Kim Adams' Arrived

Beginning around the 9 minute mark Mr. Adams has some interesting things to say about how his work stands in relation to the model railroading hobby.

A build of E. L. Moore's Schaefer Brewery kit

Greg Cassidy builds the E. L. Moore designed Schaefer Brewery kit and generously mentions the E. L. Moore eBook. Thanks Greg!

A sketch for the structure at Inspiration Point

I've started to work on sketches for the buildings for the Mt. Lowe layout. That one is for the observation structure at Inspiration Point. The real one is much larger, more sprawling, and has a few more features. I've had to try and capture a few of its key styling cues in a structure with a far smaller footprint. I haven't put in all the details as these will be dealt with during construction, but I think I've figured out the shapes and sizes for starting a model.

Experimental Farm layout in January 2025 issue of Continental Modeller magazine

News Flash from the 30Squares Shameless Self-Promotion Department: The Experimental Farm layout appears in the January 2025 issue of Continental Modeller magazine! Six scintillating pages illustrated with 18 glorious, never seen before colour photographs! Just in time for Christmas: makes an excellent stocking stuffer for mom, dad, hubby, wifey, the kids, and that hard to buy for uncle! On sale now wherever fine model railway magazines are sold! Don't delay, get yours today!

Oh, no, I've worn out the ! key!

But seriously, I'm very happy that the editor at Continental Modeller published the story. Back in the 1970s when I was model railway obsessed I would often make the long hike from our house to the W H Smith in Scarborough Town Centre to peruse, and sometimes buy, English model railway magazines. That's how on one such mission I became familiar with Vivien Thompson's work in an issue of Model Railway Constructor.

To the best of my knowledge W H Smith hasn't had any stores in Canada, well, at least here in Ontario, for a very long time. But, my English cousin who lives in Solihull tells me there's one near his house and they stock Continental Modeller. It's quite satisfying to me that my first full length article has been published in an English model railway magazine and is for sale at Smith's. It's one of those 'circle of life' things :-)

As built geography, track plan, and route map

One design principle that I try to adhere to is to think about the routes that can be travelled through the layout's space so people can get to the various areas. It's related to using sight lines as a design principle that I discussed earlier this year.

I like to have the roads, tracks, sidewalks, trails, and so on mapped out and understood how they connect up the layout's areas. As I'm working on that I try to make sure these things have fairly realistic dimensions as they're being laid out. The roads can't be too narrow, the walking gradients can't be too steep, and so on. Thinking about these things helps me keep the scenes within the realm of possibility. I often think getting the routes through the space physically right is more important than detailing, well, at least as important. 

Shown above is one such route map. It isn't the only one of course, but thinking about it helped me a lot in developing scenic possibilities.

Mountain views

Future site of the Circular Bridge

Granite Gate Pass

Inspiration Point

Parked at Poppyfield Flats

Approaching the Circular Bridge 

The Trefoil Layout: A must have mid-century modern home decor accessory?

In the mock-up room at 30Squares Labs. Second in a series.

The Mt. Lowe inspired micro-layout at year end

All the mountain shapes have been worked out, and their surfaces have been primed with gesso. In the new year it'll be on to painting a base layer with acrylics. Right now I'm trying to work out the mix of colours that best match Mt. Lowe's.

Studying my reference photos suggests the colours are a mix of coloured greys in the exposed rocky areas. Earth tones enter into the mix where rock, trails, and vegetation come together. It isn't the usual slathered on neutral grey one sees on many layouts' rock formations. I went through a similar exercise with the Loonar Module, but this time I don't have any rock samples for reference. I'm relying on photographs, which introduces another layer of approximation. Understanding what's going on colour-wise is taking awhile, but it's an interesting exercise.

Sketch for an updated journey status display

Ok, come to think of it, after our last trip there is one thing that should be easy for VIA Rail to update since I assume all that's involved is computer programming (oh, is that all :-) ): the in-car journey status display. You can see them attached to our car's ceiling in the photo above.

Here's a close up. Yeah, the clarity of my zoom isn't the greatest, and there's a bit of in-car motion to further shake things up, but the key thing is clear: the static VIA logo takes up a lot of space and crams the important upcoming destination status information to the bottom of the display. Also, that little arrow supposedly showing where we are doesn't move so it doesn't actually give an indication of where the train is. The train's speed is almost illegible in the lower right corner. 

That's my black-and-white sketch for a slightly updated journey status display. The little red arrow is meant to move as the train gets closer to the next station, and ETAs are shown under the upcoming stations. Lots of refinement is possible and needed of course, but that is the basic idea to make the display a little more readable and a little more informative. 

Before I go, this wouldn't be one of my VIA posts if it didn't include a video. This time though I'll mix things up and leave you with a TTC video that'll take you to the far reaches of Scarborough: