I did some digging and found out that Lenoir, N.C., is about an hour-and-a-half drive northwest of Charlotte, N.C., where E. L. Moore lived. In the course of doing research for a 2nd edition of the Moore eBook I was told this about E. L. Moore:
"When he was quite young he lived there[JDL: 'there' is Lenoir, N.C.](not sure for how long) and worked as a photographer going door-to-door taking people's photos."
Right now I'm guessing about when he lived and worked in Lenoir, but based on a previous investigation on when he arrived and set up a photography business in Charlotte, I'll say maybe the late 1920s to early 1930s, prior to 1933. We'll see if I can improve that guess.
Soon after taking pictures of the Le Grand DEFI dioramas on the family room coffee table I realized several of my layouts have been inadvertently sized to fit that piece of furniture. Maybe there's a new genre of layout in there somewhere?
Ever since I stumbled across Bill Baron's mid-century modern coffee table layout proposal in the June 1966 issue of Model Railroader I've had thoughts of small, portable, and convivial family room layouts rattling around in my brain. I haven't explicitly set out to design one, but in a few cases it has worked out that way.
The Micro-Layout category has an upper footprint limit of 3 to 4 square feet. My coffee table measures approximately 50" x 20", providing an area of a little under 7 sq. ft. for a layout. That's considerably bigger than the Micro-Layout maximum.
Hence, maybe there's a new category in there for layouts that fit on a Mid-Century Modern coffee table of 7 sq. ft. or less: MCM-7 :-) And no overhanging, that's cheating :-)
Speaking of coffee, the family room is near the coffee machine and that's where I'm headed.
Top: A real VIA Rail RDC; photo courtesy John | Bottom: My rendition in Proto 1000 form
You may recall I wasn't too happy about the decal striping I put on my RDC. A few days ago John sent me some photos he took of some real VIA Rail RDCs he recently saw at the Waterloo Central Railway. I had to laugh when I saw the upper blue stripe on some of those vehicles were worse than mine courtesy of Mother Nature! I'll just say mine has been parked outside a long time :-)
Proto 1000 RDC-2 after alterations for the diorama
Even though I had an idea for a diorama, I didn't own an RDC, so the first thing I did was scour my usual internet model railway stores for one. I found one, and after a bit of a mix up with the seller, I was the proud owner of a like new Life-Like Proto 1000 RDC-2 in Baltimore and Ohio markings.
Life-Like Proto 1000 RDC-2 straight out of the box
I know that Rapido is today's leading manufacturer of RDC models, but for this project they cost much more than I wanted to spend, and I felt they were too beautiful for what I wanted to do.I knew I was going to cut open a baggage door so I could stage a canoe unloading scene, add some passengers, and apply some light weathering, but I sure didn't want to take a knife or brush to a Rapido item. Also, I didn't want the beautiful detail of the Rapido product to steal the show and become by default the diorama's focal point. The RDC was to be one element in a bigger picture.
Once the shell had been freed from the chassis it was relatively easy to pry off the baggage door and use some fine sand paper to get rid of the B&O markings. I added a piece of black card inside the shell where the baggage door used to be to block the view of the motor. I also painted the inside walls in and around the baggage door opening black to kill stray reflections. Black Tamiya Panel Liner was used on the various exterior grills to give them a little depth.
Texas Plastic Nipper Massacre aftermath
I had some unpainted Model Power figures in my scrapbox and decided to use them as passengers - er, well, I used half of them as passengers. I took a few, painted their top halves black, cut them at the waist, and glued the torsos into the seats. Well, one figure, the one that's walking down the aisle, nearly survived the carnage and was cut off only at the knees before being glued down for eternity. This modelling technique is straight out of a horror movie, but it does produce some convincing window silhouettes :-)
Some passengers; some crinkly decals; some light weathering
I bought some VIA Rail decals for this thing. They turned out very difficult to apply as they were quite brittle and unwieldy. I won't name the manufacturer or discuss my technique as both are obscured in my memory by a blue haze of family unfriendly obscenities :-(
As I've noted many times before, the digital camera is a harsh mistress. The crinkly blue VIA stripe in the above photo is an irritant, but you know, when I look at the diorama, without the digital camera's unforgiving screen acting as an intermediary, it looks just fine in its setting. To me the defects seem to work to enhance the rough-and-ready wilderness look. Some sort of Schoppian thing maybe?
My $15CDN swap meet Athern RDC-3
Late in March, when I was a little more than halfway through this project, I stumbled across the above RDC-3 made by Athern at the annual model train swap meet here in Ottawa. It was one of these I had hoped to start the diorama project with, but I couldn't find a suitable one. I wanted to design the diorama around this version because it is unprototypically short for an RDC and would fit better on the base. I had calculated that an RDC of prototypical length would only be 2 or 3mm shorter than the base. So, it was a bit of a nail biter waiting for the one I ordered to show up so I could confirm it would fit. Luckily, it did. Also, the RDC-3 has its baggage door a little closer to the centre of the vehicle, so it would allow me to place the diorama's focal point closer to the middle. Well, when I stumbled across the Athern it was a bit too late to make adjustments to the diorama, let alone re-badge the CP marked RDC now that the Proto 1000 version was done.
Cornering performance on the Wayout Layout
The Athern was part of an estate sale, and its original owner had done an excellent job of re-motoring the model. It even has a nice custom flywheel in there for smooth stops and starts. All that for just $15CDN and it runs very well on the Wayout Layout to boot. Again, its short length is a great feature because it can take the sharp corners I designed on the Wayout for streetcar operations without any trouble.
An unpowered Athern RDC-3 brush painting victim
Also at the swap meet I found an unpowered Athern RDC-3. Its windows were yellowed and had developed dimples, so I've discarded the window strips. Being a little ticked off with the decals I bought for the Proto 1000 model I decided to try my hand at brush painting some VIA Rail blue stripes on this one. I masked them off with Tamyia tape and went at it. Disaster. It turned out worse than the decal job. You can see the crummy results in the above photo. I'll eventually strip it down and spray paint it.
I was obsessed with RDCs, so when I stumbled across these two shells on eBay at about the same time I had bought the swap meet RDCs I immediately bought them too. Again, they are Athern RDC-3s. I thought I could use them to build a hotrod RDC! I've got some ideas, but I'll likely need a lot of coffee before they take shape :-)
That's a long story just to arrive at this scene: a fellow pulling a canoe from an RDC while a rail employee admires the view across the lake and a photographer takes some pictures of the action.
Well, once I'm done my coffee I'm off in my canoe to look for RDC barn finds for hot rodding :-)
The boathouse depot that appears on my entry for LR Presse's Le Grand DÉFI is a completely fictional RDC stop on the route of Train 185. It was a lot of fun to design and build, and it didn't take long to go from rough sketches to finished model.
I always start scratchbuilding projects with a drawing, well, almost always. In this case it was particularly important because space was tight, and I wanted to make the building as credible looking as I could. This meant I needed to work out a lot of details so that I felt confident with this project before construction started.
My drawings for these sorts of projects aren't beautiful things. Their purpose is to help me work out sizes and shapes. Given the unique space constraints with this project I didn't feel a drawing alone would be sufficient as a planning guide, so I also made a simple cardboard mockup. I rarely do this, but again, space was very tight.
The mockup was taped together from pieces cut from cheap Bristol Board and foam board. Beauty isn't important here, just the sizes and shapes of the components.
I made the drawing while the base was under construction so that I worked back and forth between the two in order to come up with dimensions that would fit. The mockup was built after the diorama base was finished so I had something to try the mockup on. You can see in the above photo the building and platform needs to be raised up some more so the platform is level with the bottom of the RDC's cargo door.
As you can see in the above photo, a depth of 15cm isn't much to work with as the RDC is quite big (It turns out it's about 2mm shorter than the length of the diorama, so it just fits!). And yes, in the end there is about a 1' scale gap between the RDC and the platform. They don't touch as shown in the above photo.
The platform is 8' wide, which is rather narrow for such a thing, but pretty much as wide as I dared to make it on this diorama. I wanted space for the lakeshore up front to accommodate the kayaker and some at the back to separate the backdrop from the main action on the base. In reality the platform should probably be around 16' wide at minimum, and there should be some sort of ramps and stairs down to the shore. In my design the canoes and kayaks would have to be carefully lifted on and off the platform, all the while making sure no one fell off since there are no railings! Is this realistic? Well, I'm a geriatric with a bum shoulder and I can still lift my canoe up and over my head, so I'm going to declare the diorama's scenario plausible :-)
The back side is just a flat wall that looks as if I simply sliced the boathouse from a fully formed building. I couldn't have much three-dimensionality on this side because there needed to be room for the RDC to roll by. You can see on the mockup that I penciled in a window on the back wall. On the model I included two.
This end view gives an idea about how close the clearances are, but it's workable.
Once I had settled on the dimensions it was on to cutting out the walls. They're made from some of Evergreen's clapboard siding sheet styrene. The windows are Tichy Train Group items (the windows on the back wall are N-scale parts). The doors, whose openings are shown in the above photo, were all scratchbuilt from styrene odds-and-ends.
As I noted previously the back wall was fitted with two window units to provide the boaters with a good view back into the bush, and of a parked RDC if need be. The side walls each have a floor-to-ceiling window at the front so one can look up-and-down the shoreline if the weather is too bad to go outside.
The outside wall surfaces and window frames were painted with a loose mixture of Tamiya XF-7 Flat Red and Revel Aqua Color 36137 Reddish Brown, which is the same mix I used on the Insectary and its cousin. I wanted a freshly painted look so the building would make a strong contrast with respect to the greens in the landscape and background, so I didn't soften or weather it. I don't recall the green I used on the passage door, but let's call it a flavour of Moore Green :-)
The inside wall surfaces were panelled with 0.020" x 0.040" strip styrene to simulate wall studs and blocking. It isn't very prototypical; it's just enough to give a hint of wall detail if one glances inside. The walls were painted Tamiya XF-57 Buff with a dirty brush.
The boathouse's floor, deck, and loading platform are all one piece built up from pre-scored Evergreen sheet styrene for the deck and platform, and plain styrene sheet I scored myself for the boathouse floor.
The underside is panelled with some rudimentary joist work made from strip styrene. Again, it's just supposed to suggest joists to stray glances. Even so, it does considerably stiffen the structure.
The upper platform and deck surfaces were painted to match the building. Since these are horizontal surfaces I loosely brushed on some thin washes of greys, light browns, and beiges to represent sand and dirt. Not much, just a little. The boathouse floor was painted to match the interior walls, but several spills and deeper grimy stains were applied.
The various wooden railings were made from styrene strip. All were built the same way: a railing plan was drawn on some paper, and pieces of strip styrene were laid on top and glued together.
And there it is with all the railings installed. I should mention the staircases are items from my scrap box as is the yellow hand rail.
The other thing I should mention, since it's front-and-centre in the above photo, is the big opening between the railings opposite the loading door on the front wall. Why's it there you might ask? I had a plan that a pier might extend into the lake from this point for fishermen, divers, or sightseers, and might also provide a spot for large cruisers or pontoon boats to dock. Well, there was no room for even a hint of that extension on this diorama, and I don't foresee me placing this building on another layout that might accommodate one, so I just eventually strung a vestigial safety wire (which should be replaced with a properly hanging safety chain) across the opening and left it as an enigma.
The boathouse structure was the easy part of this model: it's basically just a decorated box. The tricky part was the roof. I wanted to try my hand at making a hip roof as I thought it would make the building look more interesting, and its overhang would provide good shade over the boathouse's deck.I also wanted the roof to be removable so I could change scenes inside, and have a light in the attic that could be switched on-and-off. For the light I used a small, LED button light. All this added up to a trickier than usual project within a project.
In the above photo the roof's structure has been built up from 0.040" thick sheet styrene. The recess in the attic has been sized to accommodate the button LED. The button has some bulk, so the recess hides it from casual viewing.
In the above view you can get a better idea of the size of the recess. You can also see the channel that has been built up along the recess's perimeter. That's so the roof can sit snug on the top of the walls and won't slide off if bumped. It turns out I had to make the channel deeper with sidewalls about twice as tall compared to those in the photo in order to get a clean, seamless fit with the boathouse's walls. And it's a tight fit too. It takes a little wiggling to remove.
Speaking of fit, I kept checking it as I built up the structure.
The rafters were panelled with 0.020" sheet styrene. That's a bit thin, but when I was calculating the sizes for this structure's components I didn't account for the thickness of the roof panels, so I went with some sheeting that was thin, but had a little structural stiffness. These panels may sag in the years ahead, but real roofs sag too for similar reasons.
Those lines on the roof side panels are guidelines for shingles.
The shingles are just strips cut from fine sandpaper to which I've attached some 3M Transfer Tape on the back. I didn't try and simulate individual shingles. I thought strips would be alright to give a suggestion of asphalt shingles.
To apply I just peeled the paper backing off the Transfer Tape and stuck down the shingle strip. When in place I trimmed the strip to conform to the roof's shape.
Disclosure! After painting the shingles many of them started to curl and peel off. I then had to laboriously go and stick them back down with dabs of white glue. It seemed to take a long time and was quite frustrating to get a quasi-neat job, which still isn't quite right. In the future I'll go back to my usual practice of using a white glue like Weld Bond to stick these down. It makes shingling take longer, but at least I don't have to redo my work.
Some thin paper strips were used for metal flashing. The peak eventually had a piece of fine mesh inserted inside to let air in and keep birds out. However, I think the mesh isn't fine enough to keep out scale mosquitos :-)
Here's that LED button light. Its casing is actually black, but I painted it to match the interior. You can also see in this photo how much the wall channel has been extended compared to the original construction.
The LED throws off a pretty good light!
Here's the roof, more-or-less finished at this point. The mesh has been installed in the peak and painted to match the building.
A rare view of the back wall. Well, rare because once the building was installed on the diorama you have to peek carefully into the space between the building and the background to see it.
From this angle it really does look like the building has had its back end chopped off. The roof probably needs some guttering to channel rain water away from the deck. A detail for next time.
That brings us to the end of this little story. Well, it brings us to the end of what I have photos for. I haven't discussed a few things, like building the concrete piers the boathouse and platform sit on. They're just stacks of styrene blocks I cut from a styrene stick. Those stacks would probably get a foundation guy fired given how misaligned and rickety they appear, but I say they give the scene some character :-) Loading door construction I've discussed in other posts and don't want to repeat here. They're just built up from pieces of scrap styrene.
That's it for now. I'm off to look for my canoe :-)
While we were visiting France in February I read about a modelling challenge the magazine Loco-Revue was holding that involved building a small railway oriented diorama that met the following requirements:
1. Base measures 30cm long x 15cm wide.
2. HO scale.
3. A piece of 16.5mm gauge track runs from one short side to the other.
4. The track base is 25mm above the bottom of the module.
5. Includes a reference to one or more Olympic sports.
6. Includes at least one building.
7. Includes some vegetation.
8. Includes a 20cm tall background.
(Ok, well, this is my English translation of the requirements, so blame any discrepancies with respect to the French originals on me.)
As soon as I read the post an idea for a diorama immediately popped into my mind. There was no humming-and-hawing, no period of reflection, no head scratching, just an instant idea that I’d find interesting to build.
Now, I’m normally a non-contest, non-challenge, do my own thing, go my own way, Infinite Game, kind of model railway enthusiast. I’ve never entered a contest or challenge before, but I’ve never had a doable idea to fulfill a challenge’s requirements just pop into my head like that before, so I figured I should give this one a go.
I’m glad I did.
I started my diorama on 25 February as soon as we got back home and submitted it for consideration on 23 April. The guys at LR Presse were cool and graciously allowed my submission to be included in the challenge even though I live on the other side of the Atlantic, feature a Canadian prototype, and can barely string two words together in French.
But, entering isn’t why I was glad I created this diorama. I’m glad because building it was pleasure from beginning to end. Normally when I get going on a new project I stop-and-start, and things drag on, and I lose my motivation, and it takes weeks to get it back, and I start other things, and the cycle erratically repeats until I’m done. Weeks, months, and sometimes years go by. None of that happened with this little project. It was 2 months of continuous, uninterrupted pleasure. It’s been a long time since I was so motivated and enthusiastic about a build. It got me out of a rut and back into the swing of things: I finally started my long delayed Mt. Lowe inspired layout, and finished up details on the Centennial Experimental Farm. In light of this experience I’m going to have to revisit my thoughts on Finite Games - they apparently have some value I didn’t appreciate.
The Olympic sport I reference in the diorama is canoeing and kayaking. To explain a bit here’s some background information I submitted in a puff piece along with my entry:
“From the mid 1600s to the early 1700s the legendary ‘coureurs de bois’, often in allegiance with First Nations peoples, travelled the length and breadth of the waterways by canoe the northern interior regions of what would eventually become Canada hunting pelts for the trans-Atlantic fur trade. Les coureurs de bois were entrepreneurs and adventurers from New France not to mention expert canoeists and outdoorsmen. They were also considered to be outlaws because they did what they did without permits from any colonial authorities.
The lakes and rivers of Canada, many of which were criss-crossed by les coureurs de bois, are still being plied today by canoeists and kayakers in search of an authentic experience of wilderness and natural beauty.
One such area is serviced by a VIA Rail route stretching from Sudbury to White River in the province of Ontario. It is a 484 km rail line through lands of dense northern forests and numerous waterways. This train is a favourite way for canoeists and backwoods trekkers to haul their canoes and hiking gear to a trip starting point as the train will stop wherever you want it to. It can be arranged to have the train stop by a river or lake for a group to unload their canoes and gear and set off on an adventure. Same deal on return. You can stand by the track and flag down the train to pick up you and your gear, or prearrange a pickup along the line.
VIA Rail operates the route with Budd’s self-propelled Rail Diesel Cars (RDCs), specifically an RDC-2, a combination passenger and baggage coach, and an RDC-4, a combination railway post office and baggage coach. When going from Sudbury to White River, the train is called ‘Train 185’, and on the return trip it is called ‘Train 186’.
The northern interior of Canada is one of canoeing’s primeval sites that contributed to the long world history of what would become an Olympic sport in 1936 after being first demonstrated 100 years ago at the 1924 Paris Olympics. In honour of this heritage I chose to create a fictional scene of canoes being unloaded from a VIA Rail RDC-2 at a remote boathouse stop, and a kayaker, who after unloading his kayak, sets off from the stop to test his skills against the lake’s natural forces in preparation for a competition. The diorama’s boathouse station, landscape, and scene are fictional, but draw their inspiration from the Olympic values, the adventurous spirit of New France’s coureurs de bois and the First Nations peoples, VIA Rail Trains 185 and 186, as well as the forests and waterways of Ontario.”
I can’t say enough about how much fun this little project was. I’m looking forward to more experiences like this one.
One last thing before I go for coffee. If you've got 3 hours you can ride the real Train 185 from the comfort of your couch thanks to this excellent video from TVO:
