Now We're Rolling!

Ocali Creek Railway 2-6-0 number 145 speeds a train of reefers loaded with Florida citrus toward Northern markets at Christmastime.  Oranges at Christmas have become a tradition for many during this season, thanks to fast, dependable transportation provided by railroads spanning the sunshine state.  The orange and green Shepaug Valley car behind the locomotive is likely headed for Connecticut.  The Ocali Creek is a short line tapping the riches of central Florida.  This train will speed through the tall pine forests to a connection with the Florida East Coast.

Finished the Mogul to a state where I can run it for a while before adding weathering and final details.  In fact, I will likely finish the OCRY cabeese before I weather this locomotive along with the cabeese and some other too-clean rolling stock.  Neither the bell nor whistle cords have been added, and there's no coal in the tender.  That's okay as there are no handrails to pull yourself up into the cab either.  Those are the last details to add.  The railings will go on before I weather, the cords and coal after.

Note how the pure black paint obscures the details in this poor garage light.  HA.  Just kidding.  I hope this photo goes to show that a glossy black paint job looks beautiful and actually highlights the detail, most of which is molded on and not separately applied.  The poor garage light is a basic florescent shop light.  The image was captured with a digital camera set to auto ISO and a close-up macro with no flash.

What's the Intent?

One of the blogs I read from time to time is Mike Cougill's over at OST Publications.  One of his thoughtful musings published just a few hours ago as of this writing is here:

http://www.ostpubs.com/whats-the-intent/

In it, he asks the question which titles his post.  I mirrored it as the title of this post to start something.  I'm hoping that any other bloggers that read this site from time to time will take up the gauntlet and write their own "What's the Intent" post to answer the question for themselves.  (Jim?  Luke?)  Mike's focus lately has been on modeling cameo scenes as a way of advancing ideas about the artistry of the craft of model railroading.

For me, I can sum it all up in one photo and a short description:

 

McDonald, Dale M., 1949-2007. World of Motion attraction in EPCOT Center at the Walt Disney World Resort - Orlando, Florida. 1983. Color slide, . State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. <https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/101839>, accessed 18 December 2018.

This rather poor image depicts what has been called the "World's First Traffic Jam".  It's a show scene in the now-extinct World of Motion pavilion at EPCOT Center in Orlando, Florida.  This ride-through attraction showed guests a history of transportation through humorous scenes depicting advances in our mobility, and presenting future transportation possibilities.  (I recommend searching out the attraction on Youtube, as there are several decent ride-through videos you can view.  An image search for this attraction may also turn up a great shot of this scene under construction, with the study model built by Imagineers in the foreground.)

No, I'm not replicating this attraction in my garage, but taking cues from Disney's original mission for EPCOT - to Inspire, Educate and Entertain.  This attraction did that and more.  My railroad will do the same but with a much narrower focus.  It will show scenes typical of the 1920s in central Florida.  There will be humorous scenes, at least one of which will be lifted almost directly from the World of Motion.  Distinctive elements like a paper boy on the corner hawking the daily or the remnants of the horse drawn streetcar track will educate and invite any viewers to ask questions.  Creating believable, realistic scenes will also drive me further into enjoyable research.

The trains themselves will be moving elements within a three dimensional artwork, literally framed.  They will "operate" in traditional model railroad fashion, but the operational function serves the purpose of telling the story.  That story is the specific history of the land boom in 1920's Florida and how the railroads played their part in that story.

Personally, my intent is to create a slice of a world that could have been, into which I can visit and observe and interact.  I can admire this creation and relax as a train trundles through this miniature world, or I can take on the role of conductor, planning the moves to get the pickups picked up and setouts set out, then get back home in time for that new radio program.  Maybe I'll pick up the extra from the kid on the corner.  I hear Lindberg is going to try for a trans-Atlantic flight.

Mogul Update

I have been making steady progress on the IHC 2-6-0 rebuild, reaching the painting and decal stage.  Now all that's left is to wire the LEDs.  The headlight will be wired to two connector pins and the resistors will be wired in the tender, along with the rear light.  The LEDs are prewired nano LEDs from Evan Designs, set into holes drilled into cast brass light housings.

Paint is all acrylic except for the brass bits.  The graphite is a craft paint called 'tin' and the red is called 'lipstick'.  The black is BLACK - not gray, or weathered black, or black warmed with red and softened with white a la John Allen, but BLACK.  I've never been a fan of painting a locomotive any color other than what it was or is in real life.  Funnily enough, I freelance.  Still, black is black.

I got a bit of an orange peel finish on the cab roof, due to the gloss varnish not going on thick enough.  I'm not happy with the way the gloss behaved - some of the paint buckled and wrinkled, but it wasn't in a place where it will be seen.  Overall the finish is fine, but I am going to look into the Tamiya varnishes as I've heard great things about them.

Once the LEDs are wired I will reassemble the loco and add final touches like the crew, coal load and bell and whistle cords.  I have cleaned paint from the tender trucks but will run the engine on DC to turn the drivers.  Weathering is something that'll happen down the road, most likely.

BTW - my most recent post on "What Vintage" has far and away surpassed any other post I've made on this blog.  Welcome to all the new readers who came by for that post.  Stick around and check out some of the other posts and feel free to comment!

What Vintage?

     A while back I experienced the sublime joy and pleasant challenge that comes from building a craftsman kit. This was no ordinary kit – it was an HO scale model of an HO scale model – a 'tribute' kit to a box car skillfully built and whimsically lettered by John Allen of Gorre & Daphetid fame. Not only that, but this car is a throwback to earlier kit construction methods; it was made primarily of paper.

     Though the car ends, sides, roof and even the inner structure are made of paper, they were laser cut and printed. The underframe is cast resin, and details (the ones that weren't paper) are from Tichy and Grandt Line. That means full underbody detail with all the fiddly bits. Couplers? Kadee scale size, naturally. Trucks? Tichy arch bar.

     And another thing – this kit is now out of production and the manufacturer, sadly, out of business. The car I built is a 'Superior Detritus' box car offered by Full Circle Models. John Allen's original was a Central Valley box car kit. My kit was lettered (and weathered!) by computer. John's was lettered by hand.  Right-click and open this image in a new window for a REALLY big version:

     All this prompted me to ask, “Just what is 'vintage' anymore”? For example, is this piece of rolling stock, 'vintage'? If you define vintage as 'old', then the answer is no. After all, the kit is only a few years old. But if you didn't know how old it was, would it have that 'vintage' look? How does a model railroader define 'vintage'?

     Webster's listing for the word vintage includes three relevant definitions:

1. a collection of contemporaneous and similar persons or things
2. a period of origin or manufacture
3. length of existence 

     By one of these definitions you could say a boxcar kit produced in 2014 is 2014 vintage, like the model year on an automobile. This definition works for my detritus car too – it is a 2010 vintage kit.  But my car also fits another of Webster's definitions; the model represents a car built in the late 1800's. In that sense the period of origin or manufacture is not defined by the actual age of the model, but the perceived age of the car the model represents. So in this sense it is an 1890s vintage car.

     Even so, isn't this really dodging the question or escaping on a technicality? I get the feeling that 'vintage', to many modelers, represents that 'golden' era of American-made craftsman kits. You know, the ones that came with a tube of glue bearing the same name as the kit box, or similar boxes of wood and metal parts with printed car sides or decals to apply. Couplers? Take your pick – after all, you had to supply them. Trucks? If you were lucky they 'snapped' onto the bolster. These were kits from the 'vintage' era of model railroading, surely.

     I love those kits, (even though I am 1975 vintage, myself), and the Detritus car almost fits this definition also, doesn't it? It is no 'shake the box' kit. Though laser cut, it required a great deal of patience, time and craftsmanship to assemble. It is in fact, a model of a model built in that 'vintage' era. So my car is a 2010 vintage kit, representing a late 1800's vintage box car, based on a 1950's vintage model, built using a mix of 'vintage' and modern techniques. Whew! I'd say it's vintage all around, wouldn't you?

Details I Didn't Think I'd Do

Here are two things I did to the 2-6-0 that I hadn't planned on doing.  The first is a stand, made simply from two bent pieces of flat brass strip, for the rear light on the tender.

Shown above are the finished light, the little block of plastic I was going to use initially, and a third 'leg' I bent.  I bent enough legs to get two that matched in height.  In this image the LED is not in the casting.  It has since been added and the wires are run down behind one of the legs.

The second unplanned detail is less detail and more functional addition.  Note the bits of metal in this image.

While I chose to not replace the cast-on power reverse or air compressor assembly, I did fill-in the back side of the air tanks.  Since I removed some weight from inside the boiler to make room for wiring, I decided to replace a little with these bits.  I had these cut-offs from another steam project in which I had removed the cast metal clunky air tanks and replaced them with scratchbuilt parts.  The metal is ZAMAC, most likely, so it is heavy.  Though it is not that visible, it adds a tiny bit of weight and that helps the overall performance of this locomotive.

As of this post, this engine is fully detailed and ready for paint.

Who's That Girl?

This post is a bit of a diversion from the most recent modeling efforts.  Readers of a certain age, upon reading the title to this post, will be immediately struck with an ear worm, courtesy of Madonna.  For this, I am truly sorry.  However, I needed to use this title as it is the central question of this post. 

Over the summer the boys and I spent time "off screens" each morning from breakfast to lunch.  I accomplished a great deal, including some fun tasks I had been postponing.  One such joy was working a puzzle I had purchased at Disneyland a few years back.  Here is an image of the completed puzzle:

Pay attention to the colors used; sky blue, various reds and browns and other southwestern U.S. earth tones.  These are the predominant background colors.  What interests me are the bold accent colors; red, gold and green.  (Again, my apologies if you just picked up a different 80's song on the brain).  Two greens are used - a lighter bright green on the banner behind the BIG THUNDER MOUNTAIN RAILROAD lettering, and a darker, forest green on both the locomotive cab and the Disneyland plaque at the bottom of the frame.

There's also a little green on the sparse foliage, but there's one other place that dark forest green is used.  Here, take a closer look and see if you can spot it:

This is a BIG high-quality image, so right-click and open it in a new tab or window if you need to.  When you work a puzzle, you notice things you might not have in a casual glance at an image.  I tune my eye to a certain color and gather pieces with that color, knowing that they'll likely fit together somehow in a group.  I knew the Disneyland emblem and locomotive cab were the same color and the shapes of each were different enough I could easily separate them into groups.  But the girl...

Now we can return to that initial question, "Who's that girl?"  I believe that she is someone important, probably to the artist who created this poster.  Maybe a wife or daughter or girlfriend, or even the artist herself.  Why do I believe this?  A few reasons.  First, the aforementioned color.  She's wearing the same color as the two other powerful and important elements in the piece - the locomotive and the park emblem.  All the other guests on the train are wearing shades of red or brown and even sky blue - all background colors.

Secondly, she's positioned just above the EXACT center of the image:

I added the white lines in Gimp to a borrowed image of the attraction poster to illustrate this.  You can also follow the sight lines of the track coming from the lower right quadrant towards the center through the locomotive and they point directly at her.  In an image full of off-axis and frame-busting elements, she is one of the most "forward", just behind the locomotive and track.

Finally, she is the ONLY person in the image looking directly at the viewer.  Everyone else is seated in their ride vehicles facing the direction of travel while her shoulders and face are turned toward the viewer and her eyes are looking at you.

While she may be someone important, she is not the focus of the poster overall.  Even on the full-sized poster at Disneyland park, she's only a couple inches high at most.  She, along with all the other guests on the train, are dwarfed by the imposing typeface and font size of the lettering.  The ominous clouds, towering peak and rushing locomotive all spell out the attraction's name - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  And where do you find it?  Why, Frontierland, of course.  Even the planks on which you are encouraged to "climb aboard 'n hang on" are larger.

But as I mentioned earlier, working a puzzle affords the opportunity to observe the distinct elements of an image and study the artistry behind the work.  Big Thunder is one of my favorite attractions at Disneyland and I love working puzzles, so this was all joy to work this one.  I rarely return to a puzzle after working it, but I may have to on this one in order to get it mounted and framed...or maybe I'll just work it again, and perhaps I'll notice something...or someone...else next time.

Steam Status

Here is where the 2-6-0 stands at present:

I have been occasionally sanding the joint on the tender sides with a very tiny piece of very fine sandpaper glued to a stick, in order to avoid sanding away the rivets.  However, I have sanded away all the rivets on the rear of the tender.  I did this when I removed the cast-on ladder.  I will replace the rivets with Micro Mark rivet decals similar to the double rows that were there, and the ladder with a brass casting from Wiseman.  Also on the tender I will be adding a platform for the back-up light.

All that remains on the locomotive itself is to add a pair of handrail stanchions just in front of the cab wall, and a bit of fake wiring conduit to replace where I shaved some off while removing another detail.  After that it is a matter of determining what value resistor to use for the LED's and then wiring them in place.

After these final details are complete I can paint and letter the engine.  We are still having warm, dry afternoons here so I want to get it painted before the temperature drops much and the air gets moist.