning involved some household chores, but by mid afternoon I was able to head downstairs and work some more on the roof, and even started blocking in some basic backdrop painting (primarily a horizon line and some far distant hills. 
One thing I learned from the last layout is backdrops are much easier to deal with, both in the creation and photographing of them, if they are kept very subtle, and the horizon line is kept extremely low (you can barely see the penciled-in horizon line in the photo on the right). Then I blocked in the distant hills and some clouds (see below). At this point it seems like the horizon is taller than it should be, but when foreground scenery elements are added the visible horizon line will be lower than it might appear at this early stage. 

I went as far as using a couple of average height trees to ensure the horizon wasn't taller than the trees in most places, and spent a fair amount of time looking at the layout from an HO scale persons eye level to ensure the hills weren't extending above the top of structures and the like.
More to follow. And, if this doesn't work out, it's a simple matter to erase it with a coat of blue paint!

Schedule for the Year

I have several clinics already booked for this year, with the potential of a couple of more. 
Here are the ones that have been confirmed so far:

14 March: NMRA James River Division March Meet. I'll be doing a clinic on Scratchbuilding Prototype Structures

26-29 March: Valley Forge RPM Meet, (http://www.rpmvalleyforge.com/), Scratchbuilding Prototype Structures

04 April: NMRA Potomac Division MiniCon (http://potomac-nmra.org/PDnewsite/Minicon/Minicon.php), Live demo in the morning on Building Foreground Trees, followed by a TBD afternoon clinic 

10-13 September, Mid Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers Meet (MARPM), I've signed up to a do a clinic, topic and time TBD. Check the website for updates: https://www.marpm.org/

These events are all fairly local - but I am working through some logistics for other, further ranging, events. I'll keep this post updated. 

Just about reached the end ...

I've started to experiment with photo backdrops. Yes, I plan to trim it to the ridgeline and not have the white borders on the final backdrop!

... of the woodworking phase of layout construction! 

Two significant (at least to me) accomplishments in the model railroading realm this week. 

First of all, I'm happy to report that the significant benchwork construction is (at long last) completed - that means all the subroaded and fascia has been installed, See below for an overall view of the layout:

At this point the only construction left is to complete the swing gate and install a couple of shelves in some key locations. The shelves will prove useful for a place for visitors and operators to put their beverages - oh yes, and in case we ever operate the layout formally there'll be a place to store throttles and paperwork and the like that isn't the surface of the railroad!

There's still some track laying left to complete - primarily on the two peninsulas - the shot below shows the CV yard in Richford - obviously it's awaiting roadbed and track!

The other thing I finished was a clinic on the layout that I just presented at the NMRA Mid-East Regional Convention in King of Prussia, Penn. For those keeping score, this is actually the second all new clinic I developed in the last 6 weeks - I'm hoping that this one will be a layout progress clinic that I can regularly update. I'd like to get as much mileage out of this as possible! 

The clinic was well received despite the 10 o'clock start time (that's 10pm!) and some issues getting my computer to talk to the projector. 

Estimating Dimensions from Photos

I've had several requests to post the slides on estimating prototype dimensions on the blog. 
The following images are the slides from the presentation - I hope they are helpful:

Wordless Wednesday #212 - Stick a Fork in this one - It's Done!

Mid-Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers (MARPM) After-Action Report

Had a chance to visit with old friends and make some new ones at the Mid-Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers (a.k.a. “MARPM”) in Fredericksburg, Va., this past weekend.

Ramon sits behind some of the (many) models he displayed. We don't see a lot of BNSF out this way, which makes this display really stand out! 

The entire crew (Norm and Daylene Wolf, Shannon Crabtree, Bob Sprague, Butch Eyler, and Doug Chapman) who set up and run this meet did a great job as usual. Daylene provided a wonderful lunch both days (a great advantage that means you don’t have to leave the hotel to find something to eat!).  Attendance was a little down from last year – a combination of a scheduling snafu (strictly the fault of the hotel) that moved the meet a week later than previous years – and putting it closer to some other larger meets.  After Labor Day and before the end of September seems to be a sweet spot here.  I think the number of “walk ins” on Saturday was impacted by the torrential rains that fell early Saturday morning. All that said, the folks who did make it were extremely enthusiastic and I never got the feeling there wasn’t enough to do or somebody to chat with.   

RPMs have always been about four main things (Clinics, Model Displays, and Vendors), and, of course, the fellowship with other modelers. Here’s my After-Action report for the weekend, based on these four items:

Clinics: Excellent. The pool of clinicians in this area is especially talented and includes well-known names who also happen to be excellent modelers and seasoned presenters. If that comment comes across as bragging (after all, I was one of the clinicians!), I apologize. I think it helps that not only are these guys excellent modelers they’re excellent presenters. Due to the nature of the work most of us do, delivering “briefings” is nothing new to us. Those skills translate to providing an excellent clinic. I defy anyone to come up with a stronger lineup than was offered at this meet.

Lance Mindheim on deck for second of two clinics he presented. 

The only issue is there wasn’t enough of them and every presenter went on only once. The facility only provides for one clinic room at this time – Norm told me he’s trying to find ways to have more than one clinic at a time. I should add that one room is excellent – with a large screen, theater style stacked seating, and (new this year!) a projector that really works.

I gave my Modeling the October Scene clinic. I've been doing this clinic since Cocoa Beach in January 2015, so I think it's time to retire it. Several people told me in advance they’d be skipping my clinic (I got the last hour on the schedule, the coveted “cleanup slot”!) since they’d seen it at Cocoa Beach or New England RPM. 

Model Display:  The models that were on the display table were outstanding. I just wish there had been more of them – and that a variety of eras, scales etc… was a little broader.

One thing that seems to be gaining more traction at MARPM than some other RPM meets I've attended is the “ongoing hands-on how-to display/clinics.” (Hey, what my description lacks in length it makes up for in completeness...). Basically, someone sets up at a table and does something (weathers a car, builds a model, installs decoders, whatever…) and attendees can sit across the table, kibitz, ask questions, or just observe. So, I spent most of the meet sitting at a table building – or perhaps better described as “preparing to build” several resin freight cars.

Butch Eyler and Norm Wolf sat at a table next to me weathering cars.

Butch Eyler (right) walks an attendee (left) through his weathering techniques. 

My understanding is this was well received by the folks at the meet. I certainly had a number of folks sitting around my table asking questions and observing (and offering the usual assortment of helpful – and not so helpful - suggestions!). I know Butch and Norm never looked lonely at their table.

I wish I’d prepared a little differently. Since I haven’t done any freight car modeling in several (4+!) years, I have two types of freight cars in the basement – finished, and unstarted! I should have had several cars at different stages of construction – from "out of the box" up through ready for weathering. That way if someone had a question on installing underbody piping (for example) I'd have a car to use as a demo. Lesson learned.

Vendors: My feelings are the vendors at an RPM meet should be the ones offering products for prototype modelers. I have no interest in looking at table after table of “stuff” at an RPM meet. Due to the aforementioned change of the show date, several vendors weren’t able to make it. Hopefully they’ll be there next year! But it was good to catch up with Ted Culotta of Speedwitch (who also offered a clinic). I even managed to purchase a thing or two from him! I also grabbed some paints and Tahoe trucks from some of the other vendors.

Fellowship: Couldn’t be beat! I had a great time visiting with a lot of really interesting people and hearing about their projects. Actually sitting at the table working on models kind of forced me to engage with people whom I might not have had the chance to talk with otherwise. 

Operating Session on Mat Thompson's Oregon Coast Railroad. 

Layout Open Houses and Op Sessions: I tend to think of these as a "bonus" at an RPM meet. Let's face it, layout "tours" and such are really the thing of NMRA conventions. But most RPM meets, including MARPM, manage to have a few layout open houses, and op sessions, typically timed to occur before or after the meet has officially started or ended. This year was no exception. Mat Thompson hosted an op session on Thursday night at his Oregon Coast railroad, and Bernie Kempinski had an open house (see his description here) on Sunday for his USMRR O scale and PoLA HO scale layouts.

Dates have already been established for the 5th annual meet on September 22-23, 2017. I, for one, can’t wait for next year!             

New England RPM - Day 1

Up in Enfield for the New England Railroad Prototype Modelers meet. The meet is as good, if not better, than ever. The new venue in Enfield, Conn., lacks some of the "charm" of the former site in Collinsville, but more than makes up for it with a facility that truly enhances the experience. 

Jack Ozanich leaned over to me during Chris Adam's presentation (above) and said "This guy has his s#$t together!" Those who know Jack realize this is very, very, high praise!

I attended a couple of other clinics - Chris Adams did an excellent presentation on his New Haven Valley Line layout, Neil Schofield covered the tale of getting one scene on his layout from "under construction" to "Finished" in a short time. Neil's thoughts on focusing efforts were extremely well thought-out. Jim DuFour covered line side details on his B&M Cheshire.
I presented my clinic on Model October Scenery. Other than a slight "glitch" - the connector for the projector accidentally walked out of the room and had to be chased down. I was sweating it until Tony Koester told me "As long as you have an hour's worth of jokes, you'll do fine..." Yikes!
I didn't get a head count, but the room seemed full. 
I realized after presenting my clinic (I was on after Jim) I'd spent the entire day in one clinic room and hadn't seen anything else of the meet!
A tour through the massive model display room was cut short by the dinner bell. Then, after dinner I went to Randy LaFramboise and Mike Spark's presentation on their HO Rutland. 

Randy had some interesting slides...Here's his take on "givens and druthers":

ALL the clinics I saw were excellent and showed excellent modeling. 
Today I'm going to try to get through the model display room!

XTRA 471

This post is something of a work in progress. This is one of the set of photos that inspired my "Williams Creek" bridge scene. It's been something of an ongoing project to identify each of the cars in this train with the idea of modeling them.
I've managed to ID most of them - but believe I may have misidentified the boxcar in the second photo partially obscured by the bush. At first look I saw the Roman style "L &" (all that's readable in the photo, though there is clearly another single letter after the "&") and figured this might be an Louisville & Nashville car, perhaps one of the L&N's rebuilt cars with "reverse" Murphy ends. This seemed entirely logical. L&N didn't have a huge boxcar fleet, but it was a fairly substantial one, and entirely likely to show up in a wayfreight in south-central New England.

But closer examination shows the car has a flat end and a pronounced seam at the top of the end creating the appearance of a triangle on the top of the end. I couldn't identify a class of L&N boxcars that looked like the rest of the car with that style end. One group of cars with this end were the 1932 ARA boxcars. But which of those would have "L &" as the reporting marks.
The true freight car experts already have the answer of course. And, after doing a little more digging this weekend I'm now of the opinion this is a much more rare (considering sheer numbers) Louisiana & Arkansas 1932 ARA boxcar. As built these cars had a block, almost Gothic style lettering with the roadname spelled out above the reporting marks.
This one doesn't have the roadname and the lettering is clearly Roman. Which means this is the second scheme these cars wore, with the "L&A" and car number to the left of the door and a Kansas City Southern herald to the right of the door. 
I know Atlas makes a 1932 ARA boxcar - and even made one in this scheme. 
Guess who can't find one of those anywhere??

Tree color mixes

From my "Modeling the October Scene" clinic that I presented at the Cocoa Beach RPM meet and again at the NMRA National in Portland, Ore.
Some of the color combinations I use to flock the fall trees. They are arranged by basic color group (green, red, etc…)
Left side shows the basic material I use. Then the color that's added as a "highlight" color. To the right you can see the result when combined. 
Note I do NOT "dunk" the tree armatures in the flocking material. I apply adhesive (usually thinned matte medium, though I've used hairspray in a pinch) and hold the tree upright and sprinkle the material from the top down. I don't try for 100% coverage - I try to let some of the fine branch tips remain bare to create the appearance of a tree that has changed color and shed some, but not all, of its leaves.