Drink Milk Love Life

Every time I drop by the Havelock yard I keep an eye out for the Space Hopper. Given how long ago I first saw it, it's unlikely to reappear.....but, one never knows :-)

The story so far...

A check on element placement as the story develops.

At this stage of construction I'm adding in scenic details I have in mind, and am checking fit, spacing, and composition as I go along. The layout's so small I don't want a surprise near the end where I find I can't fit in things I want without doing some crazy squeezing here and there. 

I should note I haven't finished the electronics on this thing, and that might come back to bite me later (!), but scenery is what I feel like doing right now. This is a life pursuit, not a job, so I do what I like.

Return of the Happy Minimum Test

From left to right: 6", 5" (the HO equivalent of the tightest TTC curve), and 7" radius curves.

I'm having some trouble settling on a design for my Taronna layout. There are numerous problems. One significant one is figuring out what the minimum radius curve I can use that will not cause a problem for streetcars, and be reminiscent of the older, tighter curves in the TTC streetcar system.

I decided to revisit some tests I did back in 2017, but this time with an eye to making vehicle modifications, if possible, to allow tighter curves to be traversed.

Test results to follow, but until then this little video will give you an idea about what's bouncing around in my mind - I remember this well:

Mount Lowe Micro-Layout in Voie Libre #126!

The Mount Lowe Railway is featured in the latest issue of Voie Libre, #126, July / August / September 2026. I've only seen what you see over there on the left, which I saw in an ad that popped into my Inbox today. I submitted 46 photos - photos not seen here ! - so I'm curious as to which ones appear. I anxiously await its arrival in my mailbox! 

As they say on tv: Don't delay, get yours today! Quantities are limited! French and English editions are available!

Ok, so much for shameless self promotion. For penance it looks like the ! key on my keyboard may need repair :-(

New paint scheme for the community garden loco

I was keen to see what the loco I had chosen for the community garden layout looked like in the paint scheme I had in mind. For reference, I started with a green MiniTrains Schöma diesel locomotive.

The fictional story behind the new look is that the loco started life as a diesel, but was later converted to run as a pure EV machine with rechargeable batteries onboard powering an electric motor. Keep in mind that just as our miniature diesel locomotives aren't powered by diesel engines, and our steam locomotives don't burn coal to produce steam, this little loco is as phoney as those others and gets its power from the rails. 

At the charging station being 'recharged'

Before painting I clipped off the exhaust stack and sanded the body smooth around where it used to be. I wasn't able to pry the chassis out of the body, so I risked it and simply masked off the windows and chassis prior to painting. The body was sprayed with Vallejo Model Air white primer, and then white paint. 

That red and orange plug icon is the old mid-century logo of Ontario Hydro created in 1962 by Allan Fleming, who also designed the classic CN logo. Those icons are decals I made on the computer and printed out. They're a bit rough, but I think they fit into the overall look of the layout.

One day there'll be a roof over the charging station!

Yes, the loco still runs after its close encounter with an airbrush :-) No paint got into areas it shouldn't.

Book Talk: Three for the Lawn

Kim Adams: Bruegel-Bosch Bus | Kim Adams: One for the Road | Kim Adams

I've written a lot about Kim Adams' work over the years, but I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that I've never gotten around to buying those three books shown above. Since I'm back to studying artists' use of miniatures, I figured this was a good time to have a look.

These three titles span many years, and as the years go on, the books get bigger in size. 

The rightmost is simply titled Kim Adams. It's an exhibition catalogue published by two galleries to accompany two shows of Kim Adams' work. One was at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto from 23 June to 3 September 2001, and the other was at Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square from 5 May to 12 August 2001.

The middle one is also an exhibition catalogue for another show of Kim Adams' work called Kim Adams: One for the Road. Although the book was published by Museum London, the show was held at three galleries: Museum London, October 20, 2013 to January 6, 2014; Art Gallery of Hamilton, February 8, 2014 to May 4, 2014; and Varley Art Gallery, September 13, 2014 to January 11, 2015.

The leftmost book, Kim Adams: Bruegel-Bosch Bus, was published by the Art Gallery of Hamilton in 2021 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Adams' Bruegel-Bosch Bus that is on permanent display at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.

All three contain extensive photos of Adams' work, essays by art critics, and interviews with Adams.

I’ve never felt comfortable commenting on critical essays as I’m not well versed in the arts to say much of anything as to the essays’ insights and assertions. I read them though, and give them consideration as they’re usually interesting if they aren’t mired in insider jargon. However, it’s the photos and interviews that intrigue me the most. 

I have seen some of Adams’ work up-close-and-personal as they say, and have written a little about those encounters, but mostly what I’ve seen are photos of his work.There are lots of photos online, and you can get a good sense of many aspects of his work from them. I should note that the 2021 Bus book is the best collection of photos of the Bruegel-Bosch Bus I’ve come across. I’ve seen that work in person, and I’d say it defies photographic representation. Photos just don’t capture the experience of interacting with it; however, those in Bus come pretty darn close. The other two books have good collections of photos as pertain to the shows they are representing. In Kim Adams I particularly like the chapter of photos and texts rather cheekily called Kim Adams’ Vocabulary: Catalogue of Products and Instructions for Use by Tomas Pospiszyl. 

All three books cover all aspects of his art, although general coverage is a little thin in Bus, which focuses on the BBB. As far as I can tell his artistic creations fall into roughly 5 categories: Large 1:1 scale assemblages / ‘kitbashes’ (often referred to as ‘Street Remakes’), items that look like kitbashed plastic scale models, dioramas incorporating kitbashed pieces and model railroading items, large layout-like pieces, and drawings. Adams’ themes and interests flow and weave throughout all the categories, and they really can’t be considered in isolation from each other, but in this post I’m only going to focus on some aspects of his kitbashed plastic kit based work and his layout-like pieces.

As I mentioned, it’s the interviews that really grabbed my attention in these books. There are three, one in each: 

with Marc Mayer (held on 22 March 2001) in Kim Adams

with Robert Enright (held 23 October 2012) in Kim Adams: One for the Road

with Melissa Bennett (various times around 2020) in Kim Adams: Bruegel-Bosch Bus

One thing though that seems to be missing from these interviews, or is somewhat skirted over, are questions and discussion regarding early influences from model building and model railroading. Naturally, the conversations stay mainly in the art groove, but look, I’m a model maker, a kitbasher, and a model railroader, and chances are you are too if you’re reading this, so I find it quite interesting that my interests are being used in interesting ways in the art world :-) Adams is using unusual media for the art world, plastic model kits and model railway gear for his small scale pieces and giant layout-like things, but the, let's say the model building world influences, aren't discussed in interviews with the depth that the art world influences are. This isn't unusual given the backgrounds of the interviewers, but I think adding a little investigation into how the hobby and art worlds come together in Adams' work would help give us a little more insight into it.

There’s often a pattern in the lives of model builders and model railroaders. It goes something like this: as a child there’s a fascination with model making or model railroading, it lasts maybe until high school, sometimes through high school, but then life takes over with education, careers, and family, but then in middle-age the model building or model railroading bug strikes again and the activity is resumed with renewed vigour. This is a stereotype of course, but it’s more-or-less the trajectory of a lot of people, and I wonder if it applies here and might help unearth those early hobby influences in more detail.

So, ok, with this in mind, I tried to piece together some of Adams’ early life story from the disconnected pieces available in some interviews and online bios I could find. Before we dive in let me say I’m no expert, so if you see errors in what follows, please let me know.

Kim Adams was born on 17 December 1951in Edmonton, Alberta. His father was Alvin Clarence Adams and his mother was Harriett Maude Eliott. In World War II his father was an engineer, and his mother was an anti-aircraft gunner. There’s an interesting black-and-white photo in Bus dated 1953 with the caption: “Kim as a child with his brothers, and their father’s model train layout.” The photo shows very a small child, which I assume is Adams given the date, and three other considerably older boys, who I assume are his brothers. You can see the layout’s benchwork, which looks a little plywood-pacificiky at this stage, in what appears to be a room walled by cinder blocks, maybe it's a basement or garage. This is the first time I've heard of there being model railroading in his family life.

When I saw that photo so many questions popped into my mind. Was Adams’ father a long time model railroader, or was it just a dalliance? Were there model railroading magazines lying around the house? Did any of it have any influence on Adams’ interests later in life? I don’t know. 

Ok, so let’s continue the timeline. Adams mentions in the Bus interview that the family relocated to Australia when he was seven for his father’s job. So, let’s say that was sometime in 1959.

So, ok, we’re in 1959 and Adams is 7. In the Enright interview he asks Adams this:

“Enright: Were you a model builder or a model railroader as a kid?

Adams: I was always making models. I think the very first one was in Australia. I was seven and the PT 109 model was out. Everybody in the company my dad worked for got one and because he worked night shifts, he said he would help me in the morning when he got back from work. But I had already built it by the time he got home. That was it; he never volunteered again. But we did other things, like take motors out of cars and build houses.

Enright: So you very quickly moved beyond the PT 109 kit to make things on your own?

Adams: I think so. There was somebody in the area who was carving boats out of balsa wood and motorizing them, and I picked that up from him. Balsa wood was the first thing you could use to build from scratch. You can play with it quite a bit, too. Then later it was finding things, dragging them in, and banging them together. I don’t try to invent a train engine or something.”

Top: Lindberg's PT boat kit from 1959 | Bottom: Revell's 1963 release

I did some internet searching and found that Lindberg released an all plastic 1:64 scale model kit of a PT boat in 1959. It was a variation of a kit they first released in 1955. This kit didn’t have PT-109 emblazoned on the box top, but simply said Patrol Sea Raider, and earlier versions said P.T. Boat. Lindberg released the kit again in 1963 with a new box that said P.T.109. I suspect this was to coincide with the movie PT 109 that was released in June 1963. Also in 1963 Revell released a PT 109 kit, and I suspect it too was to get in on the movie release action. Is Adams misremembering dates? I don’t know, but, look, I can’t really remember things from when I was seven. Maybe the important thing is he clearly remembers the first kit he built, and that he was quite young when the model building bug hit, even though the kit’s brand and date might be elusive. In 1963 Adams would have been 11. 

I had a feeling of déjà vu when I read those passages from the Enright interview. I had a couple of old magazines that featured Adams interviews, so I dug them out to have a look. I turns out there’s also an Enright-Adams interview in the January 1999 issue of Border Crossings magazine. The interview was held in December 1998, 14 years prior to the one in One for the Road. Consider this segment from the 1998 interview:

“Enright (1998): Did you make models as a kid, or were you a junior railroader?

Adams (1998): Not a railroader but I definitely built models. I started in Australia. I got a little PT boat, I think it was Kennedy’s PT 109. My father was going to help me build it but he didn’t come home so I built it myself. My parents just kept throwing models at me after that. I took to the military ones for awhile and then borrowed my brother’s lighter fluid and burned them in the carrot patch and got in trouble. I didn’t have good guys or villains in mind. It was just basic killing.

Enright (1998): How did you end up in Australia?

Adams (1998): I was born in Edmonton but we went to Australia when I was a kid. My father was a policeman for awhile and then he was a streetcar driver. He had a buddy who moved to Australia and he just followed him out at some point. We lived in a tin shack for awhile. It was outside of Melbourne. Nunawading was probably the closest town, and then we were in an area called the Dandenong. Eventually dad built a house. I think I was about seven when we moved and we were there for five years. For a kid it was just adventure.”

Although not exactly the same, there are parts that are quite similar. In this one though Adams mentions his parents were providing lots of model kits, and he enjoyed building them.

Left: Border Crossings, January 1998 | Right: C, Summer 2001

I also dug up the Adams interview with Rafael Gomez-Motiana in the summer 2001 issue of C magazine. Here’s what Adams had to say about his early beginnings with plastic model kits:

"Gomez-Motiana: So all of your works are models, whether full-scale models, or miniature scale models. How did you actually get into miniature scale? Was it through constructing studies for your larger models?

Adams: My first memory of sniffing glue at a young age was when I built a model kit of President Kennedy’s boat [JDL: PT 109]. After that I was constantly building models. Especially cars. Model building was big. Then it disappeared. At the University of Victoria [JDL: Adams attended between 1975 and 1977] I got back into making model cars because it seemed to make more sense than learning abstract painting or something like that [JDL: !].

The first car piece I ever saw was by Joseph Beuys at the Guggenheim in the 1978-79 retrospective. He had a VW bus on the ramp, together with the survival sleds. And it just made so much sense right there in the gallery, which is basically a car park. Just think: Winnipeg, Regina, these prairie towns, they all have mini Guggenheims. I think that made quite an impact on me, just seeing a car in that high-art situation. I didn’t understand the survival part, I was just thinking, “Ooh, cars look alright in galleries, especially old, rust ones.””

Did Gomez-Motiana fall out of his chair laughing at the suggestion that the Guggenheim wasn’t much different from the parking lots of Winnipeg and Regina? We’ll never know :-) But what we do know, or at least is pretty clear from all the interviews, is that Adams believed himself to be a seriously devoted model builder as a kid, and he makes the statement that model building, especially car models, was a big thing in the 1960s, which it was, and yes, it did more-or-less collapse in the early 1970s. 

"But Barris, even as at ten, was wild about cars,
carving streamlined cars out of balsa wood."

The model car building and slot car craze of the 1960s and early 1970s was an offshoot of the larger custom car craze in the popular culture of the time. If you haven’t done so I’d recommend reading Tom Wolfe’s 1963 essay The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby to get a sense of the craze as only Tom Wolfe could capture. Although the essay was first published in the November 1963 issue of Esquire magazine under the title There Goes [Varoom! Varoom!] That Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby it was reprinted in the first collection of Wolfe’s essays in 1965 with the shorter title, which was also the title of the book.

A few issues of Car Model from the 1960s and 1970s.

There was lots of information about model car building circulating at the time in both books and magazines. Two of the biggest enthusiast magazines were Car Model (published out of New York), and Model Car Science (published out of Los Angeles).  Car Model magazine started up with a July/August 1962 issue and ran bi-monthly until September 1963 when it became a monthly, and published as a monthly until its last issue in July 1974. Model Car Science ran as a monthly right from the beginning in April 1963 until its last issue in July 1972. 

Some winners at the MPC/WKNR car model contest held 23-25 Jan 1970 in Detroit.
Stack of 4 photos on the far right feature George Barris examining some entries.
Car Model, August 1970.

Model car building magazines weren’t confined to the US. Other publications that either were devoted to model cars or covered them also started up in that late 1950s and early 1960s era and include titles such as Model Cars, Model Roads and Racing, and Airfix Magazine. Buying these magazines wasn’t limited to specialist hobby shops as many were readily obtainable in places like smoke shops, grocery stores, jug milk stores, and pharmacies. I won’t go into the vast range of books available at the time, but again, they were easily obtainable at public libraries. The point is you didn’t really have to go out of your way in that era to find out what was going on in the wider world of the hobby. Much like our electronic internet is everywhere, that old paper-based internet was just about accessible everywhere too. 

Left: Some entries in the Monogram Tom Daniel Design Contest; Car Model June 1971.
Right: Kim Adams' Surfer Rick, 2001; from Kim Adams.
Surfer Rick has strong stylistic similarities to wild custom model builds of the 60s & 70s.

I wonder if Adams was influenced by any of that literature? I know I was. Once I stumbled across Car Model at a local smoke shop in the summer of ’72, model building for me took a whole other direction. Kitbashing wasn’t something I knew about until I read about it. Well, not by reading articles about ‘kitbashing’, I don’t know when I learned that term, but seeing the results of using parts from several kits, and maybe modifying them a little. Kitbashing without knowing I was ‘kitbashing’. I usually thought of that work as ‘customization’. I think I learned the official term sometime later. The Gomez-Motiana interview touches on kitbashing a little:

"Gomez-Motiana: Both your full-scale work, if we can call it that, as well as your miniature work, is assembled from off-the-shelf components, things you can buy, whether actual car parts or model-car-kits. Where does the “craft” come into it? Is craft even important here?

Adams: It’s making these model-building kits look like the period, that’s what the craft is. Painting it to look aged and square; they have to look how the kit’s supposed to be made. But then it’s also when you start “bashing” them. All my work is what I would call “kit-bashing.” This is a common term in the industry: you cross breed a Volkswagen with a Cadillac, and you’ve got a kit bash. They must do it in architecture too, although I don’t know if they talk about it in those terms."

When he mentions ‘square’ I have to wonder what that means. Square as in all the paint and pieces are aligned properly, or the old hippie meaning of conforming to the norms of the generation prior to the hippies. Given the bits of sly humour in the responses in this interview I have to wonder.

It turns out car customizer George Barris, one of the guys Wolfe talks about in his essay, cross bred a Volkswagen with a Rolls-Royce. It was called the Raspberries Rolls since it was a promotional vehicle built for the rock group the Raspberries sometime in the early 1970s, likely 1972. I can’t quite place a firm date on it, but I should note that Revell came out with a kit of it called the Barris Kustom Rolls / VW in 1973, and the first incarnation of the Raspberries dates from 1970 to 1975. Weirdly, Liberace had a Barris-like Volks-Rolls built for him in the late 1970s to carry his furs and capes around (!).

Well, I don’t know about real architecture, but in model railroading architecture (a new field perhaps? :-) ) kitbashing is certainly a thing. We’ve talked about the king of kitbashing in the 1970s and 1980s, Art Curren, here, and also that Ur-kitbasher of the 60s, Gil Mellé. Did Adams know about these two guys or any of the others doing HO building kitbashes back then? I don’t know. I don’t know what sort of miniature kitbashes he was doing, if any, back in the 1960s or 1970s. Building kitbashes that I’ve seen date from much later. Did he dabble in architectural kitbashes during his UVic days when he got back into model car building? I don’t know.

One thing’s certain though, his HO scale building kitbashes weren’t anything like what was or is going on in the HO scale model railway world. Most model railroad kitbashes are pretty prosaic - square maybe :-) -  and don’t pass the Bug-Caddy Conjecture test. My assertion here is Adams’ HO building kitbashes are heavily influenced by the world of cars and not buildings, but, well, that’s just an assertion at this point.

Long term model builders often have origin stories that stretch back to childhood.

So far we know model building from plastic kits, especially car model building, was a passion of the young Adams. We also know from these interviews that Adams also dabbled in building model boats from balsa, but he denies any activity in model railroading even though it appears his father had at least a passing interest in it, and was even a streetcar driver for awhile. Still though, the interview segments about this early period of Adams’ artistic development, and interest in model buildings, seem cursory when compared to the questioning about influences from the art world. Maybe there isn’t anything more to tell, but model builders who return to building as adults often have rich model building backgrounds to talk about as the years go on. 

From the Enright (1998) interview it’s not clear if Adams moved back to Canada after 5 years, or moved out of the tin shack after 5 years, because in the Bus interview we’re told the family returned to Edmonton when Adams was 15, which was during 1967. So, from the interviews it’s a little unclear when he returned, but I’ll assume the most recent interview, the 2020 Bus interview, is the more accurate as it’s the most direct on this point: “…when I was fifteen, we moved back to Canada…”.

At 15 Adams would likely have been in high school. His online biographies and interviews note a few things about his school years. Over at the Canadian Encyclopedia Adams mentions “My research began in high school while I was skipping classes.” And he once mentioned he attended 12 different schools in 12 years before settling in Victoria. 

When it comes to post-secondary education all the online Adams bios state the first college he attended was the “Northwest Institute of the Arts (1974)”. So, I go online and look for the institute and can’t find any place with that name, but I do find a place called the Northwest Coast Institute of Arts, which was founded in 1974, and in 1976 was renamed Victoria College of Art. I don’t have concrete proof for this, but from what I’ve read about Adams my money is on a typo in his various online biographies. Also, the 1974 in the bio entry would mean he attended the institute the year it was founded. Adams was 22 in 1974. 

His online bios then all go on to note that he attended the Kootenay School of Art between 1974 and 1975, and the University of Victoria from 1975 to 1977, where he got an MFA in 1979. Recall that in the Gomez-Motiana interview Adams stated that while at UVic he got back into model car building. What sort? Kitbashing? I don't know.

Kim Adams' Earth Wagons (1989 - 1991) 
Image Source: Winnipeg Art Gallery

The origins of his model railway-like sculptures are a bit murky to me, but the first one, Earth Wagons, Adams seems to have started construction on it around 10 years after his graduation, and with its incorporation of full-size rolling things, wagons in this case, you can see the influence from his full-size 'Street Remakes' works, some of which are shown in One for the Road and Kim Adams. As I noted at the beginning of this post one can't neatly separate all his works into distinct categories, as they all feed on each other.

Earth Wagons was a long project, and was under development from from 1989 to 1991. However, to me, that seems rather quick for a model railway - ok, model railway like sculpture in this case - of this scope. 

Photos of Earth Wagons shown in Bus from the time it was being built show a large railway trestle with a train running along it as part of the 'layout', and you can see it in the above photo if you look closely, give it a strong model railway feel. Bus notes, along with the Winnipeg Free Press, that Earth Wagons was the precursor to the Bruegel-Bosch Bus. When I look at Earth Wagons I wonder if Adams was coming back to some earlier model railway experience he had, even though he wasn't a "junior railroader", and integrating it into his artistic mind. 

Today Earth Wagons is part of the Winnipeg Art Gallery's permanent collection. I haven't seen it yet, but hopefully one day.

Kim Adams' Artists' Colony (1987)
Image Source: Canada Council for the Arts, Art Bank

Was the spiritual forefather of Earth Wagons the Artists' Colony diorama, a large piece that looks like a section from a model railway in its use of HO scale items and organization? I don't know.

And that's where I am right now, circling in the I-don't-know cul-de-sac. Well, as you've read, there are a lot of I-don't-knows in the story that I need to resolve, and a lot of bits-and-pieces of story lines I need to stitch together into the big story of influences and development. Some sort of chronological catalogue of Adams' sculptures, maybe similar to the one in the E. L. Moore book, might be needed to help anchor the story in time. The evolution of ideas might then be more apparent with that sort of reference.

I'll wrap up this post right here, obviously incomplete and with lots of hanging threads, because the I-don't-knows are becoming too prevalent and the factual pieces too scarce. However, I'd recommend all three books, but especially Bus because you can see the piece at the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the book is a good souvenir of the experience. The other two are good if you want a little fuller understanding of Adams' work in general.

Blue trucks

It's a small detail of course, but in my memory of the Pillsbury hoppers, if the truck side frames weren't blue as on the real ones I saw back in the '70s, then, well, it just wasn't right. After a little bit of colour matching, Vallejo Model Color Royal Blue 70.809 seemed to be the best match. So, I unscrewed the trucks from the bodies and brush painted the side frames. Sounds easy, right? Problem is I found the trucks were screwed into those bodies extra tight, and it was quite tricky to apply sufficient torque with a fine screwdriver without damaging the bodies. But, everything worked out, and now my mind is at ease :-)

It's crazy early on a Saturday morning and as I contemplate all things blue and the philosophical implications of going back to bed to catchup on dreams or facing the day and making coffee, I'll leave you with the legendary Angelique Francis:

Book Review: Landscape Modelling

A little earlier in the week the copy of Landscape Modelling by Barry Norman I ordered arrived in the mail. Like a lot of books I've bought recently it has been on my list for a long time, and finally one came up for sale online at a decent price.

It's a clean copy, and there isn't any indication inside of who the previous owner was or where this book may have resided before coming to Canada. All I can say is it was published by Wild Swan Publications of England in 1986. If you're doing any comparative reading you might want to dig up your copies of John Olson's 1983 book, Building an HO Model Railroad with Personality, and Malcom Furlow's 1984 book. HO Narrow Gauge Railroad You Can Build. Both were published by Kalmbach in the US. Even though Olson's and Furlow's book cover all aspects of model railway construction, it's interesting to compare their scenery modelling techniques to Norman's given that all three books were all published in the same era. 

The entire book is an enchanting mixture of prototype photos, model photos,
and expertly drawn line illustrations.

I liked this book right from the get-go. Bob Barlow, the editor of Model Railway Journal, has this to say in the Foreword which sets the tone for the pages to come:

"However, there's far more to this slim volume [JDL: it's only 66 pages] than useful modeller's hints and wrinkles; there is a deeper dimension which speaks of success out of failure, of observation blending with a determination to get things right, and, above all, of love for the subject - in this case, our own British landscape. Looking around and loving what you see is a taller order than taking it for granted as most of us do, especially when those surroundings are conventionally 'ugly' like so many urban landscapes today. But somewhere, even in the grimmest of city wastes, beauty exists. And if you're out there studying the landscape closely enough - in order to build an accurate model, for example - you will assuredly find it. Not just once, but dozens of times: images that will linger and give inner pleasure for many, many years. I find it comforting that this hobby of ours - which most will concede is a fairly insignificant part of whatever great scheme exists - can lead us to great insights into our relationship with our own small planet."

Inside is a thoughtful account of how to go about creating a landscape for a model railway. It discusses both design and implementation aspects, and the author's layout, 'Petherick', provides examples. It's well written, clear, and the modelling techniques are effective and easy to understand. All the photos are black-and-white, but that hardly seems to matter given the excellence of the text.

This book is also great for just dipping into and browsing. Well, all Wild Swan publications are, but this one especially so for me because I'm a sucker for well done line drawings, and there are a lot in this book. The layout of the book is excellent too. Inspired page layout is a rarity these days, so it's even more impressive to me when I just stumble across it.

Out on the back porch with my 'tree box' getting a start on the community garden trees,
and looking through my just arrived copy of Landscape Modelling.

The book showed up at an interesting time. I had started work on making trees for the community garden layout, and I had just heard of David Hockney's passing, so I was a bit preoccupied with thinking about landscapes.

Hockney was a favourite artist. I never pay much attention to the passing of media figures, but this one hit home. As silly as it sounds, he seemed like an indomitable presence who would live forever. His work was varied, but I especially appreciated his thoughts that direct observation and wrestling with the problems of depiction were key things to deal with in art, as it should be for railway modellers. Here is Sam Hamper's tribute to Hockney where he goes into that and many other things about his life:

At around the 7:23 mark Hockney makes an interesting observation about trees in a discussion about perspective, well, maybe it's an obvious observation, but I thought it was good he said it out loud:

"Any cameraman will tell you it's not so easy to film the tallness of trees for instance because you have to look up to see the tallness. It's the tallness that would give you the majesty of the tree isn't it? The majestic nature."

Which is why I think it's important to model trees to their correct scale height and volume, otherwise it's conventional toy train lollipop trees all the way down that are completely without majesty. 

There are a lot of Hockney videos at YouTube, but I'll simply point out this short one of Hockney painting a tree dominated scene in Yorkshire:

The ways of the YouTube recommendation algorithm are a mystery to me. As I was looking for Hockney videos it recommended some from a channel called Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't ! The videos at that channel are serious, hilarious, and scathing, but in line with Barlow's comment that "... somewhere, even in the grimmest of city wastes, beauty exists" have a look at this poignant one of a tour of an abandoned Southern Pacific station in West Oakland, California (Warning: This is serious stuff):

 

Scenery begins on the Community Garden layout

I've started to work on the scenery by laying out the primary areas. There'll be 9 garden plots, or pieces of garden plots: 5 inside the loop, 3 bounding the outside the loop pedestrian pathway, and 1 close to the loco re-charging station (it's the gravel area with the repurposed porch railing as one of fences that bounds the 9th garden plot).

The shed is tucked in a corner inside the loop. Beside it will be a tree. I've pretty much decided on using the tree in the photo below even though it's maybe 100m or so away from the shed on the real thing (selective compression in action!):

That green patch across from the loco recharging area will be home to this tree:

It isn't actually located in the community garden grounds, but on a boulevard on the walk to it. All I can say is I like it, and it will be an interesting challenge to make, so there you go.

While I was out walking today I noticed the city has marked where they're going to plant new trees. I need some of those sorts of signs for my layouts.

A Short Biography of Thaddeus Lowe via the BBC

Here's the link to the podcast.

As part of their A History of the United States in 100 Objects podcast series the BBC features the biography of Thaddeus Lowe - yes, that Thaddeus Lowe, of Mount Lowe Railway fame - in episode 4. His story begins at the start of the American Civil War, continues on through the creation of the Mount Lowe Railway, and ends with Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, orbiting the Moon. Give it a listen. You won't be disappointed.

Book Review: Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43

A few years back I was undertaking an informal study of books about the works of artists who used scale models of one sort or another as their medium. Other interests took over and I parked the project. The last few months though I've felt a need to revisit that project, especially now that the Havelock micro-layout has reentered my thoughts. There're things I want to communicate with that little chunk of foam and track that I think the techniques employed by these artists might help with, so I thought now was a good time to get back to my studies.

One book in this genre that I've been meaning to get for quite awhile is Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43 by David Levinthal and Garry Trudeau (of Doonesbury fame). I found a copy online that was a good price, and the shipping cost wasn't crazy, so I ordered it.

In the past I didn't pay much attention to any internal markings indicating something about a book's provenance, but these days I do, what with today's book shredding frenzy and a mass turning away from the printed word and all.

This book used to belong to a university library. Wikipedia tells me that the Kent Institute of Art & Design was formed in 1987 as a result of a merger of three art and design schools, and the University for the Creative Arts was formed in 2005 under a different name from a merger of the Kent Institute with another school. The merged entity became the University for the Creative Arts in 2008.

The book was first published in 1977 by Sheed, Andrews, and McMeel, and reprinted in 1989 by the Laurence Miller Gallery. My copy is the reprint edition.

There are many text-free, double page spreads like this one that let the photos speak for themselves.

In the Preface Trudeau refers to the work as a "paper movie", and I think that's a good description. It's a collection of staged photographs of HO and 1/35 scale toys and models, integrated with quotes and descriptive text, of the World War II German invasion of the Soviet Union. The book's story starts in June 1941 and takes the reader chronologically through the horror up to February 1943. The work was the thesis project of Levinthal and Trudeau at the Yale School of Art in the early 1970s.

An example of the integration of text into the "paper movie".

The photos aren't like the typical ones shot by hobbyists. They're monochromic, atmospheric, soft focus, and impressionistic. Showing off detail and fidelity to visual reality isn't the aim, but capturing real moods is. The Technical Information section has this to say:

"The sense of reality was augmented in this [JDL: the photo of an explosion throwing soldiers into the air that spans pages 18 and 19.] and many other photographs in Hitler Moves East by the narrow depth of field used in taking the pictures. Having only one small area in sharp focus permitted the models in the background and foreground to assume amorphous shapes that both obscured their identities as toys and contributed atmospherically to the compositions."

I found the imagery stunning. The only other book of Levinthal's work I have is War Games, but I'm looking forward to digging up his others.

Pillsbury 4-Bay Cylindrical Hopper Blue....Finally!

One of 4 (!) Pillsbury Hoppers bought at Van Horne Hobbies.

You may recall that almost exactly 6 years ago I posted a few photos of brand new Pillsbury hoppers I saw in the Havelock Yard sometime in the mid-1970s. Then in the late fall of 2023 I posted about a micro-layout I built based on a mash-up of my current and old memories of Havelock Yard.

One of many Pillsbury Hoppers seen at Havelock Yard in the mid-1970s.
This photo is a restoration by Gemini of one of my old snapshots.
Yes, the trucks on the prototypes were blue, so the models need a little updating.

I never finished the scenery on that layout. I seemed to be looking for the right inspiration, but couldn't find it. Nevertheless, I've been looking for Pillsbury hoppers for it ever since installing the last piece of track. And John has too!

The Havelock Yard layout patiently waiting on the wall to be finished.

The search came to an end on a recent trip to Van Horne Hobbies when John saw a Pillsbury Hopper in the front row of one of the many, many display cabinets in the store. It turned out there were 4 hoppers: I bought 3 and John bought 1, as a souvenir of the long search for these things finally coming to an end.

The fleet lines up for a glamour shot along the Havelock Yard's display track.

These freight cars are made by InterMountain and are quite beautiful items. I saw their big brothers in Havelock Yard when they were more-or-less brand new, so they aren't going to be weathered. I think the only thing I'll do is paint the trucks blue to match those on the prototype if I can find the right shade.

But before we head back to Havelock via Laval, let's take a side trip to Chicago:

Raiders of the Not So Lost Hobby Store

Spot the model railway store

Getting closer...

Closer...

Bingo!

John and I went out to Van Horne Hobby in Laval the other day. He'd visited in March and was blown away. Hidden away on the grounds of a road sweeping business is this lair of model railway extravagance:

Upon entry ....

Photos don't do it justice.

Your humble scribe points out his personal Holy Grail.
Many years have we searched!
More in future posts. Stay tuned!