[My grandmother set up a snow village every year at Christmas. The photo has no date, but was likely taken sometime between the late '40s and late '50s - before my time, but it's the only photo I have. I recently found the picture stashed with some other old photos. If my memory is functioning properly, it looked much the same in the late '60s and '70s.]
First, some blog factoids before the navel gazing and crystal ball divining.
My favourite 2016 E. L. Moore post(s) - it was a tie :-)
My favourite 2016 project
My favourite E. L. Moore photo of 2016
Favourite binge watched tv series in 2016
Life on Mars (UK series)
Most ego expanding post of 2016,
The Cobol Building
This excellent build - I especially love the sign - has done more to convince me to upgrade to modern building methods than anything else I've read. And if you were wondering, The Fortran Building got some upgrades and repairs this year.
Repairs to the Fortran Building
2016 post that inspired me to get off my duff and finish a stalled project
Scenery and buildings for Mt. Adams
Suitably inspired, here is the finished Mt. Lowe observatory
At the Mt. Lowe Observatory
Least viewed 2016 post
Garner's Sin Sniper is not crummy
Three most commented 2016 posts
Fella from up Canada way
Life on Mars (UK series)
Most ego expanding post of 2016,
The Cobol Building
This excellent build - I especially love the sign - has done more to convince me to upgrade to modern building methods than anything else I've read. And if you were wondering, The Fortran Building got some upgrades and repairs this year.
Repairs to the Fortran Building
2016 post that inspired me to get off my duff and finish a stalled project
Scenery and buildings for Mt. Adams
Suitably inspired, here is the finished Mt. Lowe observatory
At the Mt. Lowe Observatory
Least viewed 2016 post
Garner's Sin Sniper is not crummy
Three most commented 2016 posts
Fella from up Canada way
Some good novels read in 2016
The Sin Sniper and Murder Has Your Number by Hugh Garner
Brighton Rock, Stamboul Train, and A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene
The Was An Old Woman by Howard Engel
The Saratoga Barrier by Frank Herbert
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
The 2016 build most likely to cause a nervous breakdown
Cutest build of 2016
Most eye-strain inducing build of 2016
Dilly Behind the Eight Ball
Favourite hobby related books read in 2016
Clear the Tracks! by Joseph Bromley
Welcome to Marwencol by Mark Hogancamp & Chris Shellen
Elgin Park: An Ideal American Town by Michael Paul Smith
Elgin Park: Visual Memories of Midcentury America at 1/24th Scale by Michael Paul Smith & Gail K. Ellison
Light Ray Blues, Series 2, got started in the spring of 2015 with 4 instalments. I wrote 16 more over a long, hot weekend in July 2016, and then posted the series throughout September and October. If you need some jaw dropping excitement to help work off all that turkey, you can begin binge reading all 20 pulse pounding chapters from here :-)
Dilly Behind the Eight Ball
Favourite hobby related books read in 2016
Clear the Tracks! by Joseph Bromley
Welcome to Marwencol by Mark Hogancamp & Chris Shellen
Elgin Park: An Ideal American Town by Michael Paul Smith
Elgin Park: Visual Memories of Midcentury America at 1/24th Scale by Michael Paul Smith & Gail K. Ellison
Light Ray Blues, Series 2, got started in the spring of 2015 with 4 instalments. I wrote 16 more over a long, hot weekend in July 2016, and then posted the series throughout September and October. If you need some jaw dropping excitement to help work off all that turkey, you can begin binge reading all 20 pulse pounding chapters from here :-)
What's that you say, you can't take the excitement of Series 2 without first reading Light Ray Blues, Series 1. For all you Sheldon Cooper style completists out there, you can access the first of 39 mind-blowing instalments that set the model streetcar world on fire in 2012 and 2013 from here:-)
Light Ray Blues, part 1
Best movie seen in 2016
Light Ray Blues, part 1
Best movie seen in 2016
Miles Ahead
Strangest time travel short story of 2016 (and the only time travel story of 2016)
The 2016 build most deserving of a place in Las Vegas
Biggest HO-scale party of 2016
Most impressive E. L. Moore 'lost' article of 2016
This has been a year of change. In February, the new owner of the company I worked at for 20 years decided I was too old and expensive for them, so they laid me off. On the upside, in October I started work at a better job, at a better company. I was lucky. I was glad to have the E. L. Moore project to provide a pleasant diversion.
Ah 2017, there's an entire generation of people poised to enter, or who are entering, post-secondary education who are pure 21st century people. E. L. Moore was a pure 20th century man even though he was born in 1898. He passed on in 1979, well before the 21st century was much of a concern. My series about him is called 'E. L. Moore in the 21st Century' and as it comes to an end I'm often thinking about what message his work might have for this century. Even though he was prolific, and left a large legacy of projects, I think he has more than that to offer. He bridged the old American miniature building folk art tradition and mid-20th century model railroading. Those folk artists were all about manifesting their love of certain buildings that were important to them using whatever means were at hand, and Mr. Moore brought that to model railroading. For sources, he drew on photos, books, his own experiences, observations and travels, his memory, discussions, and his imagination. Sometimes he pilfered ideas from kits and made versions better than the 'originals'. He didn't like building kits and thought their only use was providing examples in how to, or not, write assembly instructions. Here's what I think his message is for us: look around; collect references; consult your memories; find what you love; build it; build a lot; there's probably a story in there somewhere and it's good to communicate that too; remember that it doesn't take a lot of money to produce something good. You don't have to let the dominant culture lead you by the nose.
I'm terrible at making New Year's resolutions, not to mention keeping them. For 2016 I thought I'd give up how-to style blog posts. I couldn't see any future in them. I wasn't writing about any new techniques, so what was the point. As regular readers will note, I fell off the wagon hard and wrote plenty of them, but all that was comfort writing. Debra doesn't agree with my no more how-tos stance. Her view is that retro-scratchbuilding needs to be taught to a new generation, at the very least as a gateway to better, more modern scratchbuilding. I'm not so sure there's much interest. She's probably right, but we agree to disagree :-) We'll see how long my self-imposed how-to prohibition lasts.
Any new layout is going to combine a retro-Toronto urban setting integrated with a beachfront scene. I'm kicking around lots of ideas; for example, using proper street rail for streetcar track instead of embedded train track; long streets; planning by placing buildings and things first and adding track later; building some retro-future stuff into the layout; building a scale model of Sam the Record Man or Honest Ed's; use an 'exploratium' style instead of a 'layout' style for the layout; and on and on.
Hmm, the retro-Toronto aspect might be blended with a little Ottawa. Ottawa used to have a streetcar system. It closed down in 1959, but the streetcar city aspects are still here if you look close enough, and there's some favourite places I'd like to incorporate in a new layout. This year I was in contact with the owner of Our Home and Miniature Land, a Miniature Worderland style HO-scale layout and facility representing Canada that is being built in Toronto. So far, the core display is focused on Toronto and some outlying regions, but work is underway to include Ottawa. After some summertime exchanges, I sent the fellow a brief on some things to think about that would help create a display that goes beyond Ottawa's tourist attractions and stereotypes. I haven't heard anything since, but it got me thinking that those non-stereotyped things that help make Ottawa, Ottawa can be included in my own layout if I put my thinking cap on straight.
I'd like to thank everyone who has dropped by and spent a few minutes here. I especially enjoy the discussions that take place. And to all those who control the spam-bots that constantly knock on my virtual door here at 30 Squares, and the spies who snoop on what's going on, why don't you read some of the posts and take-up retro-scratchbuilding :-) It's quite fun and more rewarding than what you're doing now.
P.S.
Maybe I'm not the Groucho Marxist I think I am. While in Toronto, Debra and I visited George's Trains. We hadn't been there in almost a year, so we had a lot of catching up with Sherwin to do. While we were chatting, a gentleman who was listening in, who only identified himself as Richard, invited us upstairs for a private tour of the Railview Model Railway Club's layout-in-construction. And what a tour it was. It's a vast layout being constructed in what was some rather banal office space. I started taking pictures as Richard narrated the layout's story and walked us through the areas, but I quickly realized that the room-after-room of interconnected layout was never going to photograph in any conventional way that would do it justice, so I'll just give you the one picture and note that if you're looking for a club to join in Toronto, this is the one.
The layout focuses on the rail scene in Hamilton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catherines, Aldershot and thereabouts areas of southwestern Ontario, and various areas will be set in the '60s, '70s and '80s. It's been under construction for three years, but it looks like there are still lots of great modelling opportunities ahead.
The other thing about George's is that it seems whenever I drop in there is always some sort of E. L. Moore related thing for sale. This time I stumbled across a constructed Molasses Mine kit on the resale shelf: $34.95 CDN if you're interested. And there always seems to a Ma's Place for sale. It was no different this time; there was one just a few feet away from the mine. Weird.
No comments:
Post a Comment