Holiday Lull

The quiet view across the street from my house after a snowfall in the desert.
The quiet view across the street from my house after a snowfall in the desert.

I returned to my workbench the other day and unearthed a project I started over a month ago. I seem to experience a holiday lull in hobby activity each year as outside activities increase and a family member or two travels to this tip of far west Texas for a visit. Old Man Winter played a trick and dumped eight inches of snow on the region to shut things down for a couple of days. I also dealt with a wonderful blog software update here that had gone awry. It was very good to sit at the workbench again and make progress.

Continue reading “Holiday Lull”

What’s in the yard?

Hackensack, NJ, Spring 1920 Photo X1628, DL&W Company Photo Collection, Steamtown NPS.

Ray Breyer submitted a neat blog post based upon the freight cars and details in a single image. Read further for a look into the past. Click on any image here to review a larger size. Model references are for HO scale products.

The above photo is a great snapshot of 1920s “real world” railroading, and offers a great peek into the fabric of railroading from almost 100 years ago. Between all of the juicy freight car detailing ideas and the general clutter around the yard shanty, there should be more than enough to keep any early prototype railroad modeler happy.

Context is always important when viewing photographs. The old adage that “a photo is worth 1000 words” is nice enough, but doesn’t say whether those words are truthful or lies. Knowing WHY is as important as knowing what. Let’s see if this photo is really telling us anything useful or not from a variety of perspectives.

Continue reading “What’s in the yard?”

Paint booth progress


Seven HO scale box cars were recently painted for the Wheeling Freight Terminal. A couple days of warmer weather made it easy to open the garage door and fire up the airbrush. While there are seven cars, only three paint colors were used. I try to paint multiple cars the same color to minimize clean up time and effort. Click on any image here to review a large size.

Continue reading “Paint booth progress”

Flat Car Additions

20151204_flats_lead

A couple more completed freight cars have been discovered among the boxes of hobby kits and supplies. Each of these two flat car kits were built several years ago and even painted. The black car with fish belly side sills is a Funaro & Camerlengo kit for a Baltimore & Ohio P-11 class flat car. The other car is a Tichy Train Group kit that I may have built 20 years ago. The model is pretty close to representing several prototypes that fit my 1926 era. I have a few flat cars in service but none are proper for my era so these two newly found models were given the fast track to completion.

Continue reading “Flat Car Additions”