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  By the late '20s the horse-drawn streetcar had been replaced by a horseless car of another kind, still on rails, but drawing power from overhead wires.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.