Another Hopper Contender

Another Hopper?  

Edward Hopper, that is, and once again there's another look-alike that might take its inspiration from Hopper's painting, or perhaps Disneyland Paris.  You be the judge:

Hopper's original, House by the Railroad

Noch's Geisterhaus

Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris

Allowing that Hopper's house is most likley a pastiche of Second Empire architectural styles and not an exact duplicate of an actual place, we are freed from any chains - ghostly or otherwise - and able to interpret both the painting and these potentially derivative works without prejudice.  Noch's offering appears to be a very close copy of the Phantom Manor, minus the chimneys - an odd omission.

To my eye the Phantom Manor appears more like Hopper's house.  The smaller windows on the Mansard roof in the DL Paris structure are no doubt there to offer a sense of forced perspective, to give the mansion a bit more height and enhance the foreboding feeling, and the porches on the side simply to make the structure busier and more visually interesting.

Disney Imagineers were reportedly inspired by a school building in Carson City, Nevada when they designed the Phantom Manor.  I've seen the Nevada structure in person and in my opinion, no, it's not a match.  There are some similarities, but if it was the inspiration they strayed far from the source in the final product.   

Some out in the world wide web claim the Disney designers were influenced by the Bates Mansion from Psycho.  I doubt that also, and attribute this effect to the public consciousness of that iconic structure; scary house = haunted mansion, similar silhouette, etc.  But if there's any truth in that rumor then Phantom Manor owes its lineage at least in part to Hopper, as his paintings were an inspiration for Hitchcock and his team.

 

 

About that 4-6-0

 

A while back I mentioned an AristoCraft (New One) 4-6-0 I'd considered to pull my Selley passenger train, when the day arrived to need it.  Well, the Selley passenger cars are still in kit form, in their boxes, awaiting their turn on the workbench.  But another reason emerged for needing this engine, and one that's more apropos.

While searching for that elusive (and now suddenly everywhere!) New One "Supply Car", I ended up with a whole train of New One cars, nearly ready-to-run.  It's a long story, and might find its way onto this blog someday.  For now, suffice it to say that I've got a five-car "Open Enders" (New One's name for its cars) passenger train with one of each type plus an extra coach.

That brings us back to the 4-6-0.  The poor old gal had a broken tender truck, a broken drawbar spring, and two broken main rods.  After some cogitation I figured I could repair that truck, ditto the spring, and begin hunting for replacement main rods - more on that in a moment.  I managed to "weld" the truck back together with the same two-part metal epoxy I had used on the frame of the 2-8-0 kit-mingle.  I bent a new spring for the drawbar and soldered it in place.

With those repairs the thing should have run, and it did, briefly.  After cleaning the wheel treads and oiling the motor bearings the performance improved but not by much.  So I turned to what any reasonably skilled modeler would have done back in the day; I bought pickup shoes from Tomar and installed one under the loco.  I try to follow the troubleshooter's creed of "fix one thing at a time - then test - then repeat as necessary"*

With that solitary change and more wheel cleaning the thing now runs reasonably well.  Well enough, in fact, to pull the New One cars around Pine Branch Park without much difficulty.  Of course it still needs those main rods and I may have the solution.  Finding original parts will be less likely than a close-enough replacement, so I selected a pair of rods from an MDC 4-4-2.  As you can see from the photos they're pretty close.  Crucially, they're longer and I can drill a new hole (hopefully) in the beam and make it work.  Fingers crossed.

*I don't know if that really is a troubleshooter's creed, it just sounds like it could be.  Please don't come after me, members of the troubleshooter's guild.  If there is such an organization.  I'm just guessing.

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. 

Truck Repair

No, not that kind of truck repair, unless you were thinking of the assemblies that sit beneath train cars, in which case, yes, that kind of truck repair.  Maybe rebuild is a better term.  Anyway, look at this:

The donor truck is a Selley passenger truck intended for their old time open platform shorty cars.  I have a few kits waiting to be built and have set aside some free-rolling MDC/Roundhouse old-time passenger trucks with metal wheels for those kits.  The Roundhouse trucks, to my eye, look better under the Selley cars.  Still, I don't want the Selley trucks to go to waste, even though the plastic wheels that came with would them qualify as pizza cutters, if they rolled well enough.

SO, I unsoldered the Selley trucks as best I could and though I lost a few I was able to get enough parts to make a pair.  I used the truck-tuner tool to ream a conical bearing in each side frame until Kadee ribbed-back wheel sets would fit and turn easily.  Then I "welded" the trucks back together using two-part Loctite Weld.

These trucks will run beneath the former-NP Fruit Car, intended to be run in the Morning Milk & Mail train on the Ocali Creek's Pine Branch.  I chose these Selley trucks for this car despite their difficulties in rebuilding them because they fit.  It really is a practical matter more than an aesthetic choice, though I like the look much more than the arch bar trucks intended for the car and used by the prototype.  In my fictional history, the OCRy got this car second hand and, as part of the rebuild, used some second-hand passenger trucks.  Such is the way on short lines with meager budgets.

Pine Branch Park

After some consideration, I've decided to name my next model railroad the "Pine Branch Park".  This is a play on words and a nod to the region and specific context I'll be modeling.  "Pine Branch" refers to the little creek running through the area and across a corner of the modeled scene while conjuring images of a literal bough or limb of a pine tree.  Yes, a Florida railroad perhaps more commonly calls to mind palms instead, but for central Florida, the pine was the more lucrative tree.  Several will be modeled on this section of the line.

"Park" refers to the industrial park.  While a small street scene with shops and residences will be modeled, the real reason for the railroad is the industrial complex.  As I've pored over period photos, the ones grabbing my interest are scenes of industry and residential areas, more than the countryside and open wilderness.  I hope to expand this railroad into those areas eventually, but for now the city, or rather, this aspect of the city will dominate the scene.  Here's one such photo that lived on my desktop for a while:

Ocala Manufacturing Company - Ocala, Florida. 192-. Black & white photograph, 4 x 5 in. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. <https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/6252>, accessed 5 August 2018.  Right-click and open in a new tab for a much larger view.

 

 I've also had good input from folks over on the Railroad-Line forum into the track plan.  Here is the latest incarnation.  Note the yellow highlighted line, signifying the main track.  At some point I'd like to continue this track to another area in order to run through trains.  For now, however, the area modeled is self contained and can be run simply as a loop of track or switched in a more formalized operating scheme.

Finally, a word on how I plan to proceed.  I remember fondly the series "Especially for Beginners" in Model Railroader magazine, running from January 1991 through December 1992.  That's a full two years dedicated, essentially, to one model railroad dubbed the Cripple Creek Central.  In my opinion it was not the best name choice as I can't see the model railroad resembling either well-known Cripple Creek, i.e. Colorado or Virginia.  At least it was closer to the western example scenically, but I digress.

Looking back at this series years later, I have come to realize what is perhaps unique about the approach taken to building this railroad.  I imagine Jim Kelly had an idea in mind as to what direction the build would take and how the railroad would progress, but that wasn't clear up front.  Seems like MR project layouts are presented, most often, after they've been completed.  The step-by-step articles that follow are retrospectives on what was done and how. 

In the case of the Cripple Creek Central there seems to be an organic, 'let's see where this leads' approach.  Track was 'laid', but not fastened down so that changes could be made later.  Buildings were purchased because the author liked the way they looked, almost like the average person would do when perusing their local hobby shop.  Scenes were built then later modified.  The control method was changed half-way through the series.  While the general direction remained coherent, the details were more fluid and it almost seemed as if you got a glimpse inside the mind of the creators (there were multiple contributing authors!) as they each worked on the project.

This seems very different than the more dominant approach put forward by the conventional school of planning, often attributed to John Armstrong.  In this method the track plan is made to fit the space and is driven most often by the goal of getting in as much operation as possible.  That approach, combined with the emphasis on prototype modeling, has been a strong current in the hobby for a long time, certainly since the days of the great freelancers like John Allen and W. Allen McClelland or the artists like Malcolm Furlow and Dave Methlie. 

My approach to building this railroad is, as I see it, somewhere in between.  I want some operations so I've planned those in.  I think it is best to do that up front when you have specific structures you want to include such as the Purina Mill and Union Ice industries shown on the plan.  But I've also left room for other elements to change.  Currently I'm considering a coal dealer for the unnamed Industry A.  That would fit well next to the Ice plant, but we'll see what I feel like doing when I get to that stage in the construction.

The primary reason I mention the Cripple Creek Central, however, is the measured monthly approach they took to build this model railroad over the course of two years.  The series was so comprehensive, including everything from soup to nuts, that Kalmbach made it into a book.  I would like to build and complete - yes, complete - this model railroad in a couple years.  I don't buy the tired trope, "a model railroad is never finished".  While the progressive steps I take in building the Pine Branch Park won't exactly parallel the stages of construction seen in the CCC series, I will aim for monthly installments that show visible progress on the construction of the railroad with a varying focus for each.

Naturally benchwork and trackwork comes first, but soon after I will be installing a station and some streets.  I may devote a month to the Purina Mill, but also to the Woodland Scenics grain truck and the Purina ventilated box cars (former reefers) I have to upgrade and rebuild.  Static grass wasn't really a thing in 1991, but I have all the parts to build a static grass applicator so that'll feature one month along with putting down some ground cover. 

But beyond a few vague ideas, I'm going to let the build take me where it will.  Adam Savage talks about the way a project actually leads you as you build it and suddenly new directions appear which you wouldn't have seen before you began.  I know this to be true and it is an exciting aspect of any long-term project.  I hope you'll journey along with me as I build the Pine Branch Park Model Railroad.

White Walls, Green Trim

Airbrushed Delta Ceramcoat Acrylics, thinned with windshield wiper fluid.

White and Forest Green

Here's a tip; paint in the garage in the morning when it's cool, then let it dry and cure throughout the day when it's pushing 100 out there.  I started painting the corner trim and rafter tails, but decided to brush paint those.  The castings were primed with rattle can gray primer whereas the wood was not.

Garage Railroad Plan

I've always looked at those 4x8 project railroads in the model train magazines with an eye for what could be.  Sometimes there is great potential, sometimes they just don't work that well.  Granted, there has been much ink spilled over how to create a better plan using the same space required for a 4x8 (much greater than 4x8, considering aisles and access to three sides) so I won't go into that here.  But I will posit a contrary view for the utility of such plans as they are - a rectangle in the middle of a room.  When you have a room in which you can't use the walls, one of these space-hogging 4x's may be just the answer.

I have space in our house for a nice railroad on a shelf, but barring some sections that must be put up to run and taken down when done, that doesn't make for easy loop running.  Sometimes (quite often) I like to just sit back and watch a train roll.  In order to do that I need to build something larger, and the only space for that is our garage.  Bob Smaus once wrote an article in Model Railroader about the hazards of building in the garage, and I recommend it if you can find it.  Summer heat, winter cold, dust, spiders (black widows, and not the Southern Pacific RR kind!) and clutter all make for a challenging environment in which to build a model railroad.

However, I have decided I'm up for the challenge.  I recently set up a test loop of EZ track in the garage, ostensibly for testing the 2-6-0.  This is actually our Christmas loop but only when there's a tree in the middle.  I've been having so much fun running trains on that loop - despite the rough conditions in the garage - that I decided I could be very happy with a layout out there.

After much cogitation (the details of which I will spare you), I returned to a simple plan.  Behold the HO scale Morgan Valley RR, first featured in the January 1989 issue of Model Railroader in an article by Rick Henderson (click for larger, or right click and open in a new tab):

This plan has always stuck with me, dating back to the first days of my subscription to Model Railroader.  However, I've learned much since then about railroad operations, model and prototype, and right away I knew I'd need to modify this plan.  I started by removing the short switchback siding and a few others.

I added a parallel siding to an existing one, and shifted a few tracks to align on 90 degree lines.  This was because I was already envisioning a grid of streets.

The dark gray are major roads while the lighter gray are secondary alleys and parking areas.  I believe this should be a consideration in the earliest stages of a plan, as this is often how city planners would view development.  People inhabit cities, and need a way to get around.  On so many model railroads, particularly smaller ones like this, roads seem to be an afterthought and consequently the scene lacks believability.  Roads lead to structures, or in the case of the driveways, connect structures to streets.

Here the olive drab colored shapes represent industries or railroad structures, the blue colored blocks represent city buildings and the dusty rose colored shapes are residential homes.  Trees and water features have been added and some track features labeled.   It is my intention that the streets and buildings will provide a strong grid-like structural element.  The tracks interact with this structure as if, in some cases, they were put in place after the grid was laid down, and in others in concert with it or before it.  The tracks follow a small creek in one corner and pass through a low cut in another, next to the orange grove; otherwise the topography is essentially flat.

While I will discuss operating this layout in another post, suffice it to say for now that the railroad can handle both freight and passenger trains as it stands.  With a connection to staging (most likely a train-length turntable) as a fiddle yard, the variety of equipment increases.  For now it can be built using track I already own, and using many key structures which I already own.  One final note - the 'Motorcycle Cop' is a nod to a scene from an extinct Epcot Center attraction, the World of Motion.  Find a good video of this ride on YouTube and see if you can spot the cop behind the billboard.

Green Steam II

What happens when you strip the Southern Green paint off an IHC Mogul?  You find green plastic underneath that green paint!

Notice the silver smokebox and firebox paint didn't come off completely.  I may have been able to get more to release had I soaked it longer.  What you see here is the result of a couple hours in 91% rubbing alcohol.  I finished removing the silver with a scraper.  The only other green plastic is the cylinders and saddle, not shown here.  The rest - basically the frame - is molded in black plastic, and was unpainted.

Re-kitting a Wabash Box Car

I just posted a new video to YouTube showing the cleaning and "re-kitting" of an HO Scale Wabash Double Sheathed box car.  This is one of the kits I picked up at Puyallup back in November.  I began disassembly and realized that this was going to take alot of work.  I had also filmed that initial disassembly using my smaller camera but I wasn't happy with the resolution.  If I'm going to film and share close-up modeling, I want a higher resolution so that folks can see what's going on.  I'm still new to this video production thing so I know there will be a learning curve, but I hope to produce good quality videos of the kind of content I'd like to see.

Here's the video, embedded:

You may not be able to tell but the cast metal ends are really distorted.  I solved this by building up the castings with styrene then sanding them flat again, but that's another video.  I'm already casting parts for this car using a casting set from Alumilite I purchased last year at Hobby Lobby using a coupon.  Again, that's another video (the casting, not the trip to Hobby Lobby).  And I'll need to scratchbuild doors and door hardware...that's another video too.  Not sure how many parts this will be when all is said and done, but I hope to keep each video under 10 minutes (closer to 5).  No rambling, shaky camera, distracting background chatter from a TV, etc.  Just simple descriptions and straight up modeling.

Thanks for reading, and for watching.  Please share this video with folks you think may find it interesting.  I hope to post follow-up videos every couple weeks or more often during my Sabbatical.  After that, more like once a month as long as there's something worth watching.