Drug Store Saga, Part 1

I'm calling this a Saga right at the get-go because I can already tell it's going to be one of those builds.  The drug store in the title is the Scale Structures Limited Corner Drug Store.  A classic structure, to be sure, but the model is not without its flaws.  Even on its release in 1972 the folks at Model Railroader took note of how the angles of the bay walls don't match the angle of the ornate wall cap casting.  (More on that later.)  However they also noted one of the kit's strengths; the construction allows for easy rearranging of the walls.

Early in the process, before the fitting frustration set in.

In that regard I have taken things one step beyond.  The space intended for this structure in Ocala Springs is located on an intersection and bounded by a spur at the rear and the next building down the block.  I've got leeway down the block as that next building hasn't been decided yet.  But between the street and the spur I can only go so far.  However, the problem was not that the building was too wide, rather it was too narrow.  I envisioned an alley between the building and the spur, but this space was large enough to shoehorn in another structure.

The solution was to lop off some of the long end of the drug store and glom it onto the shorter side.  Now my structure is a bit more squarish.  Careful measuring meant the window openings could be kept evenly spaced without trimming and the surgery was relatively painless.  But I'm making it sound all too easy.  Before I even reached this point I had struggled with the aforementioned angle difficulty, and realized another aspect the folks at MR noted; the need to carefully read the instructions (many times).  

Note the original rectangular "floor" set onto the roof of my reconfigured structure

This freedom and flexibility in construction means the kit doesn't drop together in a simple sequence of tabs and slots.  The stiffeners inside the structure are the floors.  To begin with I cut new ones from thicker card as I couldn't see the thin stuff provided doing a good job for the long haul, even sprayed with sanding sealer.  This allowed me to correct the issue with the bay wall angles.  You are instructed to measure and mark the floor levels.  The plans give you an indication of where the first floor goes, and the roof along one wall, but not the others.  

And you're instructed to build the thing "upside down", aligning walls from the top.  That's fine for the front walls and bay, but not the back walls which are two different heights.  Add to that the challenge of a too-small wall and laying out the floors gets confusing quickly.  This tiny wall is some sort of mistake, a wrong part.  At first I thought it was N scale but a quick examination with my scale rule checked against the plans and no, I have no idea what this shrunken wall is.  I didn't lose sleep over it but, using the plans, I was able to fabricate a new one which is fine since I had planned to move that wall's windows to a different wall.

"Shrinky Dink" wall in the center, replacement on the left, relocated windows on the right. And all this before I decided to reconfigure the walls.

To recap at this point; building the original kit as instructed is already challenging and then I had to go and make it even more so.  But the problem became the solution.  I don't have a set of precast plastic walls that don't fit, I have cardstock.  Cardstock can be easily replaced.  The card in the kit for the die-cut walls appears to be good quality material.  It cuts cleanly and sands well.  No watermarks but I'd suspect a quality similar to Crescent or Strathmore board.  

This post has already gone far too long so I'll save the tribulations of working with the castings and printed wall textures for another part.  Thanks for reading.

Pine Branch Park Redux

 ...or, back on track, again.

It is that time when I reflect on the accomplishments of the current year and look to the goals of the next.  However this moment, this time around, feels oddly familiar.  It occurred to me that I've been here before, in a way.  Let me explain.

Back in 2018 when I started building my current railroad I wrote the blog post, "Pine Branch Park" (click the link to read the post).  In that post I discussed the name itself and showed a revised plan laying out the track, street and structures, but the bulk of the remainder was devoted to a sort-of inspiration I found in a series of articles in Model Railroader back in 1991, "Just for Beginners".  

In that seminal series the MR staff and contributors built the Cripple Creek Central.  I was inspired not only by the railroad itself, but more so by the progressive, sequential way in which they constructed it.  So often these project railroads begin with that glamour shot of the finished road and the declaration that you too can build this!  But not the Cripple Creek.  No, this was an evolving, changing project, altered by the whims of its creators and guided by the shape of the thing itself as it grew.  

I like planning, but I also like that evolutionary approach.  The dioramas I've built over the last two years are proof of that.  So too the Pine Branch Park model railroad.  The layout is bound to change as new ideas come along and new ideas come along as the layout changes.  New vistas open up for possibilities unseen before that moment.

In 2018 I speculated that I could complete this railroad in two years.  Five years later and it looks much as it did in 2019 - bare soundboard with mostly ballasted track, well edged for a clean presentation, and some cork strips in place where the paved roads will go.  But I still believe it can be completed in two years.  Not as some deadline hanging over my head but as a matter of consequence from continual effort (fun) spent bringing that world to life.

We all know what came along in 2019 (yes, public acknowledgement didn't really come along until 2020 but the virus was called COVID-19 for a reason).  And personally that was a challenging time - a challenge which I met and overcame thanks to the support of my family.  The death of my father in 2020 followed by helping my mother move in 2021 and then again in 2022 now feels like a rapid succession of events in hindsight.  

But while the work on the layout stagnated, model making did not.  In fact, the first NMRBO diorama I built included structures which will soon find their homes on the Pine Branch Park layout.  Building those dioramas in the midst of a major transition was instructive.  It reminded me just how much I love building highly detailed scenes that tell a story.  

So that's what I'm going to do, and that's what this blog will focus on.  Reviewing this blog itself reminded me of the importance of one aspect of "blogging", that is, keeping a web log as an archive.  So if for no other reason than that I will keep sharing my progress though perhaps not as frequently.  I've kicked around the idea of making videos but my hobby time - as generous as it is - is still somewhat limited, and editing takes up far more time than the model making itself.

But I'm not complaining.  I'm caught in the middle between caring for teens and a parent with some health concerns, but I'm surrounded by a wonderful family.  I've got a long list of honey-do home improvements but we live in a neat old house in a nice community.  I don't make much but I do get paid to make music two or three times a month instead of being stuck in a miserable job.  Each challenge comes with a blessing.  

So too my hobbies.  I've been able to make good connections with like-minded folks around the miniature war-gaming community and while I haven't found any folks in my town with an interest in trains, that's okay.  I'm genuinely happy in the quiet moments of the morning sitting at my workbench building a model, or stealing time during the day to run a train.  And of course sharing my progress with you, dear readers.  Thank you for your continued support of this blog, and best wishes for your own hobby endeavors in the coming year.

The afternoon winter sun, low in the southwest sky, shines on Ocali Creek box car 1603.

No Regerts

Yes, I know, but Regerts is funnier, and the meme fits the post.  Last night I was asked a great question about my diorama; "Was there anything I'd do differently, or anything that didn't come out as I'd hoped?"  Absolutely.  In this post I'll talk about three: there was one happy accident, one omission, and one flaw I hoped nobody would notice.

First the happy accident.  See that?  The dark splotches in the water?  Some of the sand dried darker than the rest, and the Deep Pour Murky Water just intensified the result and sealed it in!  This was not how I wanted it to turn out but in the end I wasn't upset with the result.  I've seen lakeside beaches that look just like this.

Next, the omission.  In one of the progress photos I submitted if you look carefully you'll spot a mirror.  I had hoped to use a mirror on the stream to give the illusion it went on "through" the backdrop.  What backdrop?  The one I didn't use.  As mentioned in a previous post, to disguise the mirror would have meant using many trees and that would have thrown off the balance of the whole scene.

Finally the flaw.  When I taped off the window panes in order to paint Aunt Lucy's garish blue window frames a refreshing white I used the basic blue painter's tape.  Unfortunately this left a sticky residue when I peeled it off.  Not sure why, but it was a pain to try and remove and I didn't get it all.  So Aunt Lucy's place had dirty windows and I just hoped it wouldn't be obvious.

There were other similar instances on this diorama that I could mention here but these three suffice to make the point.  Every modeling project includes at least one flaw, omission, or happy accident and it is likely that we who create these miniature works of art are the only ones who will ever notice.  As long as this stays between us, nobody has to know! <wink>

Time to Think Again

It has been over a year since I wrote the post, Time to Think.  There I pondered what to do with the space I have been blessed with; a garage.  Since then I have determined that space is not so good for model trains.  In fact, it needs more work than I realized even though it isn't a bad space for a workshop and storage.  It will be a fine place to build Halloween props each year, work on home improvement projects or generally make a mess I wouldn't make in the house.  In fact, I built this year's NMRBO diorama in that space and the Pine Branch Park railroad has lived there since we moved in.

Can you find the diorama in this image?

But the trains can't live there much longer.  The winter was indeed cold and damp.  No leaks in the roof, but seepage from the concrete floor needs to be addressed eventually.  The summers have been hot and dry but thanks to our evening lows the mornings are pleasant and the garage can be used for a few hours.  If the weather is mild and the evening breeze picks up it is downright enjoyable with the garage door open (and a cold beverage!).  The spiders aren't too bad, nor the dust, and so far - knock on wood - no sign of rodents!  Still, it is a hostile environment for vintage craftsman structures and rolling stock!

So where will the trains go?  As I mentioned in my post "New Digs", this house has a second living room we call the den.  There I'll be sharing the space with my son's computer desk, a bookshelf with display cabinet, and a TV area.  The bookshelf was built last fall and just in the last month I installed new lighting.  My son's computer area is well established and he regularly plays VR games in that end of the room, wildly swinging his arms, working up a sweat!  The workbench has been moved to make room for the trains.

Percy enjoys his new bed atop a Helmer cabinet between my workbench and the sliding glass doors overlooking the back yard.  We both enjoy the natural light and the view.

 
All that remains before the trains come inside is to build some legs for the railroad.  In the garage, both this one and the last, it rested on metal shelving and that will remain in the garage.  In the den it will need legs with wheels; not that it will be rolled around that often, but it will be convenient for photo shoots and cleaning.  Beneath the benchwork will be space for rolling carts.  These will hold paints, supplies, tools, etc. that don't fit in the Ikea Helmer drawers at the workbench.

I'm also going to make some shelves to go over the workbench.  The lowest will include a section of cork board for tacking up instructions (or maybe a metal strip for magnets).  As I've used this smaller bench I have discovered the need to set large plan sheets and even smaller instruction pages...somewhere.  Now that the cat is sharing the space, there's really no good place to put pages of plans.  My desk lamp seen in the photo above will be relocated and strip lighting will be attached under the lowest shelf.  This will not only give me a few more inches on the work surface, but the shelf will provide a place to attach a camera looking straight down onto the bench, should I decide to shoot a video or two.

Hopefully all this will be accomplished in September because October will be for building new Halloween yard haunt props and that time will be here soon!  Feel free to leave comments or questions down below and thanks for reading!

Horse Car Revival

Since the early planning stages of the Pine Branch Park pike, I have endeavored to tell a story.  That story is about the changes in transportation and its effects on the culture of 1920s Florida.  This transition period - not the steam-to-diesel transition period of oft modeled by so many - saw the shift from horse-drawn to horseless carriages.  By the late '20s the horse-drawn streetcar had been replaced by a horseless car of another kind, still on rails, but drawing power from overhead wires.  If not, then it was replaced by the automobile and its tracks in the street pulled up or simply paved over unceremoniously. 

Neatly paved street track in Jacksonville, 1920.

That ripping out of the old was what I sought to portray on the main street of Ocala Springs.  I had plans for a street crew to be digging out bricks (follow this link for inspiration in that regard) and loading them into a wagon, and rail being put onto a truck for delivery to the scrap dealer. This would be an interesting scene in itself, but when another wagon's wheels got bound up in the street track and tipped over its load, a traffic jam ensued - naturally, at an intersection, to cause the most chaos.  Now we're talking.  Humor and interest.  The old Horse Car was not to be scrapped, but instead purchased by that entrepreneur, Strickland, and placed on a display track as a tourist trap roadside attraction where visitors could have their picture made as a souvenir.

Horse car in Ocala; appears to be broad gauge.

But recently I've been considering the disposition of dioramas.  Last year's NMRBO entry was built around a brick street with the horse-drawn streetcar modeled in service, rolling down "Orange Avenue".  What if that track never went out of service?  Sure, the last horse car ran in San Francisco in 1913, and my diorama was set in 1914, but the Ocali Creek is set in the late 1920s.  Did horse cars survive that long?  According to J.H. White Jr., "...New York, had a few horsecars running until July 1917. Pittsburgh ran its last hay burner in 1923, and Sulphur Rock, Arkansas, shut down the U.S. horsecar era in 1926."  Well, horse-puckey.

So now I'm faced with a wonderful dilemma where both options are interesting.  Either I live with the anachronism and keep the old nag pulling her coach, or I proceed as planned and show the line as being removed.  In these sorts of cases I tend to look at the pros and cons for each scenario and make a decision after I've mulled it over a while.  In this case, I'm in no hurry, but this is the best time for this sort of cogitation, when there's no rush.  So I drew up a plan, or rather, modified the existing plan to include a rough indication of the functioning (or not) horse car line and a car barn with attached stable.  Here 'tis:

Click on the image to see it larger.

The horse car track is shown in red.  The curves are a bit sharp and would likely be eased a bit.  Though the car itself actually rolls, this won't be an operating model as I haven't perfected the miniaturizing gun to work on living tissue, beyond the odd pigeon, and I'm not sure what you'd feed a miniature horse.  The car barn and stable shown in orange would probably be either an ornate affair with some gingerbread or a simple shed.  There would also be a passenger platform (not shown) near the station so the horse car could make connections with local branch passenger trains.

Of course some of you may have already hit on the compromise I may inevitably take, to do both.  That is, to lay this track including a now-shuttered car barn and depict the line as being removed by the road gang.  But there is another option still.  I could install overhead wires over the main street portion in front of the businesses and place a cute little Birney there, as if the line were still in operation now converted to electricity.  Hmmm...maybe I'll have a bowl of oats then hit the hay and think about this in the morning.  Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Icing on the Cake!

I'm happy to report that I won FIRST PLACE in the Walthers National Model Railroad Build Off 2023, in the Adult HO scale category.  I had no expectation that I'd even place, but it sure feels good to receive the recognition.  Of course the prize money will go a long way towards any future expansion of the Ocali Creek Railway!  Congratulations to all the winners this year!

Let's just imagine they're eating cake.

I've updated the list of labels in the sidebar to include nmrbo23.  Clicking that will bring up all the posts about this year's diorama.  Honestly, the building and completion of the diorama itself is four months of challenging fun.  This year I got to try some new techniques and practice skills as well.  But to win is really icing on the cake.

Found One!

I'd love to visit Japan someday, though the thought of spending 12 hours in a pressurized aluminum tube at 40 thousand feet over the Pacific does not thrill me at all.  So until that day when the stars align and time, funds and courage meet, I resign myself to exploring the land of the rising sun with Google.  My son got an Oculus VR headset for Christmas two years ago and we put Google Earth on there.  Warning, if you get vertigo, the feeling is real when you select a region and suddenly you're hovering in low Earth orbit next to the planet with empty space all around you.  <shivers>  Better to type in a street address and not be so high up.  Once you drop into street view the experience is pleasant, providing beautiful vistas, interesting structures and of course, trains.

Anyway, when walking in Kamakura one day I came across this:

Can you see it?  No?  Take a closer look:

Yes!  It is a model railroad.  I have no idea what this store actually sells, but they've got trains.  Maybe someone with better Google hunting skills can discover and let me know.  Some folks hunt for garden gnomes; I hunt for trains and this time I found a tiny railroad in a store window.

Pictures I Didn't Submit

Here are a few shots taken during the construction of my entry into the Walthers National Model Railroad Build Off contest for 2023.  These didn't make the cut.  I'll say more in the captions.

Doesn't everyone wash their walls?  This was to try and scrub away the tape residue from the window panes.  Yes, I masked every single window pane in order paint the bright blue windows white.  Because they're cast as one molded piece - clear, blue and white all together.  Who thought that was a good idea?

Fans of the 90s comedy "Frasier" may recognize this coffee mug.  My folks bought it for me at a yard sale, not knowing the connection to the show.  Neither did I until a fan pointed it out to me.  I use it nearly every Sunday.

This was the point in the process where I was considering a printed backdrop.  Didn't go that route, but was inspired by the imagery to model two Bald Cypress trees on the diorama.

And here are those Cypress trees being constructed outside, because my family couldn't stand the aroma of the super glue kicker.  Woodland Scenics tall columnar pines made a great trunk and armature.

The NMRBO Hurricane.  My workbench in the throes of scenic application.

My son Andrew was a great help setting up the photoshoots and used this opportunity to take some images of his own.  And I thought my hair was long when I was in high school.

Hopper's Narrative Influence

Careful viewers will note that the three images in the preceding blog post were all works by Edward Hopper.  Hopper (1882-1967) was an American artist known for his realistic scenes of ordinary life.  According to Wikipedia he "created subdued drama out of commonplace subjects layered with a poetic meaning, inviting narrative interpretations".  Sounds good to me, especially that last bit about inviting narrative interpretations.  I believe strongly that art and story are two sides of a coin.  The best art, like great model railroads, tells a story or sometimes raises questions in the viewers mind that lead to a "narrative interpretation".  

A quick search of the Model Railroader archive will reveal a few brief mentions of Edward Hopper.  Most notable is an article by John Armstrong in which he recreates, in model form, the scene depicted in Hopper's painting "The Nighthawks".  To honor Armstrong a painting was made by railroad artist Ted Rose which included the grand old master himself standing trackside next to a Canandaigua Southern steam engine with the Nighthawks scene in the background.  Think about it; a fictional scene from a famous painting recreated on a freelanced model railroad, finally depicted full circle in a painting.  Narrative indeed.

But perhaps lesser known - because it is entirely my speculation - is this scene, shown on Earl Smallshaw's Middletown and Mystic Mines railroad:

Now, I can't prove it, primarily because Smallshaw has gone on to that great roundhouse in the sky, but I suspect what we're looking at is a nod to this painting:

House by the Railroad, Edward Hopper, 1925

Hopper's painting, indeed many of his railroad paintings, were made in the first quarter of the twentieth century, the time frame of Smallshaw's M&MM.  Note the use of negative space in both images to highlight the subject and draw its contours into sharp relief.  On the Middletown & Mystic Mines this house was the home of Fenton Farnsworth, founder of the M&MM.  As the story goes, he would often step out onto his porch to watch the 8:25 doodlebug go by.  According to the photo's caption in the May 1982 Model Railroader, "Just before his retirement he had this quaint Victorian home built on a knoll and as close to the right-of-way as possible so he could keep an eye on his creation."  Narrative.  Art inspires a story.  

Smallshaw's model, by the way, was a Classic Miniatures Leadville House.  Not an exact match to the house in Hopper's painting but it captures the spirit.  Neither is the supposed real-life inspiration for the painting a match, attributed to a home in New York which also only vaguely looks like the house in Hopper's painting.  But here's yet a third house with a connection (so I'm led to believe) to Hopper's "House by the Railroad":

I selected this one from the many views available on the internet because of the lighting which so closely matches Hopper's work.  Hitchcock reportedly liked the look of Hopper's painting and was inspired to create the Bates Mansion for his film "Psycho".  Supposedly.  But such supposition is part of the fun of "narrative interpretation" isn't it?  Sometimes not knowing is more interesting.

As I've built structures for dioramas over the last two years (see nmrbo22 and nmrbo23 tags for more) I've enjoyed creating narratives around each.  How old are these buildings?  Who might live there?  How can the structure itself tell the story?  What clues can I give the viewer to help discover that narrative?  In the case of Smallshaw's and Hitchcock's Victorian structures we're provided a narrative and given a larger context in which that story is placed.  

But Hopper's masterpiece has no such context beyond the railroad tracks in the foreground.  The structure itself offers no clues beyond an approximate age based on architectural details and the date of Hopper's painting, 1925.   Art critics can and do speculate about the narrative, but they have no more corner on that market than you or I when it comes to imagination.  Perhaps the best we can do is to be inspired enough to recreate our own House by the Railroad and maybe even invite our viewers to cast their own narrative interpretations.

Negative Space and Parade Routes

Railroad Train by Edward Hopper, 1908

When I was reading the July 2023 edition of Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine I came across this statement in Joe Fugate's editorial:

 "Negative space is basically the so-called 'boring stuff' that has little to do with the railroad.  It's the stuff that typically gets thrown out when we selectively compress a railroad route into a layout track plan.  Rather than add something else 'railroady' to the layout, a 'negative space scene' takes space away from the railroady part per se hence the term 'negative' space."

No.  That's not what it means at all.

From wikipedia: "In art and design, negative space is the empty space around and between the subject(s) of an image.^[1] Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space occasionally is used to artistic effect as the "real" subject of an image" 

Furthermore, "Elements of an image that distract from the intended subject, or in the case of photography, objects in the same focal plane, are not considered negative space. Negative space may be used to depict a subject in a chosen medium by showing everything around the subject, but not the subject itself. Use of negative space will produce a silhouette of the subject. Most often, negative space is used as a neutral or contrasting background to draw attention to the main subject, which then is referred to as the positive space."

The "boring stuff" in between our "railroady scenes" is NOT negative space.

To be fair, I get what he's trying to say.  In the editorial he continues to elaborate on what he thinks negative space means for modelers and while he's totally misusing the term, he's still pointing to a concept I endorse.  Our model railroads have to strike a balance between the "railroady" and "non-railroady" scenes we see in the real world.  Most model railroads are heavy on the stations, yards, industries, and signature scenic effects like tunnels and bridges because these are often considered the most interesting elements.  

But in the real world there are, for example, suburbs, non-railroad-served industries, and miles and miles of nature alongside the tracks.  The problem is that the "empty" scenes in between aren't really empty.  While it would be tempting to call a plain, simple scene between more interesting scenes "negative space", a better term for these scenes would be, simply put, ordinary scenes.  The world is full of them and, as Joe rightly points out in his editorial, these often get cut from our model railroads as we selectively compress the world.

House by the Railroad by Edward Hopper 1925

But to say such an ordinary scene is "boring" is an opinion.  Real railroads run through a variety of settings and it is up to the modeler to determine what is interesting enough to be included in the limited space we all have.  It is the operations-fixated focus of the mainstream modeling community that drives this false dichotomy between what is interesting (railroady) and what is boring (the rest of the stuff).

Let me present an idea that might serve to recapture a more positive and balanced perspective on those "boring" scenes - the Parade Route or Paradestrecke in German.  I mention the German translation because that's where I see this concept at work the most, whether on FREMO layouts or home railroads.  When possible, it is desirable to include a stretch of railroad on which trains can get up and go, run hard, stretch their legs, etc.  This is that place we all know and love, standing trackside where the power of a train can be viscerally felt as it thunders by.  

A parade route can include a featured element such as a trestle or even structures, but the primary focus is on the train.  A viewer might look at the scene and enjoy the scenery the way a person would view and enjoy a landscape painting, and it might evoke feelings of peace, tranquility, or mild interest.  But the real interest occurs when the train enters the scene.  This is the place to let that freight creep by so the viewer can admire those detailed cars you spent so much time weathering, or to send that limited express screaming by at 70 per, drivers flashing.

Railroad Sunset by Edward Hopper, 1929

The American modeling culture used to include these ideas, in part.  A classic track plan was the 'out-and-back'.  This provided a visible yard for either storing trains or possibly switching cars and a mainline loop, usually folded and twisted over itself for a longer run but with a reversing section allowing a train to return to the yard from whence it departed.  In effect, the main line was the parade route.  These plans were often accompanied by such text as "let 'em roll on the main while you switch the yard" or some similar admonishment.  Sounds like two kinds of fun at the same time.

Admittedly, those early track plans allowing for trains to just run laps were dependent on, and for the benefit of, companies that sold an ever-increasing selection of locomotives and rolling stock.  The cure for "boredom" on such a pike was to (purchase, build and) run a variety of trains, not necessarily to operate them prototypically.  But once we began heading down the path towards prototype fidelity and operation it seemed the parade routes began to wither, literally shrinking in favor of squeezing in more sidings or more closely modeling a prototype track arrangement and squeezing out "ordinary" scenery.

Long before the prototype operators gained dominance in the hobby Frank Ellison et al found a way to have your cake and eat it too, including both parade routes - though he likely didn't use that term - and serious operation that mimicked the real railroads.  John Allen did the same, as did so many of his contemporaries.  Creating a section of the railroad exclusively for watching the train travel through beautiful scenery was often as important as spotting freight cars or making station stops on time.

But today such ideas are pooh-poohed to the point that magazine editors have to write editorials encouraging folks to consider "negative space" in their operations-oriented railroads.  Perhaps these old ideas will become new again.  Today's non-hobbyist public that attend train shows generally see trains - both model and prototype - as railfans, not operators.  In the real world trains travel through ordinary scenes.  Most North American modular layouts aren't created for operating, but rather favor long trains running through ordinary scenes.

Ordinary scenes are not negative space.  

Boring is in the eye of the beholder.

Details and Story Telling - NMRBO23

While this year's diorama for the National Model Railroad Build Off was designed with a broader picture and clear 'front' view in mind, there was still great emphasis placed on detailed scenes that contribute to the overall story.  That narrative is one of leisure in the "winter paradise" that was Florida of the 1920s, when tourists flocked to the state to escape the cold snowy north and play in the sun.  Of course there were residents there too and they found ways to relax and enjoy the day.  Below are some close-ups of scenes that tell the story:

Most of this year's figures were already painted, including the garden gnomes - accurate for the 1920s, actually - but I did paint a few figures and details.  I also built three vehicles, two from Jordan Miniatures and one from Sylvan, confusingly a 'Jordan' roadster.  I'm most pleased with finding a new job for Ma Spumoni; instead of hanging laundry she's picking oranges.  The fellow in the rowboat was originally going to be fishing.  Before that the rowboat was going to be a scratchbuilt steam launch or pleasure craft such as would be seen at that time.  But time ran out for adding more, and space got compressed at the waterfront so the steam launch was replaced with the rowboat, a metal casting.  The man snoozing in the boat was marketed as a 'hobo' but in this case he's just a fellow out relaxing on the water...for the moment.

Diorama Design and Composition - NMRBO23

 

 

Click on the image above or open in a new tab to see a really large version.

The top-down image above offer a good view of the overall layout of this year's National Model Railroad Build Off diorama.  The main idea driving the design is the flow across the scene from side to side, primarily left to right, interrupted by elements that break that flow.  Elements that run from one short side to the other are the lakefront, the track and the road.  Elements that interrupt that motion are the bends in the road, the stream and bridges crossing it, and the trees.  The houses and larger trees at the back of the scene are adjacent to or behind these longer, sweeping elements, and are almost interesting background features in and of themselves.  More on them in a moment.

Let's start with the water.  Since Woodland Scenics Deep Pour Murky water and a plate girder bridge were two required elements in the product bundle, it made sense to make them primary features in the design.  I placed the bridge front and center with the water making a V towards the bridge.  The small 'surface rocks', also required, point along that V toward the bridge.  (Another line of surface rocks points toward the concrete arched bridge, but it is secondary to the railroad bridge and serves another compositional purpose).

The last required element in the product bundle was "Aunt Lucy's House", a two-story wood house kit by Walthers, (nee Faller).  This structure might get its own blog post, as there's much to talk about there, but the topic for this post is about how to use the design of the diorama to highlight the required elements.  To draw the eye to Aunt Lucy's house I put a bend in the road and placed the big white house at the end of it.  I then put parallel elements in front of it which reinforce its location, connecting the street to the track to the fence to the driveway and finally the roof of the house; there's even a line of surface rocks between the track and the fence.  See the blue lines in this image below:

Note also how the other house on the left relates to the curving road, track and lakeside over against the strong parallel lines at the farmhouse.  In "reality" the home would have been the last thing built - the lake being there first, the track coming next, the road after that, and then the house.  But for the purposes of the design composition it is the most eye-catching large element on that side of the diorama, and the shape of the elements in front serve to reinforce its location.

As I implied in last year's analysis of my diorama entry from 2022, balance is important.  The weight of things influences how the viewer sees the scene.  So far the discussion has focused on a top-down view, but this year I added more vertical gradients to the diorama.  The lowest elevation is the lakefront and stream, and the highest the ground level under the mission-style bungalow on the left.  However the tallest structure is still the white farmhouse.  The paved road is the only leading line that changes elevation; it is above the track on the left, level at the crossing, then below it on the right.

Finally the trees play an important composition role.  There is one more (broken) horizontal line on the diorama - the trees across the back.  I had originally planned to include a printed backdrop but decided late in the construction to omit it.  I had even considered using a small mirror to give the illusion that the stream extended back further into the distance but disguising it with a tunnel of trees would have changed the overall feel and balance of the diorama, putting too much weight in the center instead of out front on the bridge.  

I firmly believe that nature, whenever appropriate, should dominate our modeled environments.  Big trees should be big, maintaining the relationship to other structures, trains, people, etc. as they do in reality.  My Bald Cypress trees are 60-70 feet high; this is about average for this species, but still tall enough to cast a long shadow over their surroundings as a model.  

The palm trees dotted throughout are mainly there to set the locale but also serve as punctuation marks, places to interrupt the flow and keep the eye in the scene a bit longer.  As painter Ian Roberts notes, strong lines across a composition tend to take the viewer outside the scene, so elements that keep the viewer in the scene need to be placed to do just that.  It would be easy to follow the paved road right off the right side of the diorama, but that big Cypress says "Stop!" and keeps your eye at the lakeside "beach".

Thanks for keeping your eye on this longer blog post.  I hope these thoughts inspire you to consider design and composition in your modeled worlds.

National Model Railroad Build Off 2023 Diorama

Here are some images of the diorama I built for the Walthers National Model Railroad Build Off this year.  Click on each image or open in a new tab to see them larger.

This year I chose to depict a lakeside setting in north-central Florida in the 1920s.  Most of the folks on the diorama are having fun or engaged in other leisure activities.  I say "north-central" Florida due to the inclusion of surface rocks, an element required by the product bundle I purchased for the contest.  These are rare in the state, but limestone outcrops do show up here and there.  The other elements were the big white farmhouse, some Woodland Scenics Deep Pour Murky water and a short plate girder bridge.  I also chose to include Walthers' Mission Style Bungalow and to kitbash a Rix overpass into a concrete arched bridge.

The hardest part of this year's diorama wasn't building the thing, but photographing it.  I tried three locations before arriving in the driveway using the neighbor's landscaping as a backdrop.  I was most pleased with seeing the diorama in full sun, but the sticky wax I used to hold some figures in place didn't like it, nor did some old decals I applied to the Jordan mail truck.  

I think this will be the final diorama I build for this contest unless there's a bundle I just can't pass up next year.  While I enjoyed the last four months of model making, I've got bigger ideas for the Pine Branch Park railroad and would rather put my energy there.  Plus, I've been enjoying painting minis and playing Star Wars Legion at my local gaming store.  I've got a few tubs of assorted bits I've been collecting that will become terrain pieces for that game.  But the biggest draw right now is the desire to rebuild old rolling stock and get some vintage trains Back on Track.  The weather around here is just beginning to heat up so it is time to stay inside and build models.

More posts on the diorama will appear eventually.  Details, design, and other thoughts.  Thanks for reading.

Burma Shave Signs

 

The Burma Shave company used to make roadside signs to advertise their shave cream.  These were placed along the road in a sequence, inviting motorists to read their message as they drove by.  First appearing in 1927, the signs were continually updated with new jingles through 1963.  I model the late 1920s and so a set of Burma Shave signs just barely fits into my era.  

I've been considering adding a set to my National Model Railroad Build Off 2023 diorama but have yet to decide if I'll include one.  It is the sort of detail that may or may not fit depending on how the scenery evolves.  Ditto telegraph poles, but that's another topic.  Anyway, I found this archive of Burma Shave jingles, nicely organized by year:

http://burma-shave.org/jingles/

If you are a stickler for prototype accuracy, now you can sleep well knowing your roadside advertisements are appropriate for your era.  Whether or not they fit your locale is up to you to determine.  Perhaps the book mentioned on the jingle page can help you there.  I like to know I'm close enough but I won't lose any sleep using a jingle from the wrong year, and some are funnier than others.  The selection from the 20's is limited and none are railroad related.

I hope the readers of this blog might find this site useful or at least get a chuckle from some clever ads.

2023 Diorama Update - Farmhouse Layout

Entering the final lap, not quite the final stretch, for this year's NMRBO diorama.  Track is down, painted and balasted.  Bridges are installed and the road has been paved.  All the landscape structure has been shaped, plastered and painted (though not yet in these photos).  Now comes the planning stage where smaller decisions are made.  This post is about just one such decision - where to place the chicken house.

In the first photo you can see the little red shed behind the main house, with a pale green wagon next to it.  Ditto the second photo, but I've rotated the shed and wagon 90 degrees counterclockwise.  Right now I'm leaning towards the second orientation.  But I've been cogitating over this one for a while.  I had thought about a barn in that space but it was too much competition with the main house.  The chicken house is just the right size but getting it placed has been more challenging than I first thought it would be. 

Diorama In Progress

After some consideration, I decided to enter the Walthers National Model Railroad Build Off 2023.  Here are a few "teaser" images from this year's diorama so far:

I'm really enjoying building this year's diorama.  This time there are two main buildings and two bridges, one long stretch of track, a road and a lakeside scene, with plenty of trees to build and many opportunities for detailed scenes.  Last year I included several craftsman kits but this year the structures are almost all plastic and all built as intended...mostly.  Of course I have to make upgrades.  Once again the setting is Florida but the era is the late 20's or early 30's instead of 1914.  I'm pleased with how the overall composition is laid out and steadily working to bring it to life.  

I don't want to give away too much too soon so I may not share much more than this until after the diorama is complete and the contest deadline has passed.  But there may be a handful of other posts...we'll see.  Once again I'm reminded of what I consider one of the main benefits of this contest; the ability to complete eight square feet of fully-scenicked model railroad in a short period of time.  I think it's time we lay to rest that tired old trope, "model railroads are never finished", don't you?