tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40647969563021693032024-03-19T04:47:26.308-04:0030SquaresJ D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.comBlogger2156125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-1654477715916137102024-03-17T04:05:00.000-04:002024-03-17T04:05:39.762-04:00Book Talk<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9sQPIo-ze9a4oZbvyj2-dBdznsVc5Mqw69Y52P6mIntQ27fNwhEX2cPcjBkLTDrVso0wGFpD_zNsQmwPBq3-uqotqYVLaSKY3LQtEnSgZvAwp7GaS7U0fnPaQZot6xc-3963G0JrQpxJIY_dFjo68hUq1OB183T1fbgmtU_JOQEtS1tvlDupRfa3KY9s/s2936/ELMooreeBookGoogle.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1456" data-original-width="2936" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9sQPIo-ze9a4oZbvyj2-dBdznsVc5Mqw69Y52P6mIntQ27fNwhEX2cPcjBkLTDrVso0wGFpD_zNsQmwPBq3-uqotqYVLaSKY3LQtEnSgZvAwp7GaS7U0fnPaQZot6xc-3963G0JrQpxJIY_dFjo68hUq1OB183T1fbgmtU_JOQEtS1tvlDupRfa3KY9s/w400-h199/ELMooreeBookGoogle.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Google search results for "E. L. Moore eBook"</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A year ago today I published my E. L. Moore eBook: <i>The Model Buildings of E. L. Moore</i>. If you don’t have a copy, good news, I have an infinite supply of free ones and you can get yours <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-e-l-moore-ebook-is-doneand-its-free.html">here</a> :-) You can also get a copy from <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2023/05/e-l-moore-ebook-now-at-larc.html">Library and Archives Canada</a>.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So far it’s had 872 downloads, which is 772 more than my wildest dreams. Downloads have petered off a lot as the months have rolled on. It does maybe 4 or 5 a week these days. I think that’s to be expected as there’s a limited readership for this sort of thing. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; font-size: 18px;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc7MoxqMqkIpSEe7C8JGd9Mr2OcYHF8J_-NcusJBaIbLL3qX3Dmsx_j-obaTyoNGR-yPJIToy2tJbVf1R3cdvJ6Y7iUsJsYjRrSiGPz7UQAtgNsxpR3OpdS3WlkSHopuv9IWY08wyx_QK0mYQKhephCQzeCDC6fXfcokHNssuj7Rp5qvaX6AENhPpMQuA/s2648/ELMooreeBookBing.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1432" data-original-width="2648" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc7MoxqMqkIpSEe7C8JGd9Mr2OcYHF8J_-NcusJBaIbLL3qX3Dmsx_j-obaTyoNGR-yPJIToy2tJbVf1R3cdvJ6Y7iUsJsYjRrSiGPz7UQAtgNsxpR3OpdS3WlkSHopuv9IWY08wyx_QK0mYQKhephCQzeCDC6fXfcokHNssuj7Rp5qvaX6AENhPpMQuA/w400-h216/ELMooreeBookBing.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Bing search results for "E. L. Moore eBook"</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But, still, for an odd little digital monograph that’s had no notice in the traditional model railroading media, I’m quite surprised at the uptake. I hope it will keep circulating, and maybe E. L. Moore’s work will continue to inspire and entertain modellers young and old.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJkWPWQ5-mrk8bgK-rBFfsEHTPZ-Ggs0RsABCBaDX3UnCDn8jcGV8hcaTGvfLqCliJdzMJE6ojW3UTKJuXsWDsQlvgmM1EWKREDK9qsNtr44G3LbOp2T1GhD6K5B_2mbIC6R5J2AdakBWd84kLSz59wszLswdhjDTOkGrhtw_qjDWuWT2Z4DdooeuEeqI/s2750/ELMooreeBookDuckDuckgo.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1700" data-original-width="2750" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJkWPWQ5-mrk8bgK-rBFfsEHTPZ-Ggs0RsABCBaDX3UnCDn8jcGV8hcaTGvfLqCliJdzMJE6ojW3UTKJuXsWDsQlvgmM1EWKREDK9qsNtr44G3LbOp2T1GhD6K5B_2mbIC6R5J2AdakBWd84kLSz59wszLswdhjDTOkGrhtw_qjDWuWT2Z4DdooeuEeqI/w400-h248/ELMooreeBookDuckDuckgo.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">DuckDuckGo search results for "E. L. Moore eBook"</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 18px;">I don’t see a 2nd edition on the horizon, although there are many gaps and weak spots in the research I’d like to fill if I can. If anything comes up you’ll read about it here. And, of course, if you know anything about E. L. Moore and his work, I’d sure like to hear about it and discuss it with you.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 18px;"> </span><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSHKcUY51JP15T8hRvvtvwmeRedWIkiN-jl9bjPTMdQaXoPqQYlXhf4RyVjiJHBnnb-VTvOXTgwDDxYfTvyneQ2aj3laBITvDBM7lJ-AdC91vaeIe3KPIziV93U2fVGs7wxoAEUSxMiH5JJjz_VTBXFKeBopVCM4KjGM-m10XGqY3OzwCwz0KX2aRSMPQ/s2754/ELMooreeBookYahooSearch.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1620" data-original-width="2754" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSHKcUY51JP15T8hRvvtvwmeRedWIkiN-jl9bjPTMdQaXoPqQYlXhf4RyVjiJHBnnb-VTvOXTgwDDxYfTvyneQ2aj3laBITvDBM7lJ-AdC91vaeIe3KPIziV93U2fVGs7wxoAEUSxMiH5JJjz_VTBXFKeBopVCM4KjGM-m10XGqY3OzwCwz0KX2aRSMPQ/w400-h235/ELMooreeBookYahooSearch.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Yahoo search results for "E. L. Moore eBook"</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">One of the book’s weakest parts are the paragraphs on what he did between being released from the navy in 1918 at the end of World War I and arriving in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1933. We only have glimpses of his life during this 15 year period: furniture salesman, paper mill worker, vagabond, and who knows what else. He seems to have moved around a bit in the eastern US. He was in New York for a while and there was some wandering in the Great Smoky Mountains. He hints at other places - even a county jail for loitering in some southern town! - in his model railroad articles, but that’s all they are, hints. It’s often impossible to discern what's real and what is Moore just pulling our leg.</span><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Those hints of mid life adventure provide inspiration for many of his projects, as did his boyhood life on the farm prior to joining the navy. He read a lot, studied lots of photographs, and shot the breeze with friends in the hobby a lot, but that information obtained at a remove wasn’t all there was to his inspiration. His own direct experience seemed to be the foundation for his model building work, and he drew on it just as much as from those other sources, maybe more at times.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYTtzyTwULJdW-n_Z3YGRGng_8AWTkIWaVzI3Kmf3RQJ6TOpUv1R_Z1GWpqNPoCB72F-kQc8KFh1_cfkIapVPIzfk37w3jYY7grLwhvEj8wT7peR1SerVm_-GLTGPtfzOwDewAvDFnHESEQDTbgI26YD6A79S8tEPrCJ-i4Zu3q6SStp6J1EaCGq5jy8/s1280/IMG_3243.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1280" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYTtzyTwULJdW-n_Z3YGRGng_8AWTkIWaVzI3Kmf3RQJ6TOpUv1R_Z1GWpqNPoCB72F-kQc8KFh1_cfkIapVPIzfk37w3jYY7grLwhvEj8wT7peR1SerVm_-GLTGPtfzOwDewAvDFnHESEQDTbgI26YD6A79S8tEPrCJ-i4Zu3q6SStp6J1EaCGq5jy8/w400-h233/IMG_3243.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A section of the AGO's Tom Thomson panel gallery</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;">We were in Toronto in January and had the opportunity to visit <a href="https://ago.ca/">the Art Gallery of Ontario</a>. I wanted to see the Tom Thomson gallery. I hadn’t done any research prior to going. My Tom Thomson ‘knowledge’ at the time was basically: 1) Thomson was a revolutionary wilderness painter, 2) Thomson was tangentially associated with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Seven_(artists)">The Group of Seven</a>, and 3) Thomson produced a number of now iconic Canadian landscape paintings. So, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Thomson is a big name in Canadian painting. Shelves and shelves have been written about him, but here’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Thomson">his Wikipedia entry</a> for a good summary. He was born in 1877, roughly a generation before E. L. Moore, who was born in 1898. Thomson died in July 1917 about a month before his 40th birthday. Even though he was a graphic designer by trade he practiced as a painter for only the last 5 years of his life. During those years he’d go up north to Ontario’s Algonquin Park in the good weather months for fishing, painting, and canoeing. His art activities consisted of making in situ sketch paintings on small wooden boards of the lakes, rivers, woodlands, trees, lumber camps, and bush. He’d winter in Toronto and turn many of his sketch paintings into proper saleable canvas paintings. To make this way of life happen during those years he appeared to live a very frugal existence.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Unlike Moore who died of arteriosclerosis at age 81, Thomson’s career was cut short when he was not quite half Moore’s age. On 8 July 1917 Thomson went missing on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park and his body wasn’t found until July 16. Some say he was murdered, others say suicide, others say it was simply a canoeing accident. The cause of his death remains a mystery, but what isn’t a mystery was he died at the height of his painting powers and we’re the worse off for it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-size: 18px;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCCsKp_wdb_DnwhpdNa3Vi0LUSxhSKukDzyjk6duJGMFVGG7HbGagqsyY2VzU65HVJiwv2GYAN6e-8knTiRjGcDHsQmV2JSW9A0lvgSTbwBLvYNbPMF8iRGUjBflvsUpm34cAbJvDnqTAU7BQ-I47kISXA9DlLl9mQjMOh9xkx2BW9nWY6JfOqT7xrl4Q/s1280/IMG_3245.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="937" data-original-width="1280" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCCsKp_wdb_DnwhpdNa3Vi0LUSxhSKukDzyjk6duJGMFVGG7HbGagqsyY2VzU65HVJiwv2GYAN6e-8knTiRjGcDHsQmV2JSW9A0lvgSTbwBLvYNbPMF8iRGUjBflvsUpm34cAbJvDnqTAU7BQ-I47kISXA9DlLl9mQjMOh9xkx2BW9nWY6JfOqT7xrl4Q/w400-h293/IMG_3245.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Thomson canvas painting near panel sources</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;">It’s those sketch paintings he made while up north in the wilderness that caught my attention. I was aware of his larger canvas works, but those little on site sketches were news to me. All I can say is that when I saw them I felt, yeah, yeah, that’s what it’s like out there. I don’t know how he did it but I could feel that he had captured how it is in that environment. Now when I look at his canvas paintings they seem a little remote to me now that I’ve seen their sources.</span><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0yVxRfj-QljXFLVD8S17bdoMkZhfgLNUSGJe8ngI16fg_YiErktLqsAgywG6skc6DFEbSwy4m2GCAAk2gShXLBGsM2ffhmBmF8rBQ5InYXPtQ3NgqMK1UD_xNR6PmNEnoe-_AEiCnnrhouFWIoe7qgv8NJANlxhb5h1apRg-OJXvCNt25VPwgrDFXNrM/s940/art-books_2_tom-thomson-sketch-box-contextual.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="940" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0yVxRfj-QljXFLVD8S17bdoMkZhfgLNUSGJe8ngI16fg_YiErktLqsAgywG6skc6DFEbSwy4m2GCAAk2gShXLBGsM2ffhmBmF8rBQ5InYXPtQ3NgqMK1UD_xNR6PmNEnoe-_AEiCnnrhouFWIoe7qgv8NJANlxhb5h1apRg-OJXvCNt25VPwgrDFXNrM/s320/art-books_2_tom-thomson-sketch-box-contextual.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Thomson's palette / sketch box (NGC photo)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">He had a painting system of course so he could do his sketches while in a canoe or out in the woods. Anyone would have to have one so as not to make a mess of things. In preparation for painting season he’d make up a bunch of 8.5” x 11” wood panels, usually of birch, for painting his sketches on. He also had a custom palette / sketch box for taking into the field. That upside-down photo sourced from the National Gallery of Canada shows it. The upper part, at the bottom of the photo, has slots to hold two panels. They allow for a panel to be held for painting while a second panel waits its turn, or is drying. The lower part is for supporting the palette while painting. Two painted panels can be held securely and separately for transport back to camp without worrying about getting them smeared in transit. From that simple equipment, direct observation, and great skill came 400 or so amazing paintings on small wood boards.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT-QbeHrB-X5ZDLBuniI2-SW6MruFchxra0KdbVltg8gJG3-x_AtQ33dD2nbVkSSkNDyK0F53gIt6OrLOc0fyIi3DCxjgsXeai9NdTvueYvmwmofD85qSZ6n-jq7xMA4aORCIHCDJtEGgr6ow4kN60Nrtt8CsvCR2nuYaI33UYnlS6FdL0H9xSOdTOhRU/s1280/IMG_4301.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1275" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT-QbeHrB-X5ZDLBuniI2-SW6MruFchxra0KdbVltg8gJG3-x_AtQ33dD2nbVkSSkNDyK0F53gIt6OrLOc0fyIi3DCxjgsXeai9NdTvueYvmwmofD85qSZ6n-jq7xMA4aORCIHCDJtEGgr6ow4kN60Nrtt8CsvCR2nuYaI33UYnlS6FdL0H9xSOdTOhRU/s320/IMG_4301.jpeg" width="319" /></a></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">After getting back home I found out there was a book published in 2023 about his field sketches called <i>Tom Thomson: North Star</i>. I can’t comment on the quality of its essays, but the draw for me are the 150 nearly full size colour reproductions of his sketch paintings. I recommend the book on the strength of those alone.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’ve talked about <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2020/11/full-observation.html">the importance of direct field observation before</a>. I think if we knew more about E. L. Moore’s life when he was ‘out in the field’ during those missing 15 years, we’d be able to better appreciate how his model work developed and its influences. Like Thomson I think Moore made extensive use of his experiences in his work, but unlike Thomson, the record of Moore’s life experiences is quite thin.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You know, maybe I should back away from saying things like “…we’d be able to better appreciate...” because it might only be me who could better appreciate. I don’t think many people are interested in this aspect of model railroading. I’m obsessed with origin stories and finding out influences. My own hobby horse is that direct observation and experience are the most important and best influences, especially in our era. </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In E. L. Moore’s stories he’d often talk about Cousin Cal. These days the friendly, affable, although sometimes slow and bumbling, Cousin Cal has been elbowed out of the way by Cousin SAL, Cousin Screen Attention Lock. SAL seems to be everybody’s cousin, even mine I must admit. He demands everyone’s attention at all times for all things. Seeing and experiencing for yourself without him mediating seems almost sacrilegious, and he’ll do his darnedest to convince you that it is. He encourages conformity and group think and that’s the last sort of influence anyone should want. He’s the influencer’s influencer. I suspect E. L. Moore would not have gotten along with Cousin SAL given that Moore didn’t have much truck with the dominant screen of his day, <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2016/03/e-l-moore-on-reading.html">the tv</a>, even though he did <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2016/02/e-l-moore-tv-star.html">appear on it once</a>. I don’t think Cousin SAL could convince him to watch <i>Gilligan’s Island</i> or <i>The Beverly Hillbillies</i>.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Yes, the irony of me pontificating about the evils of screens on a screen isn’t lost on me. Before I leave and try and stop my head from exploding from the contradictions, let me wrap up by noting two interesting books I found at the AGO gift shop.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm_kxGIBm9L_JBKibGcTTtW0dk3Xfnhyyu5nE3EHaFgRvfT-O6ORKPwNYIkYliL1AfJHsAZqUpbGR5HEtKLaPj9mlGFwooU_pYYFbJFz1wIhyBltArWFJHMGKUkSSsw2QLSvEzHiz5hYVUvJAS0xE1HyeVbrmif0HOEpDXDJifgtTUlc8xXzuqENMKNTg/s1280/IMG_4305.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="946" data-original-width="1280" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm_kxGIBm9L_JBKibGcTTtW0dk3Xfnhyyu5nE3EHaFgRvfT-O6ORKPwNYIkYliL1AfJHsAZqUpbGR5HEtKLaPj9mlGFwooU_pYYFbJFz1wIhyBltArWFJHMGKUkSSsw2QLSvEzHiz5hYVUvJAS0xE1HyeVbrmif0HOEpDXDJifgtTUlc8xXzuqENMKNTg/w400-h296/IMG_4305.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The AGO has a large collection of ship models as part of the Ken Thomson collection. Although they share the same last name I don’t think Ken Thomson and Tom Thomson are related. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Thomson,_2nd_Baron_Thomson_of_Fleet">Ken Thomson</a> was at one time the wealthiest person in Canada and donated his vast art collection to the AGO in 2002, which included many works by Tom Thomson and The Group of Seven as well as a large number of high quality ship models. The 2009 paperback, <i>Ship Models</i>, published by Skylet documents the collection. It is obviously a subsidized publication as it’s an extremely high quality product that only cost me something like $14.95 in the gift shop. That’s crazy cheap for what it is: an excellent example of what a book about a scale model collection could be. Estimates I got for producing a similar sort of physical E. L. Moore book would have resulted in a typical retail price of $90US for US sales and $135CDN for Canadian - and those are with me making zero profit. At those prices even I wouldn’t buy my own book.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>305 Lost Buildings of Canada</i> was an impulse buy based on the title and intriguing cover. What you see is what you get. There are 305 of those blocky, black and white facade drawings, each with a paragraph telling something about the associated lost building. Although the drawings are sort of reminiscent of <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2019/08/seths-dominion_5.html">Seth’s Dominion</a> caricatures they do give a sense of the buildings. If you’re interested in photos of the real things you can always go to the internet.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-size: 18px;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYLN2FitTvxwxGAuWwE0SSR0w3fLe1VAVz3IJyoXFMSaXJP1piygUqPJ-M9TCnB5_mEqFEOro9mLgnYLPjvrZBykB1BpbwTWJzb6RykBKYekhz3-p-BofOtxlZJEEI81a981LaGRfASCAcNk67vQju61qHMVKjhkVcu8HS62w7tiWTbDhgWkfEd-hJb9Y/s1280/2024-03-12-0001.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1025" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYLN2FitTvxwxGAuWwE0SSR0w3fLe1VAVz3IJyoXFMSaXJP1piygUqPJ-M9TCnB5_mEqFEOro9mLgnYLPjvrZBykB1BpbwTWJzb6RykBKYekhz3-p-BofOtxlZJEEI81a981LaGRfASCAcNk67vQju61qHMVKjhkVcu8HS62w7tiWTbDhgWkfEd-hJb9Y/w400-h320/2024-03-12-0001.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">View from Shell / Bulova Tower; late 70s or early 80s</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">When I stumbled across the entry for Toronto’s Shell Tower (aka the Bulova Tower) at Exhibition Place old memories bubbled up through my grey matter. In olden times I thought it was quite thrilling to go to the top of the tower and look out over the Ex. Maybe it was that memory lurking in my brain that got me to buy the book in the first place: the Shell Tower is dead centre on the book’s cover! Talk about subliminal messaging :-)</span><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Well, a not so subliminal message is nagging me for coffee, so I’m off to refuel my grey cells before they all decide to explode.</span></p><p></p></div>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-78782056182277725342024-03-10T08:19:00.001-04:002024-03-10T08:25:19.720-04:00Dimensioning the Imperial Six's foyer<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRSDDlD2uMDKleRxqiky0g7zqI1LugZFAd2M1RHe6E7XivBOpGb_0sCPDK5whR3gCdMGcQCl8cheF1yA_fc0DywW7Abd4E3qG1fLL-3YQ5pS04dZJ9sDJwWlKzY5Cex5O2AUNaHjkYLuCslCEFtKAfeurG8Op5DXuLQQaO2ADIN5Xy3904R2vXsNAabVo/s1280/IMG_4286.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="848" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRSDDlD2uMDKleRxqiky0g7zqI1LugZFAd2M1RHe6E7XivBOpGb_0sCPDK5whR3gCdMGcQCl8cheF1yA_fc0DywW7Abd4E3qG1fLL-3YQ5pS04dZJ9sDJwWlKzY5Cex5O2AUNaHjkYLuCslCEFtKAfeurG8Op5DXuLQQaO2ADIN5Xy3904R2vXsNAabVo/w265-h400/IMG_4286.jpeg" width="265" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Imperial Six's <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2018/09/double-sixes.html">foyer is a tricky thing</a>. I've been putting off building it for quite some time. I think I've been a little intimidated by it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Suitably fortified with a jug of coffee I decided to dive in and figure out the foyer's dimensions.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The job was something of a trial and error exercise where I consulted photos of the foyer and worked on resolving its elements with dimensions of standard size commercial doors and HO scale figures until I got an arrangement that looked right. You may recall <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2024/01/coles-on-yonge-signs.html">I bungled the entry door size on Coles</a> and wanted to get the Imperial Six looking correct before I started cutting plastic.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I cut a piece of Bristol board into an L-shape that would fit snuggly inside the model's foyer space and drew on the various elements in pencil. This temporary piece allowed me to see how the finished insert would look. I continued to make some adjustments at this stage to get things to look right. I realize the foyer is still 2-D at this point, but I tried to be mindful of the 3-D shapes and spaces that would result as I drew up the insert. It doesn't look too bad, so it's on to picking movies for the sign board :-)</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL77kltZhMpWm8mpwL_zkfI2388dRVIvD1w1tGoT5q6zmiCb52IHsJhpd4UO-mvknSJlG5VLNgyIqWQ-o3yWhFOjUad7PuEB-Ty3cHP7LRUwS21mkodv9YUldj5W48QmX6e4yIik-IeFBo_1SAksoRJX-OqhNwycQoqY8pMDy9wM8smrgQb2gokPQWhn4/s1280/IMG_4289.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="747" data-original-width="1280" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL77kltZhMpWm8mpwL_zkfI2388dRVIvD1w1tGoT5q6zmiCb52IHsJhpd4UO-mvknSJlG5VLNgyIqWQ-o3yWhFOjUad7PuEB-Ty3cHP7LRUwS21mkodv9YUldj5W48QmX6e4yIik-IeFBo_1SAksoRJX-OqhNwycQoqY8pMDy9wM8smrgQb2gokPQWhn4/w400-h234/IMG_4289.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Left and right walls are the same</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-33412693239513561872024-02-06T13:25:00.001-05:002024-02-06T15:29:35.581-05:00Buddy, do ya got a light?<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8UvdUYYtkh2syxi3lsD4NHPpO8VBh0BgtyZFGZ_UdKx8bWm9IPLnBrDRWzXrfIMalZj-9gKR_zidWOYCPGEGXsrDO0ZdmosP_YfAMcRezt_-9_eCE2SkucW0cmRzoE_MWAA_3blfgrvTIsYPp-VkpLbuTa_WyA3JbcmiyOkSV4cJ_yZ6Zuk-2myySrfE/s1280/IMG_3389.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8UvdUYYtkh2syxi3lsD4NHPpO8VBh0BgtyZFGZ_UdKx8bWm9IPLnBrDRWzXrfIMalZj-9gKR_zidWOYCPGEGXsrDO0ZdmosP_YfAMcRezt_-9_eCE2SkucW0cmRzoE_MWAA_3blfgrvTIsYPp-VkpLbuTa_WyA3JbcmiyOkSV4cJ_yZ6Zuk-2myySrfE/w400-h400/IMG_3389.jpeg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">Added LED strip.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">Added interior box.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">Empty interior box.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">Worn sign.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">Foundation leaks light.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">Down on its luck.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">When's the next streetcar get here?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitOcTKUkRD2v9ycIlk49pVb4VGVzPTt_8x1AhhUtlaBUA9Tk-WAR8-lVTqrP3gTg9HPPrqfk17IOqdJlkDtqZ-ft9SjxwEFZtt5gmEGSb3fBmyH7z_jhtM5u_zMUvpKzE26Ejz6i2zRQmZZTtCjqFnJIcIAOOFXp318M-7OdxP9tgKcWTq4ivVlnsnUH0/s1280/IMG_3404.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1280" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitOcTKUkRD2v9ycIlk49pVb4VGVzPTt_8x1AhhUtlaBUA9Tk-WAR8-lVTqrP3gTg9HPPrqfk17IOqdJlkDtqZ-ft9SjxwEFZtt5gmEGSb3fBmyH7z_jhtM5u_zMUvpKzE26Ejz6i2zRQmZZTtCjqFnJIcIAOOFXp318M-7OdxP9tgKcWTq4ivVlnsnUH0/w400-h240/IMG_3404.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: courier;">The Toronto Three</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-43172841582090610662024-02-06T02:21:00.000-05:002024-02-06T02:21:17.819-05:00E. L. Moore's Carolina Foundry in paper<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6CDP7xTkAn-WDLP8CAFFAfv14RghG4W45uo5d1tHIOi1jr8_oeOc4noarXd33hZktaeEa_06nzGjQo_3qgVelDXpIpARl8JIhRffLKER1DKDBCUkzIfiAbnwzuiNsIZZmA6JDkQJZO3fXC-roMQaWWeDl6iFl5P6b9GhAU4WhJnqZgUlJmJCZk0seSV8/s1338/CleverComposite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="916" data-original-width="1338" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6CDP7xTkAn-WDLP8CAFFAfv14RghG4W45uo5d1tHIOi1jr8_oeOc4noarXd33hZktaeEa_06nzGjQo_3qgVelDXpIpARl8JIhRffLKER1DKDBCUkzIfiAbnwzuiNsIZZmA6JDkQJZO3fXC-roMQaWWeDl6iFl5P6b9GhAU4WhJnqZgUlJmJCZk0seSV8/w400-h274/CleverComposite.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Left: <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2015/11/e-l-moores-carolina-foundry.html">E. L. Moore's original</a> | Right: <a href="http://clevermodels.squarespace.com/catalog-pg-17x/">Clever Models kit</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Galen alerted me to this very decent paper model of E. L. Moore's <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2015/11/e-l-moores-carolina-foundry.html">Carolina Foundry</a> by <a href="http://clevermodels.squarespace.com/catalog-pg-17x/">Clever Models</a>. I couldn't resist doing a side-by-side comparison with Mr. Moore's original.</span><br /></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-71022724143249617122024-02-05T07:58:00.000-05:002024-02-05T07:58:37.113-05:00Design Notes on Sight Lines: Roads, Paths, Sidewalks, and Track<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOHyWH2SHDS-RE_p87F77bBUNgesdzJe4IdA0o7oqWBeIJ7uGSeHVtMTLyvn2D4Ejyq2pv6djwWcYUeEnzEc9OwgpV8c-T-359bJQz-adweY3KmqjZSGdNVTIDd865AuGkIsnkcEy_mlvPVSmmvW9l1vOU8Wpz8cm2lS4mS_856e7al69qNf3TL76RFHE/s1280/IMG_3364.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1042" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOHyWH2SHDS-RE_p87F77bBUNgesdzJe4IdA0o7oqWBeIJ7uGSeHVtMTLyvn2D4Ejyq2pv6djwWcYUeEnzEc9OwgpV8c-T-359bJQz-adweY3KmqjZSGdNVTIDd865AuGkIsnkcEy_mlvPVSmmvW9l1vOU8Wpz8cm2lS4mS_856e7al69qNf3TL76RFHE/w326-h400/IMG_3364.jpeg" width="326" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Main street on LOL II, aka the 'Way Out Layout'</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Photographing the <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2024/02/red-car-barn.html">Red Car Barn</a> revived my thinking about an organizing principle I like a model railroad to have: lines I can sight down. Along with buildings one can see into and through, I consider interesting sight lines essential. I like to have a sun roof in a car too, but that's another story :-)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">These lines can be provided by roads, paths, sidewalks, and of course track. It was on the <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2023/12/what-i-did-on-my-summer-vacation.html">LOL</a> that I first played with lines, mainly through the addition of roads and sidewalks to connect the different parts of the layout. I'd look at various areas and think, could someone walk or drive or cycle there, or if they took the train or streetcar, how would they get around when they got off? I made physical changes in answer to those questions.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I think when I had developed the layout to a certain point sight lines became obscure, and that was a contributing factor to me <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-lost-ocean-line-19-june-2011-to-5.html">taking the LOL apart</a>. Looking back, when I added <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2013/11/ocean-boulevard-gets-widened.html">a shelf extension</a> for the World's Biggest Bookstore I inadvertently changed a long, open view of the main street into a canyon that was harder to look into. <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2016/02/last-thursdays-car-show.html">Some interesting pictures resulted</a>, but in the end it was limiting.</span></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge1kkeE5QUrsS_KJeWwqMkqy28Xp5nVxw48cPeQd5QcU1czKryy2wYDAXPZO2fbfFs1twP9iGqbuGsA4q9sfRkPIeGZT3W4WDXBQC8QgCzFiPuQ7nGezwrIaKWW-SfIWeMcRz9NelN4GzNdiKs9nZwC3d7nwQ8yyQX96-o0ymJkXiXEDi_2b68eEyobRE/s1280/IMG_3365.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="526" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge1kkeE5QUrsS_KJeWwqMkqy28Xp5nVxw48cPeQd5QcU1czKryy2wYDAXPZO2fbfFs1twP9iGqbuGsA4q9sfRkPIeGZT3W4WDXBQC8QgCzFiPuQ7nGezwrIaKWW-SfIWeMcRz9NelN4GzNdiKs9nZwC3d7nwQ8yyQX96-o0ymJkXiXEDi_2b68eEyobRE/w165-h400/IMG_3365.jpeg" width="165" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ocean Alley</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The follow up to the LOL, the never finished <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2019/09/thinking-about-alta-vista-tc.html">Alta Vista TC</a>, was a sight lines disappointment. I didn't learn from bad sight lines created on the LOL. I built a main road on the Alta Vista TC for the streetcars walled in on both sides by buildings. I focused too much on having open real estate for buildings, and not enough on looking at them and the streetcars once everything was in place. I'd have to look over the back sides of the buildings to watch the streetcars. Eventually it seemed to me that as well as being far too big for my workshop, it didn't have enough possible views, and was going to become a boring exercise in making buildings simply to fill in open spaces along the main drag. The main drag was a going to be a drag.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So, on LOL II, the main street (still unnamed) is built up on just one side so I can get as many long views, or sideways panoramas, as I can dream up. There're no buildings 'on the other side' blocking my view. The one way street, Ocean Alley (name still up in the air), is a quasi-canyon: buildings on one side and a broken edge of trees, buildings, rocks, and small buildings on the other, but there's a long, so far interesting sight line.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKOuMEXj7NL4UBMUFAGmHrAePy5A_wipb2dIPa-lqvWXRocU9sq1-xmWBuotWkEtHOe8n8m_AD-g1K0t9fSpWb1iuL4AUf0rJXaYc3SXHXIAYrvbGTG5c1R-Lb26y1qZDqfY376xPH1H-_fgxUnRHKMOmLdrUln5R2GD2z28DXwa4aJCyZNzrfRZs56TE/s1280/IMG_3366.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="767" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKOuMEXj7NL4UBMUFAGmHrAePy5A_wipb2dIPa-lqvWXRocU9sq1-xmWBuotWkEtHOe8n8m_AD-g1K0t9fSpWb1iuL4AUf0rJXaYc3SXHXIAYrvbGTG5c1R-Lb26y1qZDqfY376xPH1H-_fgxUnRHKMOmLdrUln5R2GD2z28DXwa4aJCyZNzrfRZs56TE/w240-h400/IMG_3366.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Then there's the sight line from the parking / unloading track that starts at Ocean Alley and sticks into the pad where the urban buildings are located.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhajEPJ9ySvgJq_Ven3NjDlyfeCl0oXOxZpqji8AhhFHVsLXXZs2cwEF0_8ZJueC9522geLSZC0a3i35VK5lDqNBZz3woBvo-GkNOYuU9CAKTKhnTbIlO0QHXdK_UsLykR2KWmAU39gN7D7ReDXSEM0xr0jstmJp5G4LpkaHEAMVAoOhySrtl5Lf_3F6FU/s1280/IMG_3368.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhajEPJ9ySvgJq_Ven3NjDlyfeCl0oXOxZpqji8AhhFHVsLXXZs2cwEF0_8ZJueC9522geLSZC0a3i35VK5lDqNBZz3woBvo-GkNOYuU9CAKTKhnTbIlO0QHXdK_UsLykR2KWmAU39gN7D7ReDXSEM0xr0jstmJp5G4LpkaHEAMVAoOhySrtl5Lf_3F6FU/w231-h400/IMG_3368.jpeg" width="231" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And there's the view down the track that runs along the edge of the beach. You can also see the parking / unloading track that intersects Ocean Alley that I previously mentioned.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitITqagIegL9tGdprrfXxz6s8B1v2DaUiEAJpOz9dlVpcUZFNT3a8nI9cDYnQEAUGbLZqWVeo4uIPKct4HBRB0MM_gga7yJ83fLSezh4unQJHFs8TnARNiDRz3p1dhn3YArZexKrpgFmTUi_qPWsWFa_Uym9gxUf_nsJK6V7Ph2zW_Av9bpIz1CUrEVwE/s1280/IMG_3370.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1031" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitITqagIegL9tGdprrfXxz6s8B1v2DaUiEAJpOz9dlVpcUZFNT3a8nI9cDYnQEAUGbLZqWVeo4uIPKct4HBRB0MM_gga7yJ83fLSezh4unQJHFs8TnARNiDRz3p1dhn3YArZexKrpgFmTUi_qPWsWFa_Uym9gxUf_nsJK6V7Ph2zW_Av9bpIz1CUrEVwE/s320/IMG_3370.jpeg" width="258" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The last long sight line runs along the dirt path that starts around the Red Car Barn, snakes past the surf shop, beachside cottages and the Ocean View Hotel, and ends at the Barbecue off in the distance </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoCAlKx0-D74sP-ue9X9WVrKsLPdIyskJVno77-IsMhDJ7rF9dt58txHZnTdFtSkeRebTDHZYReRN9ZrUQzMkh05Lfa-CmLnggMrNdpxpq2sb2IjwRtQqiD1xpOhguJ01EVw5rOFMPwIgFAYrJwuddTql3rhXcfAfEfcRixkqQgf-enSQbBpEhaf9KDzE/s1280/IMG_3381.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="966" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoCAlKx0-D74sP-ue9X9WVrKsLPdIyskJVno77-IsMhDJ7rF9dt58txHZnTdFtSkeRebTDHZYReRN9ZrUQzMkh05Lfa-CmLnggMrNdpxpq2sb2IjwRtQqiD1xpOhguJ01EVw5rOFMPwIgFAYrJwuddTql3rhXcfAfEfcRixkqQgf-enSQbBpEhaf9KDzE/w485-h640/IMG_3381.jpeg" width="485" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The bird's eye view shows dense packed buildings in the urban area. From above it's certainly not realistic, but there is method to my madness.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A few months ago I was cleaning up the workshop and moving things around. I collected up all the little buildings I could see and randomly set them on the layout just to get them out of harm's way. All of the Toronto buildings went upstairs and were placed on a shelf.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">After I'd done a bit of tidying up I glanced over at the layout and rather liked the jumble of structures. It had that packed in feel I was looking for. Organizationally it was wrong, but it felt right.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The next day I started to slide the models around, looking for sight lines and opening walkways to the sidewalk along Ocean Alley. This created a number of secondary and shorter sight lines out to the ocean. I also found many of the buildings were in need of minor repairs, so maintenance was done along with urban planning. </span></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOUZQnxLwhET8QmpFDOMwKyf9ptrIcJe-3teIQLPmtwZjz2Pq8bH5MQQmjMfe3DjqFSBCnRcOg0rr9_wl3H5KlRAGZBHwphYfPGQOJdn1eIQq95dxdbVRcNIzYqojHaNFY33aDM97KY1UYa3yCUqV-FZnn6_m1GwVGoEAbrUI0h3GxqjrAHZ9l3byEKoY/s1280/IMG_0980.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOUZQnxLwhET8QmpFDOMwKyf9ptrIcJe-3teIQLPmtwZjz2Pq8bH5MQQmjMfe3DjqFSBCnRcOg0rr9_wl3H5KlRAGZBHwphYfPGQOJdn1eIQq95dxdbVRcNIzYqojHaNFY33aDM97KY1UYa3yCUqV-FZnn6_m1GwVGoEAbrUI0h3GxqjrAHZ9l3byEKoY/w400-h400/IMG_0980.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Planning a downtown Toronto micro layout</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I also realized that my Toronto buildings were going to need their own little layout to properly capture the feeling I wanted to get across with them - that's something else I wasn't able to accomplish with the Alta Vista TC. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While in an urban planning mood I did a bit of fiddling with those buildings too to see if a micro-layout would suffice. It turned out a layout a little larger than micro sized might work, but development of that is for another time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I'm not done fiddling with the LOL II's organization, but I feel it's heading in the right direction. Maybe it always will be just heading somewhere and never really arriving. That's ok as long as it keeps heading to interesting configurations. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I know this isn't model railroading. It's just me creating a layout based on what I like and want to look at. It's just playing around.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZaRktN3qtyFMnfQiAdpWTQ5JqC9aVxX7iIxCwkqqezIk_mmCmsEVpnrPAtYOZNuUdV_0yPXVQhFAtkX3GIx9XmfOLxW8o6w1aa2CpinitNT8KfcxGQ3zDfEASETJjeF8MPiol8jz9Ckd2hNV5O1WSbPdNo_md4rvuZeZccdfkm_0P5_rQi6ksotzugLI/s1280/IMG_3373.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1125" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZaRktN3qtyFMnfQiAdpWTQ5JqC9aVxX7iIxCwkqqezIk_mmCmsEVpnrPAtYOZNuUdV_0yPXVQhFAtkX3GIx9XmfOLxW8o6w1aa2CpinitNT8KfcxGQ3zDfEASETJjeF8MPiol8jz9Ckd2hNV5O1WSbPdNo_md4rvuZeZccdfkm_0P5_rQi6ksotzugLI/w351-h400/IMG_3373.jpeg" width="351" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Getting back to the LOL II, this is one of the secondary walkways that connects main street to Ocean Alley. At the entry is the Towers discount store on the left and the Chapters on the right. You can see one of the tall beach spotlights off in the distance.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There are 4 of these secondary sight lines branching off the main street.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRMjEIYzgymG0GyorQacLqxNzLmTvFsOAbrVQMWez5LMOYGyA24VH44toWfjtZ5E669Ba8m4GSgX24Xs7P8G7hjDPWJBRhM88hMyi6MlqkCWYSONBgIPn0ZT6jtWwWTd0MZZpSm8xE7uMnRkm-QK_zI7wTASCYIlUlOWHV-4VuFdig_5ZBk1ET-eXQWEA/s1280/IMG_3377.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="964" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRMjEIYzgymG0GyorQacLqxNzLmTvFsOAbrVQMWez5LMOYGyA24VH44toWfjtZ5E669Ba8m4GSgX24Xs7P8G7hjDPWJBRhM88hMyi6MlqkCWYSONBgIPn0ZT6jtWwWTd0MZZpSm8xE7uMnRkm-QK_zI7wTASCYIlUlOWHV-4VuFdig_5ZBk1ET-eXQWEA/w301-h400/IMG_3377.jpeg" width="301" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I made sure the little Centennial Experimental Farm, LOL III, layout also had a main sight line: the pedestrian gravel path that runs the entire length of the layout from the street .....</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSLm6l7E92vTJfi2cDLYsAhyA9crjUwlW1qL4wf36tBAI_QOI284H3OcY-aHDKBFmP_fQxabrIs_IEe3eN5wjL7z5Qc6jfpKDHzwCLz39mQ_LhdGbCfi7m1v-RBQ7VA6AcvxagjXkNAb_DYOex1tXTbPktl1V5MUJPTbQHqbOqtVN9HvU_0lQNgPXAV5c/s1280/IMG_3376.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1101" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSLm6l7E92vTJfi2cDLYsAhyA9crjUwlW1qL4wf36tBAI_QOI284H3OcY-aHDKBFmP_fQxabrIs_IEe3eN5wjL7z5Qc6jfpKDHzwCLz39mQ_LhdGbCfi7m1v-RBQ7VA6AcvxagjXkNAb_DYOex1tXTbPktl1V5MUJPTbQHqbOqtVN9HvU_0lQNgPXAV5c/w344-h400/IMG_3376.jpeg" width="344" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">... to the apex of the turn around loop. The visual implication is that the path crosses the road and leads to the farm's other facilities.</span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxNK07Llb3Oks0Xwrt86WuWhq-MtsKZj0y3Ul5uRRYvA0rBSlWFGW7T6HsJe7ckWMgx9ZwNwdRTX9TpOHJ3lEaSo3sxDO25fN3ToS_G8Vq6cykwK84n2fOftwJTZ3zjh9ypZhZQFWrEjLoZ4vZuxfyxztIgworXBIWpQFBgiC_ngltUDD_x2pynruVSDY/s1280/IMG_3378.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1136" data-original-width="1280" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxNK07Llb3Oks0Xwrt86WuWhq-MtsKZj0y3Ul5uRRYvA0rBSlWFGW7T6HsJe7ckWMgx9ZwNwdRTX9TpOHJ3lEaSo3sxDO25fN3ToS_G8Vq6cykwK84n2fOftwJTZ3zjh9ypZhZQFWrEjLoZ4vZuxfyxztIgworXBIWpQFBgiC_ngltUDD_x2pynruVSDY/w400-h355/IMG_3378.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There's also a secondary sight line along the gravel path that is used to lead the cows from an off site barn to the pasture on the layout. It crosses a road and the streetcar has to stop at the crossing.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So the paths lead the eye into the layout and are used to imply there's a surrounding world of which this is a piece.<br /><br /> <br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinJYZ-nMZwgR0BSUouz9GiB-VJCuUFBuQRtFfULmI1RZxp9q6HsAg3Uin5cy_TNyMJy-tkH4LWqymX5PNcaE46ZUAKrWG8ixUt0DXeuuWiDn8k6jI9jSm_vUMEJUU8cE6kddmLwuQ0EIk0_97_3YBuQ6SKGsBo9_sosTG96h2KdzMf6ty6Dw2q5k8VR5A/s1280/IMG_3362.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="719" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinJYZ-nMZwgR0BSUouz9GiB-VJCuUFBuQRtFfULmI1RZxp9q6HsAg3Uin5cy_TNyMJy-tkH4LWqymX5PNcaE46ZUAKrWG8ixUt0DXeuuWiDn8k6jI9jSm_vUMEJUU8cE6kddmLwuQ0EIk0_97_3YBuQ6SKGsBo9_sosTG96h2KdzMf6ty6Dw2q5k8VR5A/w360-h640/IMG_3362.jpeg" width="360" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Establishing sight lines on the Loonar Module was tricky, and I wasn't completely successful. I think it's because the layout is basically a circle.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In this case I tried to establish two leading into the centre of the island. One runs from the end of the dock and up the concrete steps to the shed at the top...</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs7m1Z0jVEoRR36fqSaUaOKVYeY9zkZqcH60xLMhOo3zG7iNedWWfcXbw9JJZl7M7h-LvV0D0UYx-JO2SfYAIOiP3PTynDAlEW9GisdKYt5A6tEOf_9KqMYYTMwgi3W0QP_vZynbzcAAu0mu06qmYfsqAVa54a3kJ84x8yiy3m4JeQDtyp4BgPTs2LYsA/s1280/IMG_3382.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="913" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs7m1Z0jVEoRR36fqSaUaOKVYeY9zkZqcH60xLMhOo3zG7iNedWWfcXbw9JJZl7M7h-LvV0D0UYx-JO2SfYAIOiP3PTynDAlEW9GisdKYt5A6tEOf_9KqMYYTMwgi3W0QP_vZynbzcAAu0mu06qmYfsqAVa54a3kJ84x8yiy3m4JeQDtyp4BgPTs2LYsA/w285-h400/IMG_3382.jpeg" width="285" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">... and the other extends from the end of the causeway, across the circular test track, and up the gravel road to the parking spot.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I think in this case the visual interest is created by the 4 separate scenes - which blend into each other as one walks around the layout - carved out by the tall trees, which create an effective visual barrier. The Toronto layout will also use tall elements - skyscrapers instead of trees - to separate scenes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZU0giYXQV81WFS11ZmlQ4xsmuLoeaRRDS0lvh6DAnBQsHu6_BUySwTBeeAcaK2WAXHIQTNWOuP_6ls56wlJN_kW5B2MSaqdgzT92Vp5PPusw2Y9bTKu2l2j3eHMDCWHYunFmHqCavQQGVgM2yVb77nVVhGWvBLBy7IqQHe2ejGWRICbMeehN6Cs2CGbA/s1280/ELM_EVRR_4_Raw_3_4.jpg.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="997" data-original-width="1280" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZU0giYXQV81WFS11ZmlQ4xsmuLoeaRRDS0lvh6DAnBQsHu6_BUySwTBeeAcaK2WAXHIQTNWOuP_6ls56wlJN_kW5B2MSaqdgzT92Vp5PPusw2Y9bTKu2l2j3eHMDCWHYunFmHqCavQQGVgM2yVb77nVVhGWvBLBy7IqQHe2ejGWRICbMeehN6Cs2CGbA/w400-h311/ELM_EVRR_4_Raw_3_4.jpg.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">EVRR's valley beyond the long dividing trestle</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I'm not sure if E. L. Moore's Elizabeth Valley RR had any distinctive or signature sight lines. It doesn't look like it did. Maybe along the trestle that divided the layout in two?</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I think what it was famous for was it's level of completion. Being a rather small layout at 4'x6' it was a good showcase of what a model railroader of modest means could achieve. The level of detail and finish that went into the layout was impressive, even by today's standards.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If it did have dramatic sight lines they would be difficult to photograph as it's my understanding that E. L. Moore used a Graflex press camera. Even a 35 mm SLR would be difficult to maneuver in and amongst the layout's features for dramatic perspective photos. The N-scale tribute layout and a digital camera might uncover some interesting views.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-48814312818530550262024-02-03T02:19:00.002-05:002024-02-03T13:59:12.234-05:00Red Car Barn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihsrX2OPsLOpJl8BncGcY_dKAlokMeRJ_grPCDzyTsylBjlqfEfT0Km4Ap4qauQAfgXr2BPicxfIb58IeCMxUsUed89thpAzB3Y2W7EscrqJ2GJZ1GxUGFPVc5W8T4kwxHrFwMHtV544zzRGoDGy8lF0xPP7j11Geej58mMXBu8D_ORCg6l_Bn7XjnsdQ/s1280/IMG_3355.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="868" data-original-width="1280" height="373" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihsrX2OPsLOpJl8BncGcY_dKAlokMeRJ_grPCDzyTsylBjlqfEfT0Km4Ap4qauQAfgXr2BPicxfIb58IeCMxUsUed89thpAzB3Y2W7EscrqJ2GJZ1GxUGFPVc5W8T4kwxHrFwMHtV544zzRGoDGy8lF0xPP7j11Geej58mMXBu8D_ORCg6l_Bn7XjnsdQ/w400-h271/IMG_3355.jpeg" width="550" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Last Sunday I was looking around for a small, simple kit to build to take my mind off things for a little while. I considered a few projects, but settled on <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2024/01/e-l-moores-smithy-as-faller-kit-131237.html">AHM's Village Smithy</a>. I had <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2019/11/my-work-is-not-done.html">bought this model a few years ago</a> with the goal of using it as a donor for refurbishing <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2019/10/from-time-machines-glovebox-in-praise.html">the one I built in the '70s</a>. I figured, what the heck, just build it, refurbishment of the old relic can wait some more.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I decided not to go crazy on modifications as I wanted to finish it fast. I wanted to see if I could create a sense of flow by not prolonging construction. Considering my track record, I built this one dead fast: started on Sunday and added some finishing touches Friday. And yes, I entered that state of mental flow a few times and found the experience of building this barn quite pleasant.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">At the outset I also decided it wasn't going to be a blacksmith. Since my very first E. L. Moore build back in '73 was a version of Bunn's Feed & Seed converted to an automobile garage I settled on this being a garage too. I think <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2023/10/ramseys-garage-alias-star-journal.html">I'm fixated on garages</a> these days, but it is what it is.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN0NVeE8BfUXm-kxIVkUG7vra0SERR7Zqc75YZtoCOy04TKSFKVsac2WwCR_gWMGtLQl0a-RUb2tkwQzacSl4ZyDsZmDS-JfJp10uEmqdiqTT13_L9e1qQcMAxQV4ZZEfOgu6-KUFyC6dD0hRJin3lfzVwlz2Ks7RyhU6ua5qJ5m14JEz9-SSowIZXrvY/s1280/IMG_3335.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN0NVeE8BfUXm-kxIVkUG7vra0SERR7Zqc75YZtoCOy04TKSFKVsac2WwCR_gWMGtLQl0a-RUb2tkwQzacSl4ZyDsZmDS-JfJp10uEmqdiqTT13_L9e1qQcMAxQV4ZZEfOgu6-KUFyC6dD0hRJin3lfzVwlz2Ks7RyhU6ua5qJ5m14JEz9-SSowIZXrvY/w400-h400/IMG_3335.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I'm not going to describe the barn's construction in detail as it's pretty simple. I'll just note a few minor changes.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I cut open the back wall where the little addition attaches to the main barn so that one can look all the way through the big front doors to the window in the addition's back wall.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The second storey hatch door on the front wall was replaced with an N scale Tichy Train Group window casting from my spares box. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The base was cut away from the barn's floor and discarded. I should note that the floor was cut in such a way that it fit inside the barn and was surrounded by the walls instead of having the walls sit on top of it, which is the way the kit was designed. This meant the roof opening for the chimney had to be opened up a little so the chimney would properly sit on the floor.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE8DIC47WvZqA52-3Tv7xecH22dsLG7vNcqoqXZNqIYC_mLdj4AwoYa5JnVuXnrI6MKvrk_pE2kLyEELgIFmsT0nRZgc-BOGWkmdLjRtjuGu4dLnKUjCFiKGvRdtGrnxQDs14wWBQUpR2W65-nsxL_1Jf-qE2n7ozre-O-g7ycdt1eKAWxz-RW8oYxmzU/s1280/IMG_3332.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="1280" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE8DIC47WvZqA52-3Tv7xecH22dsLG7vNcqoqXZNqIYC_mLdj4AwoYa5JnVuXnrI6MKvrk_pE2kLyEELgIFmsT0nRZgc-BOGWkmdLjRtjuGu4dLnKUjCFiKGvRdtGrnxQDs14wWBQUpR2W65-nsxL_1Jf-qE2n7ozre-O-g7ycdt1eKAWxz-RW8oYxmzU/w400-h265/IMG_3332.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Speaking of the chimney, it was moved to the back so that it didn't block the front entrance. The roof panels are symmetrical so flip-flopping the chimney to the back is no problem. Now, whether it is advisable to park gasoline powered cars near an open flame is entirely another sort of problem :-)</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But, maybe the fire is inoperable these days because I didn't include the coal shed in the build.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfUT2iiIT1zElz6EIK2MM2RVVw1Q0_8klwXeU6k6-pLUFre-lBf_AvCuPm9REzby-72JqLL9_tpYSaDfNG57AKWNTbniBQI2SJRSq0eK1x2IkNQPmBG4ufyVk3oIct0SRbqMNJQAOdPL5qiNIMIm5UcOoZ5qgmsz0Oeki8aBAyZB_kJBrMXSbKE37zMTs/s1280/IMG_3340.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfUT2iiIT1zElz6EIK2MM2RVVw1Q0_8klwXeU6k6-pLUFre-lBf_AvCuPm9REzby-72JqLL9_tpYSaDfNG57AKWNTbniBQI2SJRSq0eK1x2IkNQPmBG4ufyVk3oIct0SRbqMNJQAOdPL5qiNIMIm5UcOoZ5qgmsz0Oeki8aBAyZB_kJBrMXSbKE37zMTs/w400-h400/IMG_3340.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Given this is the 21st century, and the neighbourhood the barn's located in, and the expensive cars inside, security cameras were called for. Well, at least signs indicating there were security cameras watching.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The barn was painted red to take it back to its <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2022/11/was-paul-detlefsens-horse-buggy-days.html">roots</a>. Green, <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2017/10/moore-green.html">being E. L. Moore's favourite colour</a>, was used for the trim to give <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-origins-of-ahms-e-l-moore-designed.html">the kit's designer</a> a tip of the hat.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_7eGiKdV8WuPUsGyM_3RDuqOXpCZSDAqGRu_Sw9WHR2l9m9x3SvgrM86cd2BDC8kCZRpFqeeIlIetpgSnxSqikbvcZdE8WYaVSSOpKY4nBdVuYFcGdzNtO-qYjDeIjYfoJkcsHwgfBfMJgfIMQ-kbafev8Fj5IfNwgeeSBWkI8wVYJfmpLkJ_jn57vE/s1280/IMG_3361.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_7eGiKdV8WuPUsGyM_3RDuqOXpCZSDAqGRu_Sw9WHR2l9m9x3SvgrM86cd2BDC8kCZRpFqeeIlIetpgSnxSqikbvcZdE8WYaVSSOpKY4nBdVuYFcGdzNtO-qYjDeIjYfoJkcsHwgfBfMJgfIMQ-kbafev8Fj5IfNwgeeSBWkI8wVYJfmpLkJ_jn57vE/w400-h400/IMG_3361.jpeg" width="550" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I didn't have any plan to use this building, just construct it for purposes of mind soothing. However, while looking for a place to snap a beauty shot I absentmindedly plopped it down on the Way Out Layout where you see it in the drone view and instantly thought it belonged there. In fact I immediately had a mental image about how I wanted the large field between the road and the ocean to develop. All that from one careless placement of a building done in a carefree manner. I see lots of things to work on in the aerial view. Maybe they'll be next.</span><p></p><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">[Mid-morning update]: As seen outside the Red Car Barn early this morning:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEmFOl3CzlqjJY5ZBRLSjgcrEkFAiC1imtKoeNNvL2rIBiBXUMBH9G_MI2qRB-1GKFU1-YAJxU6nWMMtwbJ7ekuCIMz_PAFnzkvSmlaBtTlVYa4FMBbxVUjxOhpcchuiC50vDL2jXez1jVpqudMaGhIrntDzJNnuLZ3jrNbh6O0NE1ou12_0gkB34neJU/s1280/IMG_20240203_094740844.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEmFOl3CzlqjJY5ZBRLSjgcrEkFAiC1imtKoeNNvL2rIBiBXUMBH9G_MI2qRB-1GKFU1-YAJxU6nWMMtwbJ7ekuCIMz_PAFnzkvSmlaBtTlVYa4FMBbxVUjxOhpcchuiC50vDL2jXez1jVpqudMaGhIrntDzJNnuLZ3jrNbh6O0NE1ou12_0gkB34neJU/w400-h400/IMG_20240203_094740844.jpeg" width="550" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">[Mid-afternoon update]: A B&W in B&W:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTInuQ2mvKMlOR1y5DHW71i5XXQwiZKu_SOajA8ZTsgOso5GluD1hl79febY63YUHCn5Huk-ErdGCJ-_-h-wyJ0hqaIbA3qH8Q5MsiiyLmzAhKqRBmGuw_jVGTqHio8fbtPTql0rRY6IPIFD71tt7sOc_aeTS0lESlJQxyAq3wXp558W2UxWnZTX9VB8/s1280/IMG_3347.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="709" data-original-width="1280" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTInuQ2mvKMlOR1y5DHW71i5XXQwiZKu_SOajA8ZTsgOso5GluD1hl79febY63YUHCn5Huk-ErdGCJ-_-h-wyJ0hqaIbA3qH8Q5MsiiyLmzAhKqRBmGuw_jVGTqHio8fbtPTql0rRY6IPIFD71tt7sOc_aeTS0lESlJQxyAq3wXp558W2UxWnZTX9VB8/w400-h221/IMG_3347.jpeg" width="550" /></a></div></div>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-36702528518547501972024-02-02T01:14:00.000-05:002024-02-02T01:14:21.944-05:00Grilles kitbashed from Walthers Al's Victory Service<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnEKMko_ggYHdp6_kGhKEM-uKUT6zqqe8XlXER6-9o8LMLhQNHFVcbdS30tK0KXKkS3qXHREtXA3Jx2Ks0MZlTzm9azSVfug8KFSMKJmRw9tyH2e3gFOb8rCwn-pxFZe38PA9b_gLlxmz6mixaLcgOhC8rp_6nbcBt0VrB-6sJbtNw1_ToSxSO0lA4KeM/s1280/IMG_8934%20copy.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnEKMko_ggYHdp6_kGhKEM-uKUT6zqqe8XlXER6-9o8LMLhQNHFVcbdS30tK0KXKkS3qXHREtXA3Jx2Ks0MZlTzm9azSVfug8KFSMKJmRw9tyH2e3gFOb8rCwn-pxFZe38PA9b_gLlxmz6mixaLcgOhC8rp_6nbcBt0VrB-6sJbtNw1_ToSxSO0lA4KeM/w400-h400/IMG_8934%20copy.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Late night rooftop concert at Grilles</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I was chatting with Galen about this year's <a href="https://www.walthers.com/national-model-railroad-build-off?dm_i=7MP2,9U4W,5RSS6P,1ER04,1">Walthers 2024 NMBRO</a>. I was surprised to see that Walthers HO scale <i>Al's Victory Service Gas Station</i> was one of the base kits in the Kitbashing category. I was surprised because I had used that kit for a kitbash of sorts back in <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2011/01/grilles-beginning.html">2011</a>. I'm not eligible to enter, but if you want to, um, "borrow" the idea, go right ahead :-) Here're <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/search/label/Grilles">the instructions</a>. Good luck!</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpla3vWEMGEZLoeyDPMF5z0iHA8OTbCiK1Z6gGKoJKrx59CR49B8C0UIDRwT0MFBlJ46QRDhilMgTZLCIE-Oz6JogPVtqiD59kxiLZNUCBa8QnK3lsTmTfjDsmfL5bOV_CikDJuWzr_od7A7s86I0gqVSLW1nunROIJCwAJVAq4m1zQhFbmHcjhT5fV10/s1280/IMG_6775.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="824" data-original-width="1280" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpla3vWEMGEZLoeyDPMF5z0iHA8OTbCiK1Z6gGKoJKrx59CR49B8C0UIDRwT0MFBlJ46QRDhilMgTZLCIE-Oz6JogPVtqiD59kxiLZNUCBa8QnK3lsTmTfjDsmfL5bOV_CikDJuWzr_od7A7s86I0gqVSLW1nunROIJCwAJVAq4m1zQhFbmHcjhT5fV10/w400-h258/IMG_6775.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Looks like nobody was in any shape to drive home and wisely <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2023/12/what-i-did-on-my-summer-vacation.html">took the streetcar instead</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-6054562228797287542024-02-01T09:13:00.003-05:002024-02-01T18:33:38.955-05:00The Blasphemy of Bill Schopp<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">In </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">It Ain’t Railroading, But ... it’s a lot of fun</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">, RMC, July 1960, Bill Schopp describes a model trains game he and a friend played. He starts his story with the outcome:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">The Result</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“…I hadn’t had so much fun with a model railroad <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2024/01/memoirs-of-former-model-railroader-why.html">since 1944</a>.”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Then he goes on to outline the frame of mind you need to play the game:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="text-decoration-line: underline;">The Precondition</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“…you must not regard your trains, or at least the trains you run in this ‘game’ as sacred…”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Then, if you want the result, and are ok with the precondition, you’re ready to play:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; font-size: 18px;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizstUINZHNoxb7JMubvMzR4GEYvFrFdAJhE5TJpMv3iX80FICbaIwHORitBXpsysAjXu_sk3xRUoyMXePbvqXyjmNtlVKrZWE-MsS_rUqsjUHYUtHPRM783Rbeibbmmc02UfoFsiWygJYDt8YbrDG5twFKoSX-XcDg-VoiX62ekGYcBE2laWldjw-cMKQ/s1865/SchoppGamePlan.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="968" data-original-width="1865" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizstUINZHNoxb7JMubvMzR4GEYvFrFdAJhE5TJpMv3iX80FICbaIwHORitBXpsysAjXu_sk3xRUoyMXePbvqXyjmNtlVKrZWE-MsS_rUqsjUHYUtHPRM783Rbeibbmmc02UfoFsiWygJYDt8YbrDG5twFKoSX-XcDg-VoiX62ekGYcBE2laWldjw-cMKQ/w400-h208/SchoppGamePlan.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Layout Schopp used for the game; RMC July '60</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Game</span></span><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">1. </span>“…start a fast piece of motive power…out just ahead of…” <span class="s2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">a loco that is a lot slower.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">2. Since </span>“…the track, altho shaped like a water wings, is essentially a big oval,…”<span class="s2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> it </span>“… was not too many laps before the faster…”<span class="s2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> loco </span>“…got pretty close behind the slower...”<span class="s2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> loco.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">3. </span>“The idea then was, with the aid of the two passing sidings drawn, to run the faster engine around the slower one without stopping. You’d have to get just the right distance behind the slower one coming down the homestretch toward the entrance switch to the passing siding to be used. This sometimes entailed grabbing it with the hand and holding it, wheels spinning, until enough space had been opened up. There was stopping or holding sections along the track but not quite as many as drawn on the plan, so that unrailroadlike tricks had to be used.”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Back about fifteen years before that I recall doing similar running wild with tinplate engines on various layouts we would set up.”</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi416x6y9PQwHJ072mxHhEOhxA6oT2Ueq9oKCKsLtNTIiXCWBHLp3wyDDCZ48JOQhgmVCqckSDckXSRzgwCkgN2GY438LI61zBnp8ihv_Kq0aHw8a4tyITOO28dEFZqs9TdskWas3jAi97dIodL4xKFdDQo5xTyt5MIMIvoLoOrPAPyiOobSoD9LsZGKP4/s1280/IMG_3327.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="709" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi416x6y9PQwHJ072mxHhEOhxA6oT2Ueq9oKCKsLtNTIiXCWBHLp3wyDDCZ48JOQhgmVCqckSDckXSRzgwCkgN2GY438LI61zBnp8ihv_Kq0aHw8a4tyITOO28dEFZqs9TdskWas3jAi97dIodL4xKFdDQo5xTyt5MIMIvoLoOrPAPyiOobSoD9LsZGKP4/w354-h640/IMG_3327.jpeg" width="354" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2022/09/going-for-spin-on-way-out-layout.html">Any chance on the Way Out Layout</a>?</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; text-decoration-line: underline;">The Summary</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“What it requires is a layout with some chance of doing it, as well as a recognition on your part that all model trains are not sacred.”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If the letters-to-the-editor column is anything to go by, this piece of sacrilege appeared to pass without comment from RMC’s readers. Not so a much more seemingly benign Bill Schopp article called, <i>Stalling at Switches</i>, that appeared a year and a bit later in the Nov ’61 issue. In it Schopp discusses various approaches for fixing the common problem of having locos stall at switches - the summary is in the article's title :-) - that a friend of his was having on his layout. He lists 4 points that could alleviate the problem. The 4th deals with a finicky directional slide switch on the layout’s power pack as being a potential problem since these little switches had no centre off setting. He goes on to tell about an operational solution to get around the lack of a centre off position:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“This means<span class="s2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> [JDL: having no centre off that is] </span>once you choose your direction with the slide switch, you start and stop the train by means of the speed control knob. Very realistic you may say, “just like real trains.” But also, I say, very annoying when switching. I much prefer to have toggle switches (short or bat-handled) with center-off position on my power packs. Then I can turn the speed control <b>full-on</b><span class="s2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> [JDL: full-on is bolded in the text] </span>and control direction and stopping of the train with the reverse switch. If the train is too fast, as rubber band diesels would be, I cut the speed control down to 3/4 or 1/2 speed and leave it there except for very finicky operations.”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Maybe it was the term full-on appearing in bold that caught John Allen’s eye, but the operational recommendation got him to send off a letter to the editor. In RMC’s January ’62 <i>Safety Valve</i> column he had this to say:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“It was a sorry surprise to read on page 43, November RMC, that a modeler of Bill Schopp’s skill and experience would say, and I quote, “… Then I can turn the speed control FULL ON and control direction with my reverse switch.” This must sound like blasphemy to each modeler who tries to run his trains in a realistic manner. An engineer would find himself quickly removed from the job if he followed this advice, on most of the model railroads with which I am acquainted.”</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhjCIaSggntLH5bPRtuUBdFij_qKx3pufMVrUzShFrkBtUImNpVhJSGSFnJOUc1EFGRiYXptGs7kDbN511WywSPt2xsTR1BJopmmpPQN5VlrTzmzPsIFmMxbj1RYPjliUjzsPxpK2f_GG-Ufu-c6if_sWbjj_s7V8QenuvIFIxSBRy8T6Vau0QpMCMQSg/s1280/IMG_3323.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="953" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhjCIaSggntLH5bPRtuUBdFij_qKx3pufMVrUzShFrkBtUImNpVhJSGSFnJOUc1EFGRiYXptGs7kDbN511WywSPt2xsTR1BJopmmpPQN5VlrTzmzPsIFmMxbj1RYPjliUjzsPxpK2f_GG-Ufu-c6if_sWbjj_s7V8QenuvIFIxSBRy8T6Vau0QpMCMQSg/s320/IMG_3323.jpeg" width="238" /></a></div><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">A couple of reflections on the above. With the benefit of looking back 60+ years, Mr. Allen failed to note that Schopp did say that if full-on was too much, then try a lower setting. I think the point Schopp was trying to make was to leave the throttle in a fixed position, but the bold text presentation of</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">‘full-on’ undermined the message. More importantly though, these two excursions from orthodoxy further strengthening my thought that Schopp was </span><a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2019/06/model-railroadings-amateur-scientist.html" style="font-family: Arial;">model railroading’s amateur scientist</a><span style="font-family: Arial;">. Any truly creative scientist, amateur or professional, is going to try some things now and then </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">that might be fun and interesting </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">but look odd to the establishment. I wonder if he played bongos?</span></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-82158650374585622932024-01-31T07:17:00.002-05:002024-01-31T07:26:45.693-05:00First draft of an EVRR control panel <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9KTWdtMXP51FdbY5G3HU6Zrrn-OaQmAbXhyphenhyphen5gyGDcGxFcTDWqVebncyDbMH7IjyYnCxD8XLCgJpWqh6Wm_jk77GMi9uvrMQIBuyLE7to-3eoKNfxCTbRBBCXZTUqy3KP-IaEUAGiHA_qGiYT2riTRybClJRNzsa3m9krbmw0zvmnOBAzJ5yG9d2WE_c/s1280/ControlPanel.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="766" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9KTWdtMXP51FdbY5G3HU6Zrrn-OaQmAbXhyphenhyphen5gyGDcGxFcTDWqVebncyDbMH7IjyYnCxD8XLCgJpWqh6Wm_jk77GMi9uvrMQIBuyLE7to-3eoKNfxCTbRBBCXZTUqy3KP-IaEUAGiHA_qGiYT2riTRybClJRNzsa3m9krbmw0zvmnOBAzJ5yG9d2WE_c/w400-h240/ControlPanel.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">First draft of a control panel schematic</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One thing I didn't mention in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8U0TlCvDc8">the EVRR video</a> was that there several possible electrical decompositions of the layout. All involve dog-bones with a reversing loop on each end. After thinking things through a bit more I'm likely to go with the electrical layout shown in the schematic on the left.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In this scheme the upper loop has been moved over to the right so it doesn't over lap and confuse the track in the valley.</span></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSf9p5yGLeDQJyepg7xZvoDmA-Fiusq15TVWi8JXVfw3C2EgN5hYtxg6Lms9vhW9xkKTbC6ksb0wMlnRpNHoRW4kTHOBTI7OGdyDqyksDWuiSbW8CJIt1xz2mWdWgV0K4ULchpK887Ssu_qvIhbt3HPdAbjtxlIAdjUEnpUv0wdNS5eBAcY5h4TetwJiM/s2048/ControlONpostcard.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1460" data-original-width="2048" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSf9p5yGLeDQJyepg7xZvoDmA-Fiusq15TVWi8JXVfw3C2EgN5hYtxg6Lms9vhW9xkKTbC6ksb0wMlnRpNHoRW4kTHOBTI7OGdyDqyksDWuiSbW8CJIt1xz2mWdWgV0K4ULchpK887Ssu_qvIhbt3HPdAbjtxlIAdjUEnpUv0wdNS5eBAcY5h4TetwJiM/w400-h285/ControlONpostcard.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">New decomposition superimposed on track plan</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This new decomposition </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">is also a dog-bone </span><span style="font-family: arial;">(shown by the blue line) </span><span style="font-family: arial;">with the lower loop going around the big lake instead of more-or-less the entire valley. This leaves the valley track (shown by the green line) as a completely separate block where a second locomotive could do some switching, isolated from the loco running the dog-bone</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEKiPMmNmjUCu82jrvWokHW3ioizRLjSqFJ5C6Fa4_Au9MRccqhvF_9Z-14lh_9uB3diguQkZpttJN5Ox5WQC9un9NhcIZxWrPlZdV3_hasF4mmctKJquLD8RiZDxP42iTAwt8jDCavqoGV8qC1FMbUi-E77uDVIgrgOIHd51j1ObpExkJoFxtrEsMeY0/s2048/OriginalDecomp.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1460" data-original-width="2048" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEKiPMmNmjUCu82jrvWokHW3ioizRLjSqFJ5C6Fa4_Au9MRccqhvF_9Z-14lh_9uB3diguQkZpttJN5Ox5WQC9un9NhcIZxWrPlZdV3_hasF4mmctKJquLD8RiZDxP42iTAwt8jDCavqoGV8qC1FMbUi-E77uDVIgrgOIHd51j1ObpExkJoFxtrEsMeY0/w400-h285/OriginalDecomp.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Decomposition shown in the video</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Over on the left is the electrical decomposition shown in the video. In this version the loop in the valley is much larger. The problem is the green leftover track sections are just that, leftovers. On the new plan the green track is almost a second switching layout.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">E. L. Moore could have used either scheme, or something else. I have no information on how it was wired so it's basically an aesthetic judgement about which to use. Right now I'm thinking the new one is the one.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Next up will be giving some thought to making the schematic a lot more understandable :-)</span></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-8194134066263448632024-01-30T07:29:00.000-05:002024-01-30T07:29:06.579-05:00EVRR Feedback<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinB3RlJIQJobhW04e7pyUg1-I7alDz4mkPJD8tiNFN1weRvLQNd9jeea-KIMGlrrm2xjQ8_dOiSi4EKP5G_VhkJYGbE-HgbQmHkWECd-4hwYK3SWJzSCxabdwWgpzNh7I5bqazf3jUWXP54RNt6LLoikEkEfwuGDWz2cOG0-T2MyvTE_a8D3XcaYwQTFw/s1280/CigarBox.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="1280" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinB3RlJIQJobhW04e7pyUg1-I7alDz4mkPJD8tiNFN1weRvLQNd9jeea-KIMGlrrm2xjQ8_dOiSi4EKP5G_VhkJYGbE-HgbQmHkWECd-4hwYK3SWJzSCxabdwWgpzNh7I5bqazf3jUWXP54RNt6LLoikEkEfwuGDWz2cOG0-T2MyvTE_a8D3XcaYwQTFw/w400-h234/CigarBox.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The future EVRR control panel</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Much to my surprise I’ve gotten considerable offline feedback on <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2024/01/status-of-my-n-scale-tribute-to-e-l.html">the Elizabeth Valley RR video</a>. There seems to be some interest in that little layout. Given the complexity of the track plan the question was raised again about whether it actually ran. Even though I’ve never seen a picture of a control panel for it I think it did run. I recall this passage from <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2015/12/an-e-l-moore-letter-from-50-years-ago.html">a long letter E. L. Moore wrote to Andy Anderson</a> on 3 December 1965 where ELM hints that it did run:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“Again this fall I decided maybe I’d get rid of that 4x6 Elizabeth Valley. I turn on the lights<span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> [JDL: I assume he means the room lights, but maybe he means the layout lights]</span>, pull back the dusty plastic cover, then for no good reason at all clean up the tracks and give her a try. Once a year, I do this. Nostalgia gets me, and I decide not to bother to sell it.”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s just a hint, but a strong one.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Way back when I decided that even though I didn’t know what the EVRR’s control panel looked like I’d nevertheless keep in the Moorian spirit and build a control panel based on the foundation he used for his Enskale &Hoentee RR: <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2017/10/smoke-em-if-you-got-em.html">a Tampa Nugget cigar box</a>! With the cigar box found I looked around the workshop and dug up the DPDT and SPDT switches I had stashed away for this project. However, they now strike me as too big and I’m going to replace them with miniature ones. I also need to figure out how to connect the wiring bundle from the control box to the layout so everything can be easily disconnected for transport.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anyway it’s nice to see some interest in bringing this layout to life.</span></p><p></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-41313751045781228812024-01-29T17:05:00.000-05:002024-01-29T17:05:18.919-05:00An E. L. Moore inspiration?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKYze6AQemfTfiV8kt8szWfm3s4W1FcLCgMf8iyrDyzM6YuA7FMWHcptqWNw7icQs7mAKL_Nkn0OOqbMshshQmcF3aSSTMLk41lGh-hCMlqJg99NZJK5xcCaBCH8bAQ3ZeJFRHZOX-TntTPgtqZPgYnfBK-By-VD7z6EYTNQsVPF1ab_dy31sU238QgXw/s1280/Book.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="1280" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKYze6AQemfTfiV8kt8szWfm3s4W1FcLCgMf8iyrDyzM6YuA7FMWHcptqWNw7icQs7mAKL_Nkn0OOqbMshshQmcF3aSSTMLk41lGh-hCMlqJg99NZJK5xcCaBCH8bAQ3ZeJFRHZOX-TntTPgtqZPgYnfBK-By-VD7z6EYTNQsVPF1ab_dy31sU238QgXw/w400-h283/Book.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Did this ...</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">After typing up yesterday's <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2024/01/david-fugeres-version-of-e-l-moores-old.html">post about E. L. Moore's old-time water tank</a> I started to wonder about his statement that he based the model on a photograph likely taken in the 1940s. Since his phrasing made it sound like he didn't take the photo himself I wondered if he got it from a book. I knew he had access to Beebe and Clegg's books <i><a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2016/03/e-l-moores-spumoni-club-coach-lunch.html">Mixed Train Daily</a></i> and <i><a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2014/11/moore-beebe-and-tuscaloosa-depot.html">When Beauty Rode The Rails</a></i> so I decided to look through them to see if the water tank photo was in either.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span><span>I couldn't find a water tank similar to the one he modelled, but I did stumble across that picture on the left </span></span><span>in the lead photo to this post </span><span>from </span><i>When Beauty Rode The Rails</i>, which got me thinking about how it resembled the photo below from the E. L. Moore archive. Did one inspire the other? We'll likely never know. But, as Yogi Berra might have said, the similarities are very similar :-)</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLi4tq9b-Y_O7ea9hRmqufGzaxM7ksXz_2rEVZFjW5aZ3nMbA8kujImspXJbx1r_rUQ-hxx1aIpcwE5KjFMhGMS1z_kcNmr_VlqkOBD1oaapODrGt2UVoMwDxWkpsuz1wHmh7tiiD70wxChZWEXexmtTqCNDXLkpIMEsDOY0Pe_vLnwJIn6b0eNBU8VWE/s1280/ELM_EKRR_9_Raw%20copy.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="902" data-original-width="1280" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLi4tq9b-Y_O7ea9hRmqufGzaxM7ksXz_2rEVZFjW5aZ3nMbA8kujImspXJbx1r_rUQ-hxx1aIpcwE5KjFMhGMS1z_kcNmr_VlqkOBD1oaapODrGt2UVoMwDxWkpsuz1wHmh7tiiD70wxChZWEXexmtTqCNDXLkpIMEsDOY0Pe_vLnwJIn6b0eNBU8VWE/w400-h283/ELM_EKRR_9_Raw%20copy.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">... inspire this?</span></td></tr></tbody></table>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-63339505821012619662024-01-28T08:19:00.002-05:002024-01-28T09:27:38.876-05:00David Fugere's version of E. L. Moore's Old-Time Water Tank<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwNbpG-sguLi-0_y553bHucn6L2Kxcw1Di7mHz46xFby0rmsPcjrx8u8XDFWXgdUETE_iXHH2JHn1CPIhXas-0VhmE1swWhu35TNoSRVbiuA3DRZygKjusPksm6J25qaj_0b_epkwXKZWu6WTWptqeER_7PO7918xVF2U_2Ra8TOvwSNxNvE41_f6o2FE/s1738/TwoTanks.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1325" data-original-width="1738" height="419" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwNbpG-sguLi-0_y553bHucn6L2Kxcw1Di7mHz46xFby0rmsPcjrx8u8XDFWXgdUETE_iXHH2JHn1CPIhXas-0VhmE1swWhu35TNoSRVbiuA3DRZygKjusPksm6J25qaj_0b_epkwXKZWu6WTWptqeER_7PO7918xVF2U_2Ra8TOvwSNxNvE41_f6o2FE/w400-h305/TwoTanks.jpg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Left: David Fugere's model (photo used with permission) | Right: E. L. Moore's (E. L. Moore Archives)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Paul is doing a great job keeping his eyes open for <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2023/11/kelleys-folly-and-e-l-moore-in-1977.html">new versions of E. L Moore projects</a>. Recently he alerted me to this excellent HO model by David Fugere of a water tank E. L. Moore built and described in the article, <i><a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2016/09/e-l-moores-old-time-water-tank.html">An old-time water tank</a></i>, that appeared in the Spring 1959 issue of <i>Model Trains. </i>David kindly allowed me to post a picture of his water tank and notes it's built from "</span><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">Balsa, card, plastic and a few commercial parts.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the article E. L. Moore mentions his model was based on a photograph - it's not freelanced - but from the way he talks about the photo I don't think he shot it:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">"My photo of the prototype doesn't tell me where the old veteran saw service, but it was obviously still in use when photographed, sometime in the early 1940's."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I was hoping the article contained some tall tale about how he stumbled across the prototype on one of his adventures, but no such luck.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It looks like Mr. Moore used the water tank as a background structure in the photos of his Grizzly Flats depot that appeared a few years later in the March 1962 issue of <i>Model Trains</i>. In the photo below from his archives it seems for some mysterious reason he renamed the depot <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2017/01/e-l-moores-blue-lake-depot.html">Blue Lake</a> and shot another series of photos. The thing that remains the same though is the water tank appears in the background of both.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsMS-3fsD6P1lKU9Ea1_XXCu5M_ecUnFik4VFeu3GtSoRshJskJ5DbRv2Wtkww5KzrAmcWhyphenhyphenJgSl9J4v3YuzyEUyFVjO7_2n29nN4SJB6TRVbp9hfepKSlaxjzeX50n0ErkHNru7HRzVLscm0gab0WooVZhMeXmXJhNo6yQkrKY213RCSeXBTldYNsC7c/s1280/ELM_GrizzlyFlats_6_Raw%20copy.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsMS-3fsD6P1lKU9Ea1_XXCu5M_ecUnFik4VFeu3GtSoRshJskJ5DbRv2Wtkww5KzrAmcWhyphenhyphenJgSl9J4v3YuzyEUyFVjO7_2n29nN4SJB6TRVbp9hfepKSlaxjzeX50n0ErkHNru7HRzVLscm0gab0WooVZhMeXmXJhNo6yQkrKY213RCSeXBTldYNsC7c/w400-h250/ELM_GrizzlyFlats_6_Raw%20copy.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Blue Lake depot, aka Grizzly Flats depot, photo circa early 1960s (E. L. Moore Archive)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-68654125079512281882024-01-27T15:31:00.001-05:002024-01-29T08:18:04.481-05:00Bringing the Siku Bombardier tram to life in Casualized HO-9<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cu1CaOGukIg?si=RZ3olsrTjL92LZka" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I've had it in my mind for a long time to motorize Siku's Bombardier toy tram (SIKU 1895). In Toronto it seems to be marketed as a toy version of the TTC's iconic streetcar manufactured by Bombardier.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRDvJmIUR-ByIRR0_EhZdXPf_FtVaHB6O3hZZ-FHf4S2r7vPlrWrJUfZSnLPiUPetAmFH7W_01Uznb93efeUDO8Atoz1-Idv2TeR6yetr3UvuMIRN431WaILx7diWbtfkLWkZTc8i5TJn7qU1zCFkG9_KPijVPhYo_EiZOzP_qFbJOcAcGgvLohFZzOmM/s1280/IMG_9655.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="1280" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRDvJmIUR-ByIRR0_EhZdXPf_FtVaHB6O3hZZ-FHf4S2r7vPlrWrJUfZSnLPiUPetAmFH7W_01Uznb93efeUDO8Atoz1-Idv2TeR6yetr3UvuMIRN431WaILx7diWbtfkLWkZTc8i5TJn7qU1zCFkG9_KPijVPhYo_EiZOzP_qFbJOcAcGgvLohFZzOmM/w400-h150/IMG_9655.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Siku Bombardier tram, SIKU 1895, straight out of the box</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The box says it's HO scale, and I believe it, but it is a casualized representation of the vehicle. Ok, it is a children's toy so play value down on the carpet is more important than the fussy desires of an adult modeller. However, the shells are nicely detailed, and I thought they'd make for a rather decent <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2019/07/in-key-of-c.html">casualized</a> HO-9 vehicle for <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2024/01/watch-out-for-that-tree.html">running around the Centennial Experimental Farm layout</a>, or simply posing for scenic photos.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuYZETwJy8IHbDO0ReTOv9rGe0aEHSrCAluasfdmuo6n7eyGNPc_AP6yHQSqLvRt68jKVpU-5S_ZaGLp-yPWjk6raTHu0Ga86mEJJgkMMdML9HkKN3ZHbUKHlOrK-5X1hvzCgeb6PKICzI7Ud_c5yWxzVySgStwyt09lxwu4TJxN84dlw6K_D7_yiokdU/s1280/IMG_0476.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1280" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuYZETwJy8IHbDO0ReTOv9rGe0aEHSrCAluasfdmuo6n7eyGNPc_AP6yHQSqLvRt68jKVpU-5S_ZaGLp-yPWjk6raTHu0Ga86mEJJgkMMdML9HkKN3ZHbUKHlOrK-5X1hvzCgeb6PKICzI7Ud_c5yWxzVySgStwyt09lxwu4TJxN84dlw6K_D7_yiokdU/w400-h176/IMG_0476.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A TTC Bombardier streetcar as seen in Feb 2019</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I started the motorization and casualization back in the fall of 2022. I thought it was going to be a rather easy conversion, but I was very wrong. There was a lot of trial and error before I even came close to getting it to run trouble free laps. At one point I was so frustrated I parked the project and only gave it another go just after last Christmas. Even though it now runs, and doesn't look too bad, I'm not completely satisfied with the approach I've taken. I'd say it's good enough for what I want, but it could be much better. What follows are some rather loose notes on how the build proceeded so I have a record in case I try this conversion again, or someone else is interested in learning from my mistakes.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8dbIlVExu_AHo9HiUclCXZtjXe6IUcvk55oMAJQIUJOJ19zav0eMH8qNf3F5uEnrfBMdK5c-bI5YimiG21rHpsO96mUbRrgq4v2FCsTNICmR6lzZZRsKOXa9yyeNQafo9DvmGRmExOABOxbKP9aK2p_z-nJyjITEotDCDrvznTteD6cHMvw55ZaZcXi8/s1280/IMG_9659.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="1280" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8dbIlVExu_AHo9HiUclCXZtjXe6IUcvk55oMAJQIUJOJ19zav0eMH8qNf3F5uEnrfBMdK5c-bI5YimiG21rHpsO96mUbRrgq4v2FCsTNICmR6lzZZRsKOXa9yyeNQafo9DvmGRmExOABOxbKP9aK2p_z-nJyjITEotDCDrvznTteD6cHMvw55ZaZcXi8/w400-h149/IMG_9659.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Siku toy taken apart</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The toy is held together with 2 screws on the bottom of each chassis. Once removed the shells and baffle are easy to pry off the chassises. Now the fun begins.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSfHo_aDpksm_KUEpz0STLVs1iKqYYi_-TJ5sXx3CrTMGWpXtSiI1aYTaVha35-AI-NBvlH9Y6SAsowopZzdgqVJEPx4ASkbxLlHqtgDmObO2LOMYCU1jBV4h13CyN4R3qGgt-8877_BIKbxlL1pBuyIPJFUree06aF7oRdmNoz8os1A2bStBwtrOIpq0/s1280/IMG_9661.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="1280" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSfHo_aDpksm_KUEpz0STLVs1iKqYYi_-TJ5sXx3CrTMGWpXtSiI1aYTaVha35-AI-NBvlH9Y6SAsowopZzdgqVJEPx4ASkbxLlHqtgDmObO2LOMYCU1jBV4h13CyN4R3qGgt-8877_BIKbxlL1pBuyIPJFUree06aF7oRdmNoz8os1A2bStBwtrOIpq0/w400-h90/IMG_9661.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Preparing the shells for re-spraying with white paint</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I decided to work on some cosmetic changes first. The oversize Bombardier logo was the first thing to go. I rubbed it off with an abrasive track cleaning block and an assortment of fine sanding sticks. The damaged areas were then masked off and resprayed with white paint.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg625Esj_z5M_NO89SaALy_S1XHsZY_2dvriB3o9FCwg7QeQ9HCsuhOeO_kkAzTTnuOWr50x9FOa4JimTv8CM2PHv7Kvc5ykY2OBcRizbC72UoPCRbDpzpqGfVEXVAzI0zoKM0qHo2Cy6SJi7kgsMXBxqXkCz-1ejeAcjh_2u6zljYh-vLJnEm2hJuNOBQ/s1280/IMG_9789.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="413" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg625Esj_z5M_NO89SaALy_S1XHsZY_2dvriB3o9FCwg7QeQ9HCsuhOeO_kkAzTTnuOWr50x9FOa4JimTv8CM2PHv7Kvc5ykY2OBcRizbC72UoPCRbDpzpqGfVEXVAzI0zoKM0qHo2Cy6SJi7kgsMXBxqXkCz-1ejeAcjh_2u6zljYh-vLJnEm2hJuNOBQ/w400-h300/IMG_9789.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">About 1/3 the way through construction</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The above photo is a bit deceiving because a lot of work has been done at this point besides re-painting the shells. As I mentioned in the beginning, there was a lot of trial and error during construction and I didn't photograph many intermediary steps. I'll note a few things in the above photo:</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">1. A big rectangular hole has been cut into the forward chassis for accepting the Kato 11-109 drive unit that powers this thing. It was cut out with a disc cutter in my Dremel motor tool. If you're going to do this wear safety glasses, and go slow. Once the hole is cut it needs to be cleaned up with files.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">2. The forward interior insert needs to be cut up to match the hole in the chassis. At this stage both interior inserts were painted black.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">3. There's a long and complex story about the trailer's wheels. I'll try and be brief. Although the model is more-or-less HO scale, the wheels aren't even close to standard HO gauge, or standard 9mm N gauge either. There was going to be lots of work fitting standard HO-9 or N gauge wheels to the trailer, and after much head scratching I decided just to grind off the wheel flanges and pull the trailer along the road with the power car as if it were a truck's trailer. For running on Kato Unitram track this works ok. And it turns out since the wheel sets are close to N gauge, the track rails inadvertently help keep the trailer more-or-less tracking the power unit when in motion. That does increase rolling resistance, but the power unit appears to have more than enough umph to handle it. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">More on wheels, tracking, and turning radius a little further on.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">4. Speaking of wheel sets, the toy wheel set that would go into the back end of the power car was eventually left off. Only the trailer incorporates those ground down toy wheel sets. The only wheels on the power car are those on the Kato drive unit.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCiPblGv1wwEIEVPK942QusRnNnt8U2kKnPDI6FfLbTSqddFsQO51C94RibIYZKIt__Y0F68AgF2zDykcU8tpxH_2qW5_cbxn7hnHIJ4jlxt1TdBsKtWd4BXC3PejeGm4vu2v15MYH3G53b7Dm4H_cXMeXnV0SmnZEkxdX7Cj_eUqw4z8umsAgDl2Q9Jg/s1280/IMG_3246.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="1280" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCiPblGv1wwEIEVPK942QusRnNnt8U2kKnPDI6FfLbTSqddFsQO51C94RibIYZKIt__Y0F68AgF2zDykcU8tpxH_2qW5_cbxn7hnHIJ4jlxt1TdBsKtWd4BXC3PejeGm4vu2v15MYH3G53b7Dm4H_cXMeXnV0SmnZEkxdX7Cj_eUqw4z8umsAgDl2Q9Jg/w400-h110/IMG_3246.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There's a lot of equipment on the roof</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">5. The shell roofs were enhanced a little with a few extra mechanical looking boxes glued on and everything up there was painted with some greys and blacks. There probably needs to be a bit of weathering applied.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC6sb1_7KBNXmF9ZaNwwhI1wvLpFWebAbRa6_RBo8LmcXVt9atnuKNM85DCHvGgJ__S5j4YvVEvi-ezkKfSeshLm_msgiC28wzFuFHibIZKX0fYcgWPvsGHoEIqvnGXaFhmFJn-WjHHJCVC3WP5V8d3z7irMSNey-xxbdn41ny2YbKtCCNcr4Spu7uaJs/s1280/IMG_3136.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="709" data-original-width="1280" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC6sb1_7KBNXmF9ZaNwwhI1wvLpFWebAbRa6_RBo8LmcXVt9atnuKNM85DCHvGgJ__S5j4YvVEvi-ezkKfSeshLm_msgiC28wzFuFHibIZKX0fYcgWPvsGHoEIqvnGXaFhmFJn-WjHHJCVC3WP5V8d3z7irMSNey-xxbdn41ny2YbKtCCNcr4Spu7uaJs/w400-h221/IMG_3136.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Styrene blocks were used as motor supports</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">One of the trickiest parts of construction was installing the Kato drive unit. Obviously the couplers and their supports were cut off before starting. Again, there was a lot of trial and error in measuring and fitting styrene blocks to the chassis and power unit until I got the heights and positions just right. In the above photo those blocks numbered 21 and 25 have been previously glued to the power unit and the resulting structure is being epoxied into the chassis. Those styrene strips on the track are there to temporarily lift the chassis to the correct height until the glue dries. Ground clearance is something like 1.5 mm - very low.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC76rxRlviqKNFfZD-R8v6yucD1ETD41R-n4hp2zRBP2nv8uVHUxXh1rWeHf9JCTNJT7cFg4R758FaU8Z7MGw_R6VsBCsGOXWggp5rEkjDdLNpWrpjlbk61Jxgwas3Jlkw26y3aV5gcgO5uE68K3pEYQhB94UcJ4_eyWG6m6Eyezau9jz5N75jg3rHNWs/s1280/IMG_3283.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="1280" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC76rxRlviqKNFfZD-R8v6yucD1ETD41R-n4hp2zRBP2nv8uVHUxXh1rWeHf9JCTNJT7cFg4R758FaU8Z7MGw_R6VsBCsGOXWggp5rEkjDdLNpWrpjlbk61Jxgwas3Jlkw26y3aV5gcgO5uE68K3pEYQhB94UcJ4_eyWG6m6Eyezau9jz5N75jg3rHNWs/w400-h127/IMG_3283.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The forward power unit is loaded with weights</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">From this point on there was lots of testing on the track. Again, lots of trial and error, but here's what I hope is a summary:</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">1. The power unit was loaded down with 'a lot' of weight: a strip of chicklet style 1/4 oz weights plus an old lead fishing weight (which can't be used to fish because of the lead) pounded a bit flat. The trailer has a bit of a bumpy ride and the extra weight up front helps keep the power unit's wheels in contact with the track in the presence of this transferred shaking motion. I probably should have added a little extra weight to the trailer - not as much as up front - to help it roll a little better. Maybe next time.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">2. The only strong - aka, metal - 'connection' between the trailer and power unit are the two flaps sitting one atop the other. Note that there's no positive mechanical connection. It's the weight of the power unit that maintains the connection through the flap to the trailer.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2qMuztBGpLOMj_EwLyFGMWhSqUsJvA3VdtJrhBn0xzKdusWdFW2Ws8OrvjNn2pNMhUHSGLj46y0JY8GEfKhFA2NEOR3hYaw_IVM02isHXnMHlX67OTKN5nHkmr7-u6TkUqD8eQKpfKmTVcOg30Akd0-f_5SWL9179d2ooUV8qb0D8BQA91NsNQbrZEA4/s1280/IMG_3299.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2qMuztBGpLOMj_EwLyFGMWhSqUsJvA3VdtJrhBn0xzKdusWdFW2Ws8OrvjNn2pNMhUHSGLj46y0JY8GEfKhFA2NEOR3hYaw_IVM02isHXnMHlX67OTKN5nHkmr7-u6TkUqD8eQKpfKmTVcOg30Akd0-f_5SWL9179d2ooUV8qb0D8BQA91NsNQbrZEA4/w400-h400/IMG_3299.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The trailer connection casting is discarded</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;">The reason for this setup is the trailer has to be loosely connected to the power unit so that trailer motions don't transfer to the power unit and cause it to lose contact with the rails.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This also meant that the metal castings in the toy that connect the two shells had to be discarded because they made the connection between the two far too rigid. The tail would literally wag the dog when this thing was in motion with the metal connection castings in place and locked together.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ok, well as you see in the photo on the side the trailer casting was discarded, but I kept the one on the power unit as it provides just a little weight over the flap connection to hold things in place. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTKI_A7wkaa69T1z6sHFp0q9QHav_Au62LlRv_eslgNj5s3mCHNp9XRm44jkHcPkRR3n6N5hEpZfcV_MrJjTjQXGAiiOaQ3OLtHyVQn0o-dlPHiIpExpYUN_1ObtLeTH37YRt5rd0AFcDF6Q8s6FZi0PTfwGQ9jPcxsI8qLo3vuuJki3PcufLYQmx1xuY/s1280/IMG_9673.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTKI_A7wkaa69T1z6sHFp0q9QHav_Au62LlRv_eslgNj5s3mCHNp9XRm44jkHcPkRR3n6N5hEpZfcV_MrJjTjQXGAiiOaQ3OLtHyVQn0o-dlPHiIpExpYUN_1ObtLeTH37YRt5rd0AFcDF6Q8s6FZi0PTfwGQ9jPcxsI8qLo3vuuJki3PcufLYQmx1xuY/w400-h400/IMG_9673.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Toy's baffle is not very flexible at all</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;">The other piece that had to go was the baffle that covers the connection between the two cars. It's far too rigid and prevents the cars rotating with respect to each other. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Again, after lots of trial and error, I improvised a new baffle by slicing the ends off the old one and replacing the middle with a piece of micro fibre eyeglass wipe. The wipe was blackened with a Sharpie pen, glued over the baffle ends, and then whole thing was inserted and glued between the cars. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Before running, the new baffle needs to be carefully folded so it will open and close cleanly as the vehicle goes around curves and doesn't prevent the cars from freely rotating. After a lot of test runs I'm thinking the micro fibre baffle might be replaced by either a silk, mylar, or very thin plastic one to further improve the baffle's flexibility. I like the visual texture of the micro fibre, so maybe it'll be a silk one to try and retain some of that look.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsa0cDshsbE6K1uG8uGW5ATcpBDPKwSyoxpzzSPvyvxhKSycDKixe0dTK7a-AwoXtHdy7RVKenCexmbHLhRBAMrcSOwZ3c-CXyxoYrC2uCvSfnKLte9w-JVqer_owBMDve8Ycha_uIMezCIOtnWlGM6pjZF9XfTs8KssrFoCshIc3ijBb37tWLLjSzwoo/s1280/IMG_3291.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1280" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsa0cDshsbE6K1uG8uGW5ATcpBDPKwSyoxpzzSPvyvxhKSycDKixe0dTK7a-AwoXtHdy7RVKenCexmbHLhRBAMrcSOwZ3c-CXyxoYrC2uCvSfnKLte9w-JVqer_owBMDve8Ycha_uIMezCIOtnWlGM6pjZF9XfTs8KssrFoCshIc3ijBb37tWLLjSzwoo/w400-h198/IMG_3291.jpeg" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Underside of the power unit</td></tr></tbody></table><span><div style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">All these special provisions - removal of the toy's cast metal shell connector, replacement baffle, wheels with ground off flanges that run on the road surface, flap only connection between the cars - are needed because I'm trying to make the little vehicle run over curves that are far to tight for it, and because the connections between the cars, and between the cars and rail, are too numerous and too rigid. A moving vehicle needs flexibility to negotiate its travels and deal with upsets. A moving model needs that too. The basic toy doesn't because it's designed so junior can't break it - in that regard, it's a champ :-)</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdTr95BMO7CbvOGLFjk4XJxXPT0LXXq41jwZNuicrNU_Eq63FMgS4GzK_AzmGE9JBUshyphenhyphenm0ay9dxI26m7BYPOHP7Lx5QaRsG07dC2sqP1PduJ6F2iTNAD7xoiLyPLj8YlGMYWK2huSrKRHXdiGlP7k2uxwAKaWdaKFcwPt_ozqlzmVWKtI1lNr2vFk_hE/s1280/IMG_3311.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="1280" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdTr95BMO7CbvOGLFjk4XJxXPT0LXXq41jwZNuicrNU_Eq63FMgS4GzK_AzmGE9JBUshyphenhyphenm0ay9dxI26m7BYPOHP7Lx5QaRsG07dC2sqP1PduJ6F2iTNAD7xoiLyPLj8YlGMYWK2huSrKRHXdiGlP7k2uxwAKaWdaKFcwPt_ozqlzmVWKtI1lNr2vFk_hE/w400-h139/IMG_3311.jpeg" width="550" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">I know, I've skipped over some items like arms to the overhead wiring and new decals as they're relatively straight forward compared to the mechanical work.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Operationally, it's finicky to get set up and running. It has to be handled very gently when placing it on the track because the cars aren't really connected together by anything other than a thin piece of cloth. And that cloth has to be carefully folded so that it flexes in just the right way and doesn't cause the streetcar to stall on curves. But, once those are dealt with, it's smooth running, and I like the way it looks on the farm.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Overall, it's ok, but needs a lot of refinement: more flexible baffle, smoother running wheels in the trailer, and some sort of secure mechanical connection between the cars just to name a few. Another job for the future :-)</span></span></div>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-36274599051243947492024-01-27T02:15:00.005-05:002024-01-27T05:53:47.621-05:00Space Hopper sighted in Belleville, 16 July 2023!<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9kmY-AzU2L4?si=F1aiYUY11THGFdxE" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@HavelockYard">Havelock Yard</a> on YouTube alerted me <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A9SBDBxUJQ">in a comment</a> to one of my videos that he had made and recorded a <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2021/10/son-of-space-hopper.html">Space Hopper </a>sighting in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belleville,_Ontario">Belleville, Ontario</a>. Apparently it has been there awhile, but this reporter was no doubt asleep when he passed through its landing site recently :-( </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The truth is out there - but only if I'm awake :-)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">And one other thing, Havelock Yard has lots of excellent and well produced videos at his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@HavelockYard/videos">YouTube channel</a>. I recommend having a look.</span></div>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-86729963583484996672024-01-26T03:50:00.002-05:002024-01-26T03:50:45.775-05:00No Space Hopper at Smiths Falls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNHAwa4fLaedZ3LNbFNaOs7PTDbkN_hR9MVLlcCfhArnLgJ9GsE4VtsACVg_nWX0jVOFbZGwcqqniR4hK88xDO0fsC1AjJT6plpyQ0EUKw369xXucgQEaRA-6Sm-Z-XnkBq4kFs2IK-vUjBEaCuyb87zWxbRee4cw3e685DG7QjIWkuwFFn4XoHxOQrC0/s1280/IMG_3213.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="1280" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNHAwa4fLaedZ3LNbFNaOs7PTDbkN_hR9MVLlcCfhArnLgJ9GsE4VtsACVg_nWX0jVOFbZGwcqqniR4hK88xDO0fsC1AjJT6plpyQ0EUKw369xXucgQEaRA-6Sm-Z-XnkBq4kFs2IK-vUjBEaCuyb87zWxbRee4cw3e685DG7QjIWkuwFFn4XoHxOQrC0/w400-h270/IMG_3213.jpeg" width="550" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A reader asked me if I'd seen the <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2021/08/space-hopper-sighting.html">Space</a> <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2021/10/son-of-space-hopper.html">Hopper</a> recently. Unfortunately, no. But, it's out there somewhere. I can feel it in my bones. Hmm, maybe that's just from too much snow shovelling :-)</span></div>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-6172067417488682542024-01-25T01:52:00.000-05:002024-01-25T01:52:12.166-05:00Barrelling through the trees en route to Ottawa from Toronto<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7A9SBDBxUJQ?si=tK60gdOKaRzZQFh4" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-20419115393377882902024-01-24T15:09:00.001-05:002024-01-25T01:45:57.177-05:00E. L. Moore's smithy as Faller kit #131237<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiemZe7twvedjbFSPYtJSyOWNXYtz9TvZg1Qx3u1avE_wHnRm_cDR79IkPbdDOTpaqm-liGvSDu_ybHyXRlW_EeoLFt_yTZWp0jjF_WWTH4tSQTHwOsA5XDRfv7rnX6sSWyV5f6IOs72EQGq_-1kaRESR-cZquYC290rA0T5mHsseELUqHZzju83V2dvP4/s1822/ELM_Barns.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1285" data-original-width="1822" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiemZe7twvedjbFSPYtJSyOWNXYtz9TvZg1Qx3u1avE_wHnRm_cDR79IkPbdDOTpaqm-liGvSDu_ybHyXRlW_EeoLFt_yTZWp0jjF_WWTH4tSQTHwOsA5XDRfv7rnX6sSWyV5f6IOs72EQGq_-1kaRESR-cZquYC290rA0T5mHsseELUqHZzju83V2dvP4/w400-h283/ELM_Barns.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Paul recently brought to my attention the box art for Faller's packaging of <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2022/11/was-paul-detlefsens-horse-buggy-days.html">E. L. Moore's village smithy kit and build</a> - that's it in the top left corner. He mentioned he thought it was quite attractive and I have to agree. It's much better than the generic, nearly monochrome packaging used by Walthers. There was also a <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-smithy-arrived-in-75.html">Pola release</a> back in the day. It's box art seems to strike a halfway point between the other two. However, the old AHM box art still holds its own even though it shows a painting, not a model.</span><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfMSWg6hMHVk9hC4lyAsUWSKb8QFPl_rCLCrVRb2LjmFSZNacEoBtEbYyBieKB5sUHISBCF0PPFZctbcWQ7r2gOMkye9_M1_yXNhQ9EzEyTOIcz2I4NLFftamcSC_0RGxUYiu92bI8DOVGtP5Dm77w7iSpLTVoV4rlWmt2W7utuZRwhzpw7bCWlkmDZt8/s1188/AHMBarm.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="842" data-original-width="1188" height="391" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfMSWg6hMHVk9hC4lyAsUWSKb8QFPl_rCLCrVRb2LjmFSZNacEoBtEbYyBieKB5sUHISBCF0PPFZctbcWQ7r2gOMkye9_M1_yXNhQ9EzEyTOIcz2I4NLFftamcSC_0RGxUYiu92bI8DOVGtP5Dm77w7iSpLTVoV4rlWmt2W7utuZRwhzpw7bCWlkmDZt8/w400-h284/AHMBarm.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">---</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">[<b>25 January 2024 update</b>: Paul asked that I post the full catalog shot that Faller created so you could see the full diorama:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm1jreVGJ5_c5Vki36oGrz8ot1RIO0sDasHnoWpDhEM6Tm7Wo3lMt6YoYrCIBb9ZMXtr2Dx4YxC_GJE4A-QZaju4wrIVJ0ARs8XGEwJNvHvZsRF6Y1AllVZQdENVL60iHEZLZTZYZWXU1FXIBaFGhCcszSDXpvOuidYM_GAIw4m77EDbJr0uywafBkjs0/s1250/Faller%20blacksmith%20kit%20HO%20diorama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="895" data-original-width="1250" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm1jreVGJ5_c5Vki36oGrz8ot1RIO0sDasHnoWpDhEM6Tm7Wo3lMt6YoYrCIBb9ZMXtr2Dx4YxC_GJE4A-QZaju4wrIVJ0ARs8XGEwJNvHvZsRF6Y1AllVZQdENVL60iHEZLZTZYZWXU1FXIBaFGhCcszSDXpvOuidYM_GAIw4m77EDbJr0uywafBkjs0/w400-h286/Faller%20blacksmith%20kit%20HO%20diorama.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">]</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-51002482046496007922024-01-23T07:25:00.001-05:002024-01-23T07:25:33.981-05:00Status of my N-scale tribute to E. L. Moore's Elizabeth Valley RR<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q8U0TlCvDc8?si=uL36eF5IphWMG2w3" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My little, unfinished N-scale version of E. L. Moore’s Elizabeth Valley RR (EVRR) has been hanging on my workshop wall for a long time. Lately it has been giving me some accusatory stares along the lines of was I ever going to finish it :-) To tamp down the nagging voices in my head, and maybe start things off on the road to finishing it, I decided to make a video that would document where the layout’s at construction wise. The video making process has helped me look at the project with fresh eyes, and some improvements are now quite clear: extending the front a little with foam, maybe trying an alternative track block decomposition, replacing a valley track segment with one with a little bigger radius, and so on. The video segments are a little disjointed - and take the dates I mention with a grain of salt - but hopefully the big picture comes across.</p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-83719408037800407972024-01-21T16:49:00.003-05:002024-01-21T16:49:52.138-05:00Departing Toronto's Union Station for Ottawa<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aqQpMfuwXDA?si=GZOzWL6uIfH68wSU" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-2193075538418198722024-01-18T05:52:00.005-05:002024-01-18T05:52:55.946-05:00The view across my desk<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HVIP66eeHS4?si=gGEX9e4ViRP7JX-c" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I continue to play with video. I know it's no big deal to have two audio tracks attached to one video, but it is for me. On this video the first audio track has the sound of the model train going around the loop, and the second track </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">has the sound of birds and frogs I recorded in the wild last summer.</span></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-40163373964079750702024-01-14T15:43:00.000-05:002024-01-14T15:43:58.487-05:00Coles on Yonge: Signs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfCVMiQCZC13QoVXVCgq5eDOQXJgAhaXUYGKX604LBYGiq4q0uqBA0NXzsfl4XtlUJDU_Afm1Jl42qjg1z-BAT86hxretrUySRk6AL62tLIt2NAKpyrjT2oAcu6XOZbdMQvRRF1hHL8S1qtgv_x8VDtup5sDgMwGN-z3VBSY8b2WnVIF45BWYZFGMV2Yw/s1280/IMG_3194%20(1).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1064" height="661" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfCVMiQCZC13QoVXVCgq5eDOQXJgAhaXUYGKX604LBYGiq4q0uqBA0NXzsfl4XtlUJDU_Afm1Jl42qjg1z-BAT86hxretrUySRk6AL62tLIt2NAKpyrjT2oAcu6XOZbdMQvRRF1hHL8S1qtgv_x8VDtup5sDgMwGN-z3VBSY8b2WnVIF45BWYZFGMV2Yw/w333-h400/IMG_3194%20(1).jpeg" width="550" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">With signs the building is starting to look more alive. The letters in the main COLES sign were cut from pieces of 0.080" thick styrene in much the same way <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2013/01/big-letters-for-smallest-model-of.html">the letters for its descendent</a>, the World's Biggest Bookstore, were made. The lower sign, <i>the Book people!</i>, is a printout of an online photo sized and trimmed to fit the model, and then sandwiched between two pieces of clear plastic. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One other thing. <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2023/12/coles-on-yonge-windows-paint.html">I had made the entry doors too short</a>, and it gave me a bad feeling every time I looked at the model. My brain would constantly nag, "those doors aren't right, those doors aren't right,...". No matter how much those big yellow letters made the facade pop, I couldn't pry my eyes from the doors. I decided I couldn't live with that nagging, so I went ahead, threw caution to the wind as they say, and pried off the door frames. Luckily, it was a little easier than I thought and they came off with some gentle but persistent work. A new centre piece was cut, and the frame pieces were re-glued to locations that looked right. I now have some psychological relief :-)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Next step: interior and lighting.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBMhY9IIvEBOsVs4AM_eKlN_gyw2_RGlMvKNwuPIB6lOnxFy4D1Bqk9IngREUJRtT9-SiQmZIjucllGG0U5qXmYB4cP8ZVy2iXzrZzarihmRkNWXsdojTrouuLEcqaOnNw9KMqeSamJ9rAwPGHDT_l8bG64VyY16mDi7iWgVZpCFSTwP6rJyNizbvTlx0/s1280/IMG_3174.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="1280" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBMhY9IIvEBOsVs4AM_eKlN_gyw2_RGlMvKNwuPIB6lOnxFy4D1Bqk9IngREUJRtT9-SiQmZIjucllGG0U5qXmYB4cP8ZVy2iXzrZzarihmRkNWXsdojTrouuLEcqaOnNw9KMqeSamJ9rAwPGHDT_l8bG64VyY16mDi7iWgVZpCFSTwP6rJyNizbvTlx0/w400-h231/IMG_3174.jpeg" width="550" /></a></div><p></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-69171369747818260132024-01-12T07:27:00.000-05:002024-01-12T07:27:18.948-05:00The Railroad Photography of Walter Schopp<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7ZKiMVxC6yY?si=594SItr9dJi7WYOa" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A few days ago when I was working on a <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2024/01/memoirs-of-former-model-railroader-why.html"><i>Memoirs</i> post</a> I stumbled across this video about the railroad photographs of Bill Schopp's son <a href="https://obits.nj.com/us/obituaries/trenton/name/walter-schopp-obituary?id=16701103">Walter</a>. I didn't realize he was a serious railroad photographer. </span></div>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-34623404919027847702024-01-12T07:18:00.002-05:002024-01-12T08:17:01.300-05:00Memoirs of a Former Model Railroader: Why Bill Schopp left the hobby.<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Bill Schopp’s four part </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2024/01/memoirs-of-former-model-railroader.html">Memoirs of a Former Model Railroader</a></i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2024/01/memoirs-of-former-model-railroader.html"> series</a> is a detailed and fascinating look at what HO model railroading was like from the mid 1930s to mid 1940s for Schopp and his generation. He goes into great detail about how he built several layouts and their associated equipment. By today’s standards there was not a lot that was commercially available or ready-to-run so construction of just about everything was required. I haven’t gone into that story very much here, but I would highly recommend it to those interested in the roots of the hobby. In these posts I’m focusing on what we might today call the ‘human interest’ side of Mr. Schopp’s story.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Bill Schopp went to college and trained as a teacher. Very early on in the memoir, the fourth paragraph of Part I to be specific, he hints at the issues he eventually had with teaching:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Courier;">“While attending college I would dream away many an unhappy hour in History of Education class drawing model railroad layouts, while my notebook edge doodles in other classes consisted of switches, crossovers, crossings, slipswitches, scissors, ladders, and other fascinating variations of trackage. For that matter my doodles even now are similar, except that they usually are a variation of the trolley Grand Union theme with extra intersecting tracks thrown in to make it tough. Wonder what a psychologist would make of some of them if he didn’t know I was off my trolley over trolleys? “The diverging lines indicate a split personality, while the complexity of the diverging, merging, and intersecting lines indicate a tremendous inner conflict.””</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But, boredom aside, he stuck with college and did graduate. Schopp doesn’t mention when he graduated, but reading between the lines a bit I speculate it was in June of 1936. He notes he was unemployed for a year after graduation - it was the middle of The Great Depression - and only held the occasional substitute teacher job during that period. He used his time to build the <i>Moonlight & Violins</i> layout and finished it in early 1937.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s not until we’re into Part III of the memoir that Schopp mentions all was not well with being a school teacher. However, he notes model railroading was keeping him sane, much in the way it provided some diversion in college:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Of course you need a hobby as absorbing as model railroading after a tough six hour day of being a policeman, educator and parent all in one, caught between the desires and needs of a bunch of stupid kids and the proddings of a stupid supervisor whose main job is to avoid trouble so he can be advanced to a higher job<span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">.”</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Bill Schopp wasn’t the only person in that period to note that having an absorbing hobby was crucial to staving off the corrosive effects of a day job. Our old friend <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-philosophical-musings-of-teach.html">H. S. Coleman</a> in his 1952 book <i><a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2021/08/h-s-coleman-on-home-hobbies-providing.html">Teach Yourself Modelcraft</a></i> notes:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Everyone is familar<span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> [sic] </span>in these days with the value of an absolutely different interest from that of the workaday routine, not to mention the fascination arising out of an entirely fresh circle of friends and associates. There is hardly a profession or calling which does not leave its impression upon those who follow it - an impression which frequently is definitely not advantageous. Thousands of people are unconsciously suffering from the effects of their vocation. The parson grows parsonic, and thereby rebuffs without knowing it the similarly acquired sophistication of the tradesman. The “country man” may unwittingly grow snobbish through want of more intimate relationship with the rank and file. The sergeant can tend to become a cynic or a bully unless he mixes in his off-duty hours with people who redeem him to the realm of humanity. There is, within the mixed fraternity of model-workers, a common interest which, bringing all manner of people together, does for them a great and significant work. Modelcraft makes for humanitarianism.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I wish that last sentence were true.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Anyway, getting back to our story.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The bulk of Part III recounts layout building activities beginning soon after he was married. This phase of Schopp’s model railroading career saw the creation of his Rancocas Valley layout. His model railroading was continuing to get more sophisticated, but the impact of his teaching job was taking its toll on his mental health as he rather casually notes deep in some technically oriented text:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“I had plenty of time to work on this line during a six month layoff from nervous exhaustion.”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu3A99GjtI-a2LjgiZU_bB-SwZpfCpI_esVx1GWrkrlRLrSjCx82TB6HS4EyTu2emX3-_lYQaiPfl8vadMZTco4_5MV9eme-8qJkt1YBgVZWwpRDw0Q0qtCWOes7zE29_A5iPUFTb-ZfIHFm3ASKTNHRXBLBi8of-2FNTKQcz_O8JCDcHgVCOzuU6Xhr4/s1141/WatchRepair.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="437" data-original-width="1141" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu3A99GjtI-a2LjgiZU_bB-SwZpfCpI_esVx1GWrkrlRLrSjCx82TB6HS4EyTu2emX3-_lYQaiPfl8vadMZTco4_5MV9eme-8qJkt1YBgVZWwpRDw0Q0qtCWOes7zE29_A5iPUFTb-ZfIHFm3ASKTNHRXBLBi8of-2FNTKQcz_O8JCDcHgVCOzuU6Xhr4/w400-h154/WatchRepair.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;">By the time we get to Part IV his Rancocas Valley Route Interurban layout is more-or-less finished, and so is his teaching career.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“It took several years<span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> [JDL: to build the Rancocas Valley layout],</span> but meanwhile my health was getting worse and worse and, with the help of a psychiatrist, I discovered that perhaps some of the nervous trouble was caused by the occupation of school teaching. (I claim to be the only model railroad enthusiast who <i>admits</i> he has been to a <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2022/11/railroading-tonic.html">psychiatrist</a>!) So I took a Vocational Guidance test series which showed that I was hot stuff at writing and at manipulating small things, whereas I was not so hot at the traits involved with school teaching. Now I wonder where I picked up the ability to manipulate small things? HO gauge railroading perhaps! Among the suggested occupations were train repairing, locksmithing, printing, typewriter repairing or watch repairing.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Of these I leaned toward watch repairing and was going to take it up in night school and in the summer. Instead, however, I soon took it up full time, going to Horological school for over a year.”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">At this point Schopp took to tearing down his Rancocas Valley layout to make room for a home watch repair bench. He wasn’t giving up on model railroading just yet as he had a plan to build a new, smaller Rancocas Valley along side his new watch repair facility.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsKcCvebFhS1zoOMnOoNpyueqhy_s8A5Bj-kQuAQ6n2ZDNyJPOapWr3T3yMEM6xeQnXU8QnY7UH0kc4dUI1FlZxqbmU95t-6c-WIXjJ8NxnBYr_CBh6k1bzLjMaYuW5ldGeQtrnpZmTKMB0HTeLirXXD21XasWQ0DZhUwt9YphYDnlU8RV74jRj8zEWls/s1280/RV.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="1280" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsKcCvebFhS1zoOMnOoNpyueqhy_s8A5Bj-kQuAQ6n2ZDNyJPOapWr3T3yMEM6xeQnXU8QnY7UH0kc4dUI1FlZxqbmU95t-6c-WIXjJ8NxnBYr_CBh6k1bzLjMaYuW5ldGeQtrnpZmTKMB0HTeLirXXD21XasWQ0DZhUwt9YphYDnlU8RV74jRj8zEWls/w400-h150/RV.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So, life goes on and Schopp becomes <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2019/06/bill-schopp-and-streetcars-through.html">a watch repairer</a>. In his spare time construction on the new Rancocas Valley layout is moving right along. When the layout is fairly well developed he realizes that some parts are proving quite troublesome. He then decides to pull up “<span class="s2" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">all the track, wire, buildings and everything</span>” and then makes a “<span class="s2" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">new platform of slightly different shape and put down all of the roadbed-board except the highest part</span>.”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s at this point the crucial decision is made to give up the hobby, at least for awhile:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“At that stage proceedings stuck for about a month. I could not get up ambition to go to work on the layout until one Sunday I decided that this was the time. I started to lay track at the site of some heavy special work but could not seem to get interested in it. After about an hour, I suddenly thought, “the devil with it,” and started to make up my mind to give up model railroading for the time being.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In time, almost everything was sold off except a bunch of relays, which nobody seemed to want.”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">He then speculates on his reasons for quitting the hobby that provided solace when he was a teacher, but frustration when he was a watch repairer:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“I think the real reason for laying aside the model railroad hobby was psychological. While I was teaching school and before, I had plenty of spare time and also the construction and operation of models was a change from the work I was doing. In one sense, it was an escape from the unpleasantness of teaching. But watch repairing is very much the same as model railroading in that there is much work with small parts, and besides, I <i>like it</i>! So the modeling was no more escape, it was just more of the same thing, on a grosser scale, and so lost its savor. My guess is that there is no watchmaker in the country who builds models as a hobby unless it be live steam.”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Later he seems to confirm my speculation that he was <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2019/06/model-railroadings-amateur-scientist.html">model railroading’s amateur scientist</a>:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“I think that another reason why I finally quit model railroading was the lack of new worlds to conquer in HO gauge. I had three-rail, two-rail, trolley and narrow-gauge operation. I never had pantagraph<span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> [sic] </span>or live steam but they didn’t appeal to me. I thought one time of trying two-wire operation as in Havana and Tokyo (and Ann Arbor, Mich), and another time I thought of a very small gauge, maybe the size of present TT gauge, but with trolley operation<span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">.”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">He didn’t leave the pages of <i>The Model Craftsman</i>, but noted that the magazine had a backlog of his articles that would be published, and that he’d be around to answer questions in print wherever he could.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We know Bill Schopp did return. The 1950s and 1960s were a time of great creativity for him in the pages of <i>Railroad Model Craftsman </i>- <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2016/04/e-l-moore-and-influence-of-bill-schopp.html">including some collaboration with E. L. Moore !</a> -<i> </i>so he clearly came to terms with his day job / hobby conflict. I speculate becoming a staffer at RMC and running his own model railroad related business helped resolve things. </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Decades later, after a prolific model railroading career, in a letter to the editor in the May ’73 issue RMC, he had this to say about his retirement:</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwYrUpcBWUOBD-1gpPr07_XlkA7vhj82eOgU43u44OeZ5quBXNvnphLqmQmiYN39JJjyj9FgFEjZOYfUEGDdLvloacaMpFSVZJtTxnZ2dBVe3ZUbgjS3pwOZW3Q_AneutEJ03BWJoLPaEaAgs9PBKQvAcjL3wUNXKK4yMr6XpxIzCA-dGM4C96q9Ue1aU/s899/Fleet.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="532" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwYrUpcBWUOBD-1gpPr07_XlkA7vhj82eOgU43u44OeZ5quBXNvnphLqmQmiYN39JJjyj9FgFEjZOYfUEGDdLvloacaMpFSVZJtTxnZ2dBVe3ZUbgjS3pwOZW3Q_AneutEJ03BWJoLPaEaAgs9PBKQvAcjL3wUNXKK4yMr6XpxIzCA-dGM4C96q9Ue1aU/w236-h400/Fleet.jpg" width="236" /></a></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Courier;">“I continue to get mail inquiring about my health and whether or not I’m still in the model railroad business. I am not in business any more, and no longer advertise (almost all stock was sold to another dealer in one transaction). I have no desire to return to business in any way, including layout design.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">All things considered, I’m doing fine and am getting a lot of reading done these days (especially domestic and foreign model railroading magazines). Which reminds me: anyone have a copy of <i>The Fleet That Had to Die</i>?”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">RMC reported in its June ’74 issue that Bill Schopp had died, and in their Jan ’75 issue reported that a recent reader survey showed he was their 4th most popular author, one position ahead of E. L. Moore.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-71930268433875932682024-01-07T03:21:00.000-05:002024-01-07T03:21:32.004-05:00Memoirs of a Former Model Railroader: The Moonlight & Violins RR<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMiXwsGprugePCB06BuowShdkDH0Cg_BsYtcfufCVwr93Vuz26a5rV6IuIKK8oAIU1zp9gYRQ40ABqSJONzknWzQpK5MqkR29KFsSiqtOxyUezt0Bnga_AlP-HFbG4rtHbh2Kk5FRAqKAnAcVxSC7u82O7rG1ego_JvpHETqo30rX9RyBoEVqgtWoM084/s1280/M&V.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="986" data-original-width="1280" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMiXwsGprugePCB06BuowShdkDH0Cg_BsYtcfufCVwr93Vuz26a5rV6IuIKK8oAIU1zp9gYRQ40ABqSJONzknWzQpK5MqkR29KFsSiqtOxyUezt0Bnga_AlP-HFbG4rtHbh2Kk5FRAqKAnAcVxSC7u82O7rG1ego_JvpHETqo30rX9RyBoEVqgtWoM084/w400-h309/M&V.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">First version of the M&V RR; <i>The Model Craftsman</i>, Dec '47</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">For a very long time I’ve been trying to get my hands on Bill Schopp’s series of articles, </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Memoirs of a Former Model Railroader</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">, that ran in the Dec ’47, Jan’48, Feb ’48, and Mar ’48 issues of </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">The Model Craftsman</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">. It turns out the <a href="https://www.crcml.org/">C. Robert Craig Memorial Library</a> had copies, so last week Debra and I went out there. Luckily the parking issues I had encountered on previously attempted visits weren’t a problem this time so I was able to make it in and read through those long sought after articles. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">They’re eye opening to say the least. <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2020/05/schopp-talk-during-pandemic.html">Bill Schopp</a>, probably the most prolific American mid 20th century model railroad writer with over 1,000 publications, arguably <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2019/06/model-railroadings-amateur-scientist.html">model railroading’s amateur scientist</a>, gave up model railroading in the mid 1940s - well, at least temporarily by his own telling. He even went so far as to sell off his equipment. You know that <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2023/11/a-freight-car-by-bill-schopp-for-his.html">Rancocas Valley freight car</a> that appeared in eBay last October? It was likely sold off during that time as Schopp had 1 and 1/2 versions of the Rancocas Valley RR under his belt before quitting. By some miracle it survived from its sale in 1946 or '47 until 2023. Hopefully it’s tucked away safe-and-sound for 21st century enjoyment.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Ok, back to the series. It’s about his history as a model railroader, and what caused him to give it all up. Luckily we know this was but a hiatus; however, in 1947 and '48 his future in the hobby was still up-in-the-air.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Although he tells us about a long, enchantment filled engagement with model railroading as a child, teen, and young man, he didn’t construct what he considered to be his first true model railroad until 1936: The <i>Moonlight & Violins RR</i>. It was a 3-rail, HO scale setup built in an attic bedroom.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">The most striking thing about this layout to me is how modern and sophisticated it is. There’s none of that <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2022/08/120-squares-of-ontario.html">spaghetti-like track</a> that is unfortunately often associated with Schopp’s trackplans in the modern imagination, if they’re thought about at all. Or maybe I’m struck by this plan because I’m naive about 1940s layouts? Could be, but still, building a model railroad with its trackplan today would not be considered unusual.</span></p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iBTYcqtaOjg?si=PVAE6y-I9nc1ym-M" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">The other striking thing to me is the fictional railroad’s name: </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Moonlight & Violins Railroad</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">. That does sound very 1940s to me, and reminded me of <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-e-l-moore-files-grandpa-bunns-feed.html">George Allen and Ernie Huebner’s </a></span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-e-l-moore-files-grandpa-bunns-feed.html">Tuxedo Junction</a></i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-e-l-moore-files-grandpa-bunns-feed.html"> layout construction series</a> that started in </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Model Railroader</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"> in October 1952. Okay, that was the early 1950s, but the reality was the 1940s weren’t done by then, and the railroad itself has its roots in them. Look, the Glenn Miller <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuxedo_Junction">song by the same name</a> was a big hit in 1940.</span></p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C4MsnaYRkLI?si=la9aYbbhu25aPHF5" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Apparently, according to Mr. Schopp the </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Moonlight & Violins RR</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"> was also named after a song. Here's how he tells it in the Dec '47 issue of <i>The Model Craftsman</i>:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: courier;">“A word regarding the name of the pike to those people who are always curious about “where did you get the name of your railroad?” (unless it is Pennsylvania with Belpaire fireboxes to make it even clearer). Several months before construction really got under way I had drawn up carefully a gigantic three-room model railroad, to fill the whole attic. One section was named Moonlight and Violins from a song of the same name from Earl Carroll’s Sketchbook. Another section was named Moonlight, Magnolias, and You from a song of the same name by yours truly. For about four years before taking up the model hobby in earnest, I was a completely unsung songwriter, tossing off many dillies </span><span style="font-family: arial;">[sic]</span><span style="font-family: courier;"> which song publishers wouldn’t even open. The most interesting from a railroad point of view was one about riding the open trolleys through Fairmount Park, rhymes with spark, rhymes with arc - conductor walking down the side in his daredevil way and telling me to keep my foot off the trolley rope, etc. At the present time I am contemplating a Chrapsody </span><span style="font-family: arial;">[sic]</span><span style="font-family: courier;"> for Five Air Horns and a Trolley Harp, with directions as to soft and loud (usually given as p, mp, f, ff, etc.) given as first series position, full series, etc., up to Field Taps when temporary deafness sets in. So the M. & V. was almost called Moonlight, Magnolias, and You.”</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Bill Schopp was a failed songwriter? Who knew? </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">His Fairmount Park song might not have seemed like a bad idea at the time given that </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuxedo_Junction" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">Tuxedo Junction is about</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"> a jazz and blues club located close to a trolley crossing - a junction - near a place called Tuxedo Park in Birmingham, Alabama. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">If he had wound up on Tin Pan Alley, model railroading would likely have been a lot different. Was model railroading his self awarded consolation prize?</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-MBUkl0mIcpj_qeVJIaAqQyOEToarbifhMtjFcMwsay9kBTqrAjhyjSnb1dbYhjyjMpOdoOqAL-SF7lpSD8sfghrWOoK4_x6NJg8cJGCzTbP4XJKpJuMFedPz_eX9djpJ-EP4n1HUZOVJ-b5A_tmcM-g8zyHiKrSP6xoWc3AhddLmwdZ9noYFLzRRk-c/s388/poster.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="257" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-MBUkl0mIcpj_qeVJIaAqQyOEToarbifhMtjFcMwsay9kBTqrAjhyjSnb1dbYhjyjMpOdoOqAL-SF7lpSD8sfghrWOoK4_x6NJg8cJGCzTbP4XJKpJuMFedPz_eX9djpJ-EP4n1HUZOVJ-b5A_tmcM-g8zyHiKrSP6xoWc3AhddLmwdZ9noYFLzRRk-c/s320/poster.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">I didn’t know what ‘Earl Carroll’s Sketchbook’ was so it was Wikipedia to the rescue. Apparently <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Carroll">Earl Carroll</a> was in the business of putting on musicals and such, and the ‘<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Carroll_Sketchbook">Earl Carroll Sketchbook</a>’ was a Broadway show of his that eventually became a movie in 1946. <i>Moonlight and Violins</i> was a song in the show given the layout's date, but I'm curious to see if it's in the movie. Unlike <i>Tuxedo Junction</i> I wasn’t able to find the song in YouTube or anywhere else.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"> </span><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">I need to find that movie.</span></p>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064796956302169303.post-5996646853402656922024-01-06T08:51:00.001-05:002024-01-06T08:59:49.615-05:00Watch out for that tree!<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/stpSavRcw2U?si=wcf94ORfoczwyjJL" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I finished the big tree and planted it outside Vickis Veggies, near the street. I took a celebratory loop around the farm to honour the occasion. If there isn't already a sub-genre of model railroad videos that centre on layout trees, well, here's one :-)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGnanDrcqbQnMtW3jJYGCpy5LfRItpzYhKTUhHDc0ALB3Xk_mNOHYJ-dMBS0oc1KgA9yUsP2UKuNuYkIe_epI0JFBAwTDHvelOjMYemjst6XcbJzn-5HXz9DRfZUfAQM2Xs_tv7RVsuUnUvWa-qncxh5e5r_Q4tGSqFYu2ii2_4ylnjLo5MUBWsfpfgCg/s1280/IMG_3150.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGnanDrcqbQnMtW3jJYGCpy5LfRItpzYhKTUhHDc0ALB3Xk_mNOHYJ-dMBS0oc1KgA9yUsP2UKuNuYkIe_epI0JFBAwTDHvelOjMYemjst6XcbJzn-5HXz9DRfZUfAQM2Xs_tv7RVsuUnUvWa-qncxh5e5r_Q4tGSqFYu2ii2_4ylnjLo5MUBWsfpfgCg/w400-h400/IMG_3150.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To be honest I was having a lot of trouble with this tree, and at one point decided to get it finished and move on instead of continuing with the constant fiddling I was doing. I learned a lot of lessons, but there are still a few I'm working on: getting the trunk colour and texture right is a big one that still needs improvement.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj84j_faPaVpDuaJplVWgJOqCBvSBVhVAVV0sdZhTEyV0OAEZCLe_GOjWbXGcEcq9_S7Z6tqf8UoHYqu6Rsf_JZYrQ7RS007xfHMnmvYc3DTaYQxwbu5eSjg7z5R33UzZBXkFFUdu1q-Y8eDQ5OzefLQL_9UBqJ1b3SH2EsQlXED9WL0EcD3O8fU41hxNk/s1280/IMG_3131.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1003" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj84j_faPaVpDuaJplVWgJOqCBvSBVhVAVV0sdZhTEyV0OAEZCLe_GOjWbXGcEcq9_S7Z6tqf8UoHYqu6Rsf_JZYrQ7RS007xfHMnmvYc3DTaYQxwbu5eSjg7z5R33UzZBXkFFUdu1q-Y8eDQ5OzefLQL_9UBqJ1b3SH2EsQlXED9WL0EcD3O8fU41hxNk/w314-h400/IMG_3131.jpeg" width="314" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I've got a few more big trees I'd like to model, but I'm going to leave those projects until the spring when I've got enough distance from this one.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Well, even though I have my complaints with this tree, I rather like how it appears on the layout. It has the commanding presence I was looking for and just seems to pull the layout together. With this and <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2023/12/insectary-75d.html">Insectary 75D</a> finished, the major elements on the layout are done. I have a lot of detail items in mind, so they'll be next up. I think they'll take me to the spring to complete, so once the good weather has returned I'll be ready to take the layout outside for photographs.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy7Du8PQCGhh45WH9LWO0E8pbrhT07BH3XmcwgCgoLHqZTiW3QQiPPbHi_FCfy3oIXarKisYwLX9nV1pZ0q1vPVwu15ez7_8OWpBWuqQz-iwfhsz9vkCm09kTUyAPhJQwAzuw4dTbBuKxv_7e4I95R3s_azcBfzA33bEVTCbBfo6LC9XH85do45cSmYvY/s1280/IMG_3168.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="949" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy7Du8PQCGhh45WH9LWO0E8pbrhT07BH3XmcwgCgoLHqZTiW3QQiPPbHi_FCfy3oIXarKisYwLX9nV1pZ0q1vPVwu15ez7_8OWpBWuqQz-iwfhsz9vkCm09kTUyAPhJQwAzuw4dTbBuKxv_7e4I95R3s_azcBfzA33bEVTCbBfo6LC9XH85do45cSmYvY/w296-h400/IMG_3168.jpeg" width="296" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I'm quite convinced now that if a little layout has tall elements it needs an equally thick base to create some overall visual balance. To my eye the layout would look a little odd to have tall trees, or tall buildings, and a thin base to support it all - it just wouldn't look right.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS8uFcs38dd9oK_GEE4sJ34iuWQQg0s2NdiL4YMJ9UJJDPQguVe5tm3farctTLUUYoLxmKUnGD06-rmX6koNOIglADhjk3nTlhskDwiLCAKvVmqlJaJBQdH2erONS9sHo9PRLs9xUuqTO6Ze_CyNA1SwGeT0Fq9okwwCTc9HV0xLKugAZ4kGtAob1xoBs/s1280/IMG_3153.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="789" data-original-width="1280" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS8uFcs38dd9oK_GEE4sJ34iuWQQg0s2NdiL4YMJ9UJJDPQguVe5tm3farctTLUUYoLxmKUnGD06-rmX6koNOIglADhjk3nTlhskDwiLCAKvVmqlJaJBQdH2erONS9sHo9PRLs9xUuqTO6Ze_CyNA1SwGeT0Fq9okwwCTc9HV0xLKugAZ4kGtAob1xoBs/w400-h246/IMG_3153.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While I was working on the tree, the <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2010/01/deoralow-in-ho.html">Deoralow</a> was staring at me from a shelf where it's collecting dust awaiting <a href="https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2015/12/scarboro-square-beauty-move-in-ready.html">a new location</a>. I was struck by how small its trees are. They're store-bought ones from many years ago. They're pipsqueaks compared to Vickis, which is to scale. Well, for newly planted trees on a suburban lot, they're fine, but to populate the wild portions of a layout, they're way too small. Although my tree modelling still needs lots of work, I at least think I've come a long way in my appreciation of what layout trees need to be.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Well, speaking of appreciation, and since it's Saturday morning, here's the opening to a Saturday morning cartoon that, strangely enough, both my father and I appreciated.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D8rViF7V_oA?si=7IXoDhHC8PWKLuPo" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>J D Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07907821767203109311noreply@blogger.com7