Space Hopper sighting!

Date: Saturday, 28 August 2021.

Time: Early afternoon.

Location: Havelock yard.

Comments: Why have ancient astronauts come to Earth in search of hoppers? What's inside? What's drawn on the other side? Why is the space hopper placed third from the end of a long train? What cryptic message is encoded on the side? Inquiring minds need to know.*

*Ok, maybe the sun and heat are getting to me, but there it was at the far end of what was a very long line of hoppers parked for the weekend. Maybe it'll show up again?

Christmas garden

Christmas garden: A layout-like display set up at Christmas that contains at least a creche and an electric train. A Christmas garden is often simply referred to as a ‘garden’.

Usage: It was a Smith family tradition to set up a Christmas garden in their living room every December.

Source: Jim Williams, in his December 1949 Railroad Model Craftsman article, A Rail Is Born, starts off his story about how he got into model railroading with a rather detailed description of the Christmas gardens of Baltimore, Maryland in the 1920s:

An old German custom, transplanted to Baltimore [1], made a model railroader of me. It happened 22 years ago [2] when Jimmie was only 2 years old. The old Yuletide custom is that of having elaborate “Christmas gardens” around the Christmas tree. For the benefit of those not familiar with the customs, perhaps it would be better at this point to explain just what a “garden” is.

Christmas gardens reproduce in miniature, any scene from an amusement park or farm but the absolute sine qua non of every garden is the Holy Stable and the electric railroad. Many gardens comprise only a circle of track, the Stable and a few cardboard houses - but the train has GOT to be there, let the anachronisms fall where they may. We haven’t lived in Baltimore for 15 years but I certainly hope that Father Time has not trodden such a delightful custom into the mire of disuse.

In the Maryland metropolis, everyone has some kind of Christmas garden; fire and police stations compete with each other for the approval of gaping crowds of youngsters and even greater crowds of oldsters. I remember the time a drunk fell into the garden at the Southern Police Station - but that’s another story except to mention that he really got the business in police court next morning.

But to get back to my muttons; nor is the garden custom confined to large institutions. Neighbors vie with each other in the production of super-detail buildings and scenery and in dreaming up ingenious mechanical effects.[3] During the holidays many sitting rooms and / or dining rooms are completely filled with the Christmas garden for the edification of all youngsters no matter how many snows have found lodgement in their hair. Dime stores are raided for miniature holy and lay figures and wheeled equipment. A regular rite of the Yule season in many families consists of a day or night devoted to a tour of the best gardens and among the super-detailers plagiarism of garden ideas sometimes leads to bitter passages.

To a great degree the yardstick of comparison is the amount of action presented in the garden. Ferris wheels revolve realistically, waterfalls splash merrily over little mill wheels, fountains fount and autos and boats sail majestically along their appointed courses in the grip of hidden magnets and belts. But always there is the ubiquitous electric train.

A Christmas garden in similar to the archaic form of Yard, and is more-or-less identical with Adolph F. Frank’s “Christmas tree yard” -  refer to the entry for Yard.

One will also note the further connection between the modern hobby of model railroading and the older folk activities of building Christmas tree yards, yards, Christmas gardens, and gardens in Mr. William's article.

Notes:

[1] Baltimore, Maryland

[2] Given the story was published in 1949, this would anchor the Christmas garden description in 1927.

[3] Adolph F. Frank describes how to build your own mechanical effects based on his experiences with Christmas gardens.

from The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms, 2nd ed., 1999.

Testing the track plan, Part 4

Two 9" radius curves made from Atlas flex track

In parallel with thinking about how to display the E. L. Moore models I've continued to develop the new version of the Lost Ocean Line.

After finishing the test builds of the passing tracks, I went back to making a second 9" radius curve to complete the track needed for the city section.

All the special track work has now been built and tested, so I'm hoping to move on to mocking up the the whole track plan in the days ahead.

E. L. Moore's Cabinet of Curiosities: Comic Book Edition

It struck me that a few 9" x 27" displays could be stacked in a cabinet and the overall view would look a lot like a cartoon. Each 'panel', each shelf, would tell a little bit of the story, and one panel might narratively lead to the next. So, overall, the cabinet is a life-size E. L. Moore story in cartoon form.

Maybe the story would be a variation on The Adventures of E. L. Moore, Train Photographer, where each panel contains a scene where Mr. Moore's icon anchors the viewer's attention and the buildings fulfill supporting roles. Or maybe it's a remix of The Adventures of Baby Spumoni? Stories were a big part of E. L. Moore's mythos, and maybe story-centred dioramas / panels / shelves are the way to bring the models to life. And lighting. I can't forget lighting. 

Galen tells me Weston figures command high prices these days, so if I'm going to go the story route I'll need to be mindful of the costs associated with all those figures. Luckily E. L. Moore's photographer doppelgänger was a custom item he made, so that one I can probably cobble together myself.

One more time ...

I’ve had a lot of good comments both on and off the blog about the E. L. Moore display design. They got me wondering if a layout is the way to go. I tried a design with a small loop of track because I didn’t want the display to appear dead, and thought maybe an injection of motion from trains was the thing to do. But, like all layouts, it raises questions about how will it be stored and displayed in the house. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that concept and footprint wasn’t going to be practical. 

Also, I see all these excellent small layouts in the pages of Voie Libre and think that’s the direction to go. They have both life and small, manageable footprints. I’ve got traditional layout thinking so ingrained in me, it’s hard to knock it loose. Ok, so I’ve started to give my brain-box a shake. You might want to stand back a bit from the screen because whatever comes out might be a little messy :-)

We’ve got a few Ikea cabinets and bookcases around the house, so the first thing was to find a typical shelf size for one of those things as I’ll likely use something from that company for display storage. After a brief survey with tape measure in hand, it looks like 9” x 27”, which is approximately 229mm x 686mm, gives about the largest base footprint that could be set on a shelf and still have room to get my fingers around inside edges for adjustments, and close the doors without problems. A typical Ikea cabinet could possibly house a few of these sorts of displays. There’re questions about lighting, but I’ll park those for a bit.

I drew a 9” x 27” rectangle on the layout table and started fiddling. As well, I reviewed E. L. Moore’s Turn Backward, O Time article for a few pointers on how to proceed now that the loop was out. I think the linear design will better reflect the original. If you look at the article you’ll see a jog in the track down by McGee’s that services the industries, some intriguing foreground details, a switch and an interesting switch stand, as well as trackside fencing by Ma’s house to name a few things that might be included. 

I need to get some coffee and stare at this thing awhile. More later. 

Another iteration of the E. L. Moore diorama design

Whenever I'm in the basement I always take a look at the E. L. Moore diorama design and study it a bit.

This one has a Ma's Place at either end, and a road down the centre to service the various industries, which terminates at the lumber shed attached to McGee's. I'll add some large, strategically placed trees along the road to get scene separation without a divider.

It's quite hot here, and is predicted to continue to be so for the next few days, which means I'll be spending more time in the cool basement escaping the blast and tinkering with the design.

An E. L. Moore study diorama

The collection contains three of the industrial buildings that appeared on the right side of E. L. Moore's 1900 era shortline terminal yard:  Dilly Manufacturing Co., Central Warehouse, McGee Lumber Co.. Since all of them appear in a row along a siding on Mr. Moore's diorama, I started to wonder if some sort of display or diorama could be put together that replicated that part of the yard. 

One thing lead to another and I started to play with the idea of building a small layout / diorama, 2'x4' say, that contained the three buildings from the yard, along with a few others.

Right now I'm thinking of a loop with 10" radius curves and 2 sidings for industries. I'd also like to include the original Ma's Place and the AHM plastic kit of Ma's - painted to match the original - as well as my handcar shed, which was my attempt years ago to try a variety of Moorian building techniques. 

The base would be foam, power DC, and it might incorporate a scene divider down the centre to split the layout in two. Design work continues.

Tears dried. Water tower repaired.

The last job was to repair the cotton thread that connects the spout to its counterweight on the right. The thread had frayed and was in two pieces: one half was still attached to the counterweight, and the other was tied to the spout. I suspect it was cut by a sharp edge in the upper support bar. I thought the easiest course of action was to restring the counterweight through the upper support bar hole, and then glue the two halves of thread back together.

First, that upper support bar had to be carefully pried off so the counterweight thread could be inserted through the back. Once done, some Weld Bond was smeared on the two thread ends and they were glued together. It sounds like a tricky repair, but it turned out to be easier than I thought.

Once the thread bond had dried, I reattached the upper support bar with some glue, and that was that. 

Drying my eyes a bit

Altogether it took a day, working a few minutes at a time, to fix up the cracked and bent side ladder as well as the broken structure supporting the platform under the spout. Although not perfect, the model no longer looks like something that should be trashed.

There were no new and exciting methods used, just some careful fiddling with tweezers and dabs of Weld Bond. I'd puzzle a piece into place, apply a small spot of glue, let it dry, then repeat with another piece.

I noticed that the tank had what looked like some white plaster residue on it - maybe left over from being too close to some scenery work sometime in its life. I took a fine bristle paint brush, one who's bristles were a little soft and worn, and carefully worked away on the white blotches until they flaked off. Now there's just some faint discolouration on a couple of spots that looks more like weathering than carelessness. 

Next job: repair the broken counterweight support.

Shedding a tear over E. L. Moore's water tower

For the most part, when I unwrap an E. L. Moore model and find breakage and loose parts, I'm pretty pragmatic about the situation. I collect up the parts, and think about how to proceed with repairs. With the water tower though, my first impulse was to cry. Maybe not literally, but on the inside :-)

This is a fine and delicate model, and to see the ladder cracked and bent, and the frame broken was saddening. This is quite an impressive model: fine detail, notched wooden pieces in the support frame, and a moveable spout nicely balanced by counter-weights among other things. After drying my eyes I started repairs. Hopefully more updates in the coming days between bouts of sobbing :-)

Truck + gondolas + caboose = train

On Friday we made a quick zoom by the Havelock yard. I didn't get to look around much, just snapped a couple of photos a la Selective Impression while I scarfed down a sandwich. The most interesting thing that day was that train being pushed by a truck up on the rails. It consisted of just some beat up gondolas, one with a digger on top, and a white caboose up front. I assume it's being used for some maintenance work.

There were also a couple of old Boston & Maine hoppers, but no elusive Space Hopper. Maybe next time.

Only Angels Have Wings ... and railcars

Joe (on the left) and Tex (on the right) have just met Bonnie in a Barranca street, a fictional somewhere in South America circa 1939. They're on their way to a swinging night spot.

Tex: Oh, oh. Look out!

Some sort of Model-T like car on train wheels, loaded with revellers, comes zooming down the track that lies in the middle of the street. 

Tex and a passenger exchange howdies.

After which the car speeds off into the Barranca night.

Bonnie: What was that?

Tex: 5th Avenue Bus Line.

Over the weekend I was rewatching Routine Pleasures and noticed that the director, Jean-Pierre Gorin, seemed to hint in a few places that aspects of his documentary were loosely similar to the Howard Hawks movie, Only Angels Have Wings. I hadn't seen the movie, so I corrected that deficiency in my education, and was very glad I did. It's a great film and I highly recommend it. As an extra bonus, there's an interesting little railcar scene early in the opening. This movie doesn't disappoint.

Restoring E. L. Moore's Water Wheel Mill, Part 2

I think one needs to have some sort of guiding philosophy in place before attempting any sort of restoration work. Mine could be summed up as: Do the least. The idea is to let the original work speak for itself without too much intervention on my part.

Believe it or not, I did follow that principle when restoring the HOJ POJ manufacturing company, even though there was a lot of work on that project. There turned out to be less work on the water wheel mill restoration than I expected, but the principle was nevertheless important to apply here too.

I decided that I wasn't going to attempt to recreate and reinstall any missing parts, just build a simple base to support the model - Mr. Moore accomplished this by setting it in a diorama - for displaying it with any detached parts glued back on. The model was in pretty good shape as is, so I thought this was a good approach. It also means that I avoid the problem of trying to exactly match E. L. Moore's building style when it comes to making missing parts. The purpose of the display is to show Mr. Moore's work, not to ask the viewer to assess how well I can copy it. 

The base is made from 0.060" sheet styrene, and the various supports are cut from 0.040" sheet. When finished is was glued to a piece of artist grade foam board, and then the whole thing was painted flat black. 

Circle marks location of missing flume / crib support pieces

The biggest reconstruction problem was that the components that support the flume on the cribbing were missing, as were the pieces that model the mechanism that opens the flume's gate. However, it was possible to support the business end of the flume on an existing crib cross-piece - and secure it with two small dabs of Weld Bond - so as to achieve the correct look and positioning of the flume over the wheel. 

Also, the two trusses that support the far end of the flume were missing. Their function was provided by two pieces of 0.040" styrene I cut and glued to the base. Since I wasn't installing the model in a detailed diorama I didn't feel a need to create trusses to mimic the originals.

The front door and steps had come loose and fallen off. Luckily they were still in the packing material, so it was a simple job to glue them back on with a little Weld Bond.

You'll notice a missing roof beam in the upper left corner. I hummed and hawed about replacing it, but in the end, in accordance with my philosophy, I decided to leave it be. Anything I could make would stick out like a sore thumb and detract from the overall look. Just because I have a philosophy doesn't mean I don't test it often during the course of a project, because as a model builder myself I have a desire to make things right, even if it isn't always to right thing to do.

I should note that I didn't glue the model to the base. The model is just placed on. The plastic base supports around the crib, and the styrene foundation support on the opposite side, more-or-less lock the model in place without the need for glue.

In this view you can clearly see the gap between the bottom of the flume and the crib. The building has a light in the ground floor. The wires for which I've loosely curled up under the model and are hidden from view by the black foundation support. I need to test the light to see if it still works, but if it doesn't there's no way to replace it without damaging the model.

I think the 'water' gushing from the bypass might droop over time, so I may need to rethink how I've supported it with the arty little oval pedestal.

The model's got a nicely detailed interior and I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how to get photos of it. The top floor is easy as the roof comes off, but the ground floor can only be seen through the exterior doors and down the stairs from the top floor. Anyway, fun little problems like that are good to have :-)

Looking at William Nordner's How To Build books

Back in February 2020 I wrote a post on Vince reminding me about an old book called How to Build Model Cars by William Nordner. At the time I couldn't find a copy online, but did come across another Nordner book called How to Build Model Ships, which I bought. Recently I found a copy of the Cars book online and bought it, although it wasn't in my usual 'reasonable price' category :-( It seems to be much rarer than Ships, and commands a corresponding price.

I took the Cars book out of Cedarbrae library many times in the early '70s. Although I clearly remembered the cover, I couldn't recall anything inside that made it so compelling. Back then anything to do with model building meant I'd read it many times regardless of quality. Interestingly, I don't recall seeing the Ships book at the library even though both indicate they were published in 1969.

The copy of Cars I bought came from the Sheffield Township Library in Sheffield, Pennsylvania. From the due date record in the back it was only borrowed 8 times between 1970 and 1990. If this had come from Cedarbrae library, it would have been borrowed at least 8 times by me alone in 1970 :-)  

I think these books were aimed at boys aged 9 to 14 or so, and I was in the targeted demographic. I remember Cars filed in the children's section in the library. 

If the price tag on Cars is actually from 1969, that $2.95 converts to around $22 in today's money. Seems a little pricey for a children's book, but maybe it was mainly for libraries?

Both books are jam packed with excellent black-and-white pen and ink drawings. There are no photographs at all in either of these books. The back covers say Nordner illustrated them as well as writing the text, so he was clearly a top notch illustrator. 

The Ships book seems to have registration problems with the illustrations on many pages, so their overall impact is somewhat diminished. There are no such problems in Cars, but Cars seems to have a lower density of pictures, and they don't appear to be as detailed and numerous when it comes to the construction sections.

Even by the publication standards of 1969, both books seem like throwbacks to hobby books of the pre-1950s when drawings were the primary way of illustrating many of these sorts of mid-range guides, and photographs were sparingly used, if at all. By the time we get to the 1960s we're seeing hobby books with black and white photos on nearly every page, some pages with several photos. Louis Hertz's The Complete Book of Raceways and Roadways from 1964, and Paul Plecan's Model Car Handbook from 1965 are good examples of high end, photograph dense, hobby publishing of the time. I assume the publisher of Ships and Cars, Meredith Press, had an eye on keeping production and licensing costs low.

Although the illustrations in both Ships and Cars are excellent, the impression I got was that Nordner's heart wasn't in Cars as it was in Ships, and I'd say Cars isn't as good as Ships. 

Not as good?

If one were to test the books' titles by trying to build a model car or ship from the contents, I think one could build a ship model using Ships as a guide, but I don't think a model car could be built from Cars. I think Cars is misnamed. Although it does discuss things like static models, and various types of powered models, it's really an introduction to the slot car hobby. The paragraphs and illustrations on model car construction are somewhat perfunctory, unlike Ships were there are lots of detailed illustrations. I speculate that Cars was written to try and capture some piece of the slot car hobby market, which unfortunately was in decline by 1969.

Did I figure out why young me was so entranced by How to Build Model Cars? No. I suspect I was just enthralled by the existence of a book purporting to explain how to build model cars and studied the pages with religious fervour in an attempt to puzzle out whatever secrets were in its pages. 

Still no space hopper

We swung by the Wildflower Bakery in Havelock on Saturday, and while there I took the opportunity to look for the space hopper. No luck. I couldn't even catch a glimpse between the foreground hoppers. It wasn't wasted time though, because full observation was undertaken while dining on a most excellent roast duck sandwich from the bakery, washed down with some very fine coffee. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to keep a lookout for space hoppers :-)

Restoring E. L. Moore's Mountain Water Wheel Mill, Part 1

I think the place to start a restoration of this sort is to gather up any reference material, and inspect the parts.

As for reference material, this project was featured in the Spring 1961 edition of Model Trains magazine. My plan is to attempt to use minimal restoration to get the model to look as it did in that article.

As for parts, included with the main structure were two flumes. The one on the left is the one described in the article, and I have no idea what model is associated with the one on the right. 

But, let me speculate. It could be an alternative flume for the model. One where the spillway gate is closed. Or maybe, Mr. Moore built a second water wheel mill of which this is its spillway - he was known to build multiples of some models. Or maybe it's a part to some lost model we've never heard of. 

Anyway, to get the model back to as it was seen in the MT article, I'll use the flume on the left and set the other aside.

H. S. Coleman on home hobbies providing relief from restrictions, circa 1952

Some more philosophical musings from the continuing impressiveness that is Teach Yourself Modelcraft:

In these days of restrictions it is good for us to have our minds set free in the realm of a new interest. If our authorities really knew the value of such a recreation, revealing itself in its capacity to keep people contented in days of endemic discontent, they would no doubt considerably extend their generosity towards the home handicraft, and would do more than they at present do to encourage it.

There is today a tendency away from ready-made amusements. The film has grown restricted in its appeal, owing to controls. Papers and magazines due to the same cause, no longer provide either the quality or quantity of reading. Fewer people can afford cars and petrol to enable them to see the country or to visit their friends. If our home hobbies have benefited, it is because in this realm there is still a certain measure of relief.

I believe the restrictions Mr. Coleman is referring to are the post World War II rationing ones in the UK that continued until the mid ‘50s. They were different restrictions than those of our pandemic world, but I hear a few echoes of our times in there, although other parts have no resonance.

E. L. Moore's Mountain Water Wheel Mill has fallen on hard times

E. L. Moore's Mountain Water Wheel Mill is one of his earliest and finest works. It's in rough shape, and will take a bit more that just some dabs of Weld Bond here and there to restore it.

It's an amazingly detailed and clever model. The roof comes off, and the inner workings of the mill are all there and finely made. The wheel itself is mounted to a brass axle that protrudes from the far end of the building, and the way the axle is finished suggests that maybe it was powered by a motor hidden in the model's diorama. And, when the axle's spun, it spins smoothly without binding. Very nice indeed. There's even a light bulb buried in the first floor. I'll have to see if it still works. This model is 60 years old, but I think with some careful restoration it can be returned to its former glory.