The Big Apple in Balsa

I recently stumbled across this monumental project in balsa wood by artist Joe Macken in this Smithsonian magazine article: A Truck Driver Spent 20 Years Making This Astonishing Scale Model of Every Single Building in New York City. And he did! Watch these videos and be amazed. 

The Community Garden Shed on Model Railway Quest

Check out the entries to the 'Back to Basics Model Railway Challenge'. You may recall I was inspired to give it a go and build a model of the Community Garden shed in response. That shed makes an appearance at around the 7:13 mark. There're lots of interesting contributions in the video, and it looks like the challenge was well received.

The Community Garden Storage Shed: Inspired by the 'Back to Basics Modelling Challenge'

My HO-scale interpretation of the city's storage shed in the community garden.

After I watched Dawn Quest's video about George Iliffe Stokes I stumbled across this one at her channel announcing a 'Back to Basics Modelling Challenge':

I immediately thought this was right up my alley. I need to build a model of the city's storage shed at the community garden for my new micro-layout of the place, and readers here know I love anything that has a back-to-basics vibe. This being the case I figured I'd give the challenge a go by building that storage shed.

So, up there is a view of the shed I'm talking about. It's located about in the middle of the community garden, beside the car path, not far off the walking path.

The image above gives a better sense of the shed's location near the road, and you can get a feel for its size comparing it to the car.

As buildings go, it's dead simple. The doors and windows are on the front wall, and the other walls have no openings other than the air vents in the end walls near the roof.

Ok, so on with the show.

The first stop was the kitchen's paper recycling bin. I had recently finished off some delicious dark chocolate, and thought the cardboard package might be good for the walls and roof. Other materials used were a standard 3x5 note card for trim, doors, and roof ridges, and a piece of 2mm thick cardboard for the foundation cut from the backing of an old sketchpad.

I carefully sliced through the bonds and unfolded the chocolate packaging to have a look at what I had to work with. It's a rather low grade material, and I estimate around 0.5mm to 0.75mm thick. I usually like to use artist grade, multi-ply Bristol board for this sort of project, but I wanted to stick to the spirit of the challenge*. 

Before getting on with construction I had to come up with a drawing to figure out dimensions and shapes.

I rarely draw fancy plans as I just use them to work out dimensions.
All dimensions shown are in mm.

Ok, a couple of things.

First, I could have walked over to the garden and measured the shed, but I'll plead being a wimp that there was too much snow and cold for such Roye England style action, so instead I guesstimated the dimensions from the photos. Look, I would have had to compress the building a little and take some liberties to make it seem a reasonable fit on the layout anyway, so no loss really.

Second, HO scale is a weird scale. 3.5mm = 1'-0"? Come on! Basically, to scale anything on a plan one needs a calculator nearby to do conversions to HO. Unless of course you have a special ruler marked out for HO scale. I have my trusty one I bought at George's Trains in the '70s. But, if you're just getting started with scratchbuilding, and only have a ruler from the kitchen drawer, it's a bit tough laying out plans. I struggled with how many specialized tools I should use because beginners might not have them. So, on the plans I approximated dimensions so that they'd measure to whole or half mms. Frankly, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that with a standard desk ruler anything more accurate than 0.5mm can be measured. So, if some trim looks a little chunky, this is why. My advice though is if you're going to really get into making HO scale buildings from scratch, whether using simple or advanced materials, go and buy an HO-scale ruler, and make sure you get a steel one, not plastic.

Blue paper rectangle is the shed's footprint.

Once I settled on dimensions I cut a little rectangle of blue paper the same size as the building's footprint and placed it on the layout plan to assess the size relative to other layout features. It looked ok.

I then drew the walls on the cardboard. I decided to cut out individual walls and then glue them into a box instead of laying them out in a contiguous strip and folding them into a box as I've often done in the past. The thing I don't quite like with the folding method is I can never get the folded corners to be sharp and square.

The other piece of specialized equipment* you need is an art knife and some spare blades. There's really no other way to manually cut out cardboard with the precision needed. I use an Olfa brand one. Don't be skimpy with the blades. Always start off a project with a sharp, new blade. It makes cutting clean and precise, and it's safer too because you don't need to apply as much pressure as you would with a dull blade, thereby reducing the chance of slipping and cutting yourself.

You can see I didn't cut out an opening for the doors, but did so for the windows. I didn't want opening doors so I left the wall intact, but I'm eventually going to install lights, so I want to see them glow through the windows. If you don't have lights in mind, you could skip cutting out the window openings and instead use a Sharpie pen to blacken them.

The siding was scored into the walls using the back, dull side, of the art knife.

I always mark the pieces I need to cut out with Xs so I don't get lost in all those lines!

The trim was drawn on a standard 3x5 note card. The window and door trim, along with the doors, I laid out and cut as a one piece overlay. I decided not to assemble the front trim and door from individual pieces to keep the building a little more beginner friendly. I penciled in the various dividing lines once the trim was painted. Over on the right side of the card are some individual trim strips for the corners.

After cutting out the front overlay I test fit it to the wall. Not bad. I decided to score the dividing lines between the various elements to give them a little definition.

As you can see I went ahead and painted the walls while I was working on the trim.

In keeping with the spirit of the challenge I didn't go out and buy paints to match the prototype, and since I didn't have any similar colours on hand, I picked some from my shelf that I thought looked ok. I used Revell Aqua Color Fern Green 36360, and Tamyia Yellow Green XF-4. They were painted on with a brush.

The window muntins are made from strips of masking tape. 

Stick a piece of masking tape to your cutting pad and slice off a number of 1mm wide strips, make them thinner if you can. I eyeballed the dimensions on mine so they're somewhere between 0.5mm and 1mm wide.

Then stick the strips to the inside front wall. Again, I just eyeballed their location, so if they look wonky, that's why :-) 

Here's the front wall overlay after painting. I strengthened the divisions between pieces with lines drawn with a sharp pencil. I later came in and penciled in some shadows to produce a little 3-D illusion. Also, I later drew on hinges and the door hasp with a black Sharpie pen.

Around about this point in the project I started gluing components together. I had some white glue and weldbond in the workshop so that's what I used to keep in the back-to-basics spirit of the challenge. Normally I prefer to use transfer tape for attaching overlays because it bonds instantly, and since it's a dry process there's no chance of warping components being stuck together. It turns out the front wall did warp a little after using white glue to stick on the trim overlay. I did a little remediation on that, which I'll get to in a moment. I used weldbond for the 'structural work' of attaching the walls and roof together. It's thicker and stronger and faster drying than white glue.

Source of window 'glass'.

Once the front wall overlay was glued in place I added some 'plastic glass' to the windows cut from the top of a box of chocolates from many Christmases past.

The roof was cut from the same cardboard used for the walls. The metal ridges in the roof were simulated with 1mm wide strips cut from 3x5 card. White glue was used to stick them down.

The roof cap is a 3mm wide strip also cut from 3x5 card. The photo above shows a test fit of the roof before it was painted.

Ok, as we near the end of this project I couldn't put off any longer trying to take the warp out of the front wall. I cut an interior wall from the 2mm thick sketchbook backing cardboard I figured I'd use for the floor. I tried to unwarp the front wall with my fingers as best I could, then glued the interior wall in place with weldbond to keep the wall unwarped, and finally applied clamps and let the whole thing setup for an hour.

So, this is one of the problems with these cheap-and-cheerful builds. The cardboard I used for the walls was a bit too thin and it wasn't of good quality, both of which made the walls susceptible to warping from applications of glue and paint. Over the years I've minimized the chance of this happening by using artist grade, multi-ply Bristol board and transfer tape. If you're going to get into card-based scratchbuilding I recommend using those materials.

Interior 'de-wowing' partition glued in place. Still some 'wow' though :-(

As my father would say, the wall has still got a bit of a 'wow' in it, partly because I didn't get the width of the interior wall quite right. Well, it's rather a rigid structure now, and honestly, when the roof is on, and it's sitting on the layout, what's left of the warp isn't noticeable. It's the digital camera being a harsh mistress and showing every flaw up close in a way that isn't observable with the naked eye.

There're a couple of other things I should point out in the above photo. First, after the building was glued together I painted the inside black. I plan to put a couple lights inside, and wanted to minimize the chance of the walls glowing when the lights were on because the walls are so thin.

Second, I reinforced the inside corners of the building with some wood sticks.

Normally I'd do that with some scrap balsa or basswood, but to continue with the back-to-basics theme I took a craft stick - a wood coffee stir stick would work too - and sliced off the sides to make some corner reinforcements. Using the factory made straight edges on those slices I glued pieces into the building's corners to stiffen them.

The last piece is the foundation. It's cut from 2mm thick cardboard. I drilled two holes in it so I can poke some lights in later.

All that was left to do was glue the foundation and roof to the walls, and bingo, it was done!

And there it is, just a few seconds after the roof was glued on.

I think this post must have taken just as long to write as it did to build the little model :-) It was made over a 4 day period, 11 March to 14 March, by stitching together pieces of time. In total it took something like 6 to 8 hours to build.

The shed's future home.

There it is on what will be its home on the community garden layout. It looks quite large, but once the tall trees and other scenic elements are in place it'll blend in.

Cost? That's always a tricky thing to estimate. In one sense, almost nothing given that the materials were cast-offs, and I made use of paints, glues, and simple tools* I had in the workshop. But, here's the problem: those items cost something at one time. Construction of these sorts of models have only become low cost for me as I continue to use stuff I've already bought and paid for. If this model weren't built in the spirit of a challenge where the emphasis is more-or-less on rudimentary bricolage, I would have used artist grade Bristol board, transfer tape, balsa, and bought paint to match the colours on the prototype. That would have increased the cost. New paint alone would have increased the project cost by several hundred percent :-)

On the layout the walking path will be centred on a diagonal that runs from one corner to the other, and the shed will face it. There won't be a path for cars on the layout. It's been replaced by the little train.

Well, there's the first structure for the new layout. I quite liked this little challenge as it helped inspire further work on the layout, and was a nice lift out of the winter blues.

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Digressions

* I was a bit conflicted with this project as to what tools and materials to use. Should I use my usual ones, which are a bit specialized, or go with a simpler, basic set of tools and materials that a beginner might have? In the end I went with mainly basic, but pulled out some more 'advanced' ones when I felt I was getting frustrated.

You can see some of my 'advanced' tools in this photo I took of my workspace as the end of the project neared. I say 'advanced' because many modellers wouldn't consider them advanced at all. So, for the advanced ones I pulled out things like: a cutting pad, mechanical pencils, ruler marked in HO-scale, miniature speed squares and set square, sanding sticks, clamps, and tweezers. I think that covers it.

If you're going in for scratchbuilding miniature buildings I say get those 'advanced' tools as they'll make projects easier and more fun. I highly recommend scratchbuilding over any sort of kit work - ok, well, I'll cut kitbashing some slack :-) - because once you've got the basic principles learned you can build anything you want. You're not limited by what companies want to sell you. And if you can master using basic tools and basic materials, you won't be limited by cost either because you'll be able to use just about anything.

Ok, I've proselytized enough :-) 

[25 March 2026 Update: I built a second version of this shed using whatever I could scrounge from the workshop regardless of it being beginner friendly: Community Garden Shed, Take 2: Lowe Tech Bricolage.]

A visit to the Kawartha Lakes Museum & Archives to see the John McCrea Model Collection

Two examples of John McCrea's work. Left: Pioneer Shanty | Right: Pioneer Squared Log House

If you're a long time reader here you may recall that I'm interested in folk artists of the past who've made their art building miniature buildings. A few of them worked in model railroading, like E. L. Moore, others went in different directions in accordance with their own natures. You can find all my posts, along with this one, on the subject under the 'Folk Roots' tag.

I've been looking into Ontario folk art buildings artists and stumbled across the work of a gentleman named John McCrea, whose models are archived and on display at the Kawartha Lakes Museum & Archives in Lindsay, Ontario.

Apparently the scale of McCrea's large models is 1/2" = 1'

I've been meaning to get out to the museum for awhile and this week I had my chance.

In a nutshell, John McCrea was born on 16 April 1865 in Omemee, Ontario, and died on 19 April 1957 in Toronto. Recall that E. L. Moore was born on 14 March 1898, so McCrea was of an earlier generation, but both Moore and McCrea were born into rural life: Moore to farming, and McCrea to cabinet making, a skill which he apparently learned from his father as a child.

There's an interesting biography of McCrea here, but one thing I will note is that he didn't start building the models in the collection until 1935 when he was 70, and continued until is death in 1957 when he was 92.

The collection consists of models he made of the buildings, structures, and accoutrements of pioneer life in Ontario. I asked one of the staff - who turned out to be the managing director - if she knew why McCrea built these models? Was there some ulterior motive like building up a collection for a public display? She said there didn't appear to be any. He simply wanted to capture the physical reality of the objects that comprised Ontario pioneer life. E. L. Moore had much the same attitude for a lot of his work: he wanted to capture his early life in model form for his daughter. 

Before I go much further I should note that the museum's managing director, Barbara Doyle, generously answered all my crazy questions and provided lots of great background information I hadn't considered. She and the gentleman at the front desk - whose name I unfortunately can't remember :-( - were very friendly, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable and made our brief visit quite enjoyable.

I believe the scale of this model is the same as the house

McCrea was a fine craftsman. As an example, take a look in the photo below at these models of farm implements he made in 1952, especially the blade and teeth on the cross cut saw.

Some modelled farm implements

Although there were only two model buildings on display I'm told the collection is quite large and numbers in the hundreds of items. As well as being large in number the models are also large in size: they're built in scales ranging from 1" = 1' to 1/2" = 1' to the smallest ones being 1/4" = 1'. Different models are rotated in and out of the museum display as different thematic presentations are created. When you visit you may see different models than I've shown here; however, whatever is there you'll no doubt get a good sense of McCrea's high level of craftsmanship.

If you want to see more of these fine models there's a booklet you can buy called History in Wood: The John McCrea Collection. Once I've studied the book a bit I'll probably follow up with a post on tools, materials, scale, and other such model making related things. 

Before I wrap up I should mention that there's much more in the museum than this one collection, and lastly mention the museum building is a repurposed 19th century jail that performed said function from 1863 to as recently as 2003 (!).

So, if you ever find yourself in or around Lindsay, drop by and have a look.

Miniature Scottish buildings from a wee shed

The folk art miniature building tradition is alive and well in Scotland. A must watch video.

Thoughts on: In Search of a Dream

I’ve admired the Pendon Museum for a long time and have wanted to visit for an equally long time. Finally in 2019 we made plans to go there in March 2020. It turned out that month they were holding a class in modelling buildings. That seemed perfect: I could visit the museum, take in a class from one of their master modellers, as well as tour Oxford and the nearby regions. 

Well, as we all know, March 2020 was when covid was beginning its onslaught. We cancelled our trip once it became clear covid was a global pandemic and not just a blip on the medical radar. The only good thing that came from that cancelation was the airline did eventually refund our tickets. Like everyone else we hunkered down for the long haul, and 2020 became a banner year for 30Squares posts. I hit an all time high of 287. 

We thought 2024 would be the year for visiting Pendon, but personal events conspired against us. Maybe next year. In the meantime though I went ahead and bought a copy of In Search of a Dream edited by Stephen Williams that was published by Wild Swan Books in 2022. It’s the story of Roye England, Pendon’s founder, and his account of his life and the museum’s creation and development. I had been holding off buying this book as I thought it would be nice to purchase it at Pendon when I visited, but with my questionable travel track record I thought I should just go ahead and buy one online from their shop. I’m glad I did since after reading it I think I’ll have a bit better appreciation of the museum if we ever do visit.

I thought this might be a rather dry and clinical book. I was dead wrong. It’s mainly Roye England’s autobiography supplemented by a large collection of fascinating photos, additional text by Williams to explain and elaborate on some of the more obscure passages in the autobiography, along with chapters by Williams to fill in missing information and update us on events after Roye’s* death. 

Roye was a very engaging writer and I found his accounts compelling. His autobiography reads almost as some sort of adventure story, which I guess in a sense it is. Although at times I thought the book’s title should have been In Search of a Dream and Money as creating what would become the Pendon museum often seemed like a constant struggle for money. Neither Roye nor any of the protagonists were flush with cash. It required tenacity over the decades to bring Pendon to life. There were no wealthy benefactors with big bags of moolah in this story, but there were plenty of good people who helped and contributed in many ways big and small, and sometimes with a bit of cash.

It strikes me that Roye was something of a charismatic figure as well as being a world class model maker. He seemed to have a way with people that got them to believe in the idea of Pendon as he did and attracted them to participate in its mission. However, he didn’t seem to be a scheming entrepreneur, but simply a good person with an authentic dream and a determination to realize it. The people he encountered seemed to sense that. Although the down side seemed to be at times he was taken advantage of and his honest authenticity brushed close to naiveté.

In Search of a Dream is also a story about model making of the highest standard and of the folk art buildings approach to modelling. This may seem like a contradictory combination, but it isn’t. I think part of the problem is that the common association with the term ‘folk art buildings approach’ is with backwoods bumpkins hacking out models with junk found on the back forty. As I’ve discussed before, it’s actually a person’s desire to communicate about one’s environment, built or natural, current or past, and one’s feelings towards it, using materials one can access. It’s ‘folk’ because these people aren’t necessarily trained professionals, just people from all walks of life that have the desire. Let me emphasize: it’s about desire and communication, not strict adherence to certain materials and signifiers. Roye seemed to have the folk art buildings spirit in him from birth to death, but he always wanted to express it with the highest standards of modelling, standards that were far from common in his glory days. He demanded it of himself and of others he worked with. And many worked with him to those standards.

This summer I also read Linn Westcott’s book, Model Railroading with John Allen, published in 1981. Allen and Roye were contemporaries of a sort. Allen was born in 1913, and Roye in 1906. Both created in the mid-century era what would become two of the 20th century’s most famous and influential layouts. Unfortunately Allen’s would be destroyed by fire soon after his death in 1973 leaving behind only a few relics. Roye died in 1995, but Pendon continues on. I have no idea if Allen and Roye ever communicated, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew of each other’s work, at least through the model railroad press.

It’s tough for me to think too deeply about Allen’s motivations for building the G&D as Westcott’s book doesn’t contain Allen’s autobiography - I don’t think one exists? Autobiographies can provide an important view on a person’s life from which patterns might be discerned. But, I will note from the layouts and modelling work, both Allen and Roye were committed to high standards, both were determined, and both took model railroading beyond what had been the norm for hobbyists. Allen’s project was more of a private undertaking; Roye’s a more public one. Allen didn’t seem to struggle for money for the G&D as he lived frugally on good investments; Roye had a constant financial struggle to bring Pendon to life, but he lived frugally too.

Needless to say, I highly recommend In Search of a Dream.

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*I am taking the liberty of referring to Roye England as “Roye” as it seems odd to me to keep writing “England did this and England did that”, and using the full “Roye England” seems cumbersome.

Model of LBJ's ranch house

We were visiting Austin, TX recently and had the opportunity to tour the LBJ Presidential Library. I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Austin. It's a fascinating building and the exhibits are excellent. Being interested in miniature folk art buildings my radar instantly latched onto this model of LBJ's ranch house.

The model was made by Mr. Ralph Doppler and given to the president and first lady on Easter Sunday, 1966 after the service at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg. According to this Facebook post at the Friends of Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park:

"Mr. Doppler was a local refrigeration engineer who would later be honored by the Gillespie County Historical Society for his work on wooden scale models of historical buildings."

Ladybird Johnson noted in her audio diary:

"Mr. Ralph Doppler who makes models for a hobby had constructed a very minute, detailed, excellent model of our Ranch house, complete, even to the Eagle over the front door of the stone part." 

I'm not sure what scale it is. Maybe something between O and S? It hardly matters. It's quite a decent model and well preserved.

Book Talk

To the left, Hilton's book; On the right, Mindheim's

I recently discovered there was a new book out called The Art of Railway Modelling by James Hilton. I found the title provocative, what with starting off with ‘The’ and all. To my ear it sounded as if this book was aiming to be the definitive work about art and model railways. This implied assertion piqued my curiosity. 

The question as to whether model railroading is an art, or can be approached as an artistic discipline, seems to come up periodically in forums and blogs. I find these discussions to be rambling, somewhat tiresome, and they usually wind up going nowhere. Even so, I’m interested in the subject because I consider model railroading a hybrid of a fannish consumer activity and art, well, at minimum a folk art. The proportions of each seem to vary from person to person and era to era. 

As well as Hilton’s book, Lance Mindheim also published one back in 2018 ostensibly dealing with art and model railroading called Model Railroading As Art. I didn’t buy it at the time because I thought it was going to tread the same ground as those aforementioned forum and blog postings - it turns out I was wrong about my preconception, but more on that later. Now with what looked like two major new books on the subject in circulation I thought I’d buy both and see for myself what was going on. 

Books like these don’t exist in a vacuum, even if their main topic is relatively new. When I read any book dealing in some way with models and miniatures I’m usually in one way or another comparing it to others in the field. When it comes to models and art, Smith and Ellison’s Elgin Park: Visual Memories of Midcentury America at 1/24th Scale from 2015 is my favourite. It focuses on the works of Michael Paul Smith, so it doesn’t look at an entire field, but it’s especially appropriate to me as Smith’s work could also be viewed as a hybrid of a consumer activity (collecting large scale diecast model cars) and folk art (communicating his impressions of small town, mid 20th century America where he grew up). Also, like Mindheim and Hilton he was a professional model maker, at least for a time. The book focuses on the artist, his background, hopes, messages, inspirations, and goals, with just a smattering of how-to for the interested reader who is also a model maker or miniature photographer, or would like to be. So, it does lean toward art as opposed to craft. And most importantly, it’s full of beautiful photographs that powerfully make the case for art that the text alone can’t do.

When it comes to model railroading my goto art oriented book is A Treasury of Model Railroad Photos by Dave Frary, Malcolm Furlow, John Olson, and Paul Scoles that was published in 1991. It’s light on text, but it’s full of excellent colour photos by its four distinguished authors that illustrate what model railroading could be. It does have how-to on the creation of photos like those shown in the book, but the photographic technology it discusses is somewhat dated now even though the general principles applied and results shown are not.

No doubt there are readers out there who could note many books and articles I’ve failed to mention that would be excellent examples of artful approaches to model making in general, and model railroading in particular. I do apologize for those omissions, but in a way that helps shore up an important point: since the beginning of model railroading there have been many contributions by many individuals to the artistic aspect of the activity. These include the works of Aldo Cosomati, John Ahern, John Allen, Francis Lee Jaques, George Illich Stokes, George Allen, Frank Ellison, E. L. Moore, Ben King, John Olson, Malcolm Furlow, Paul Scoles, Mark Henley, Jack Burgess, Dave Frary, Bob Hayden, and on and on from people from many eras and many countries who have made contributions large and small. An overview book on the subject doesn’t exist, and probably never will, but, again, it’s important to note that so far no particular book or article has yet to be a definitive work on the subject.

Ok, well, fine, look, I bought Hilton's and Mindheim’s books to learn from them. I consider myself a student on some sort of self-directed path to learn whatever it is I need to learn to be more effective at communicating what I want to communicate. I feel there is something beyond craft techniques I need to learn - ok, my model making techniques need improvement of course, but I’ll set that aside for now - to get closer to what I want to create. In my clipping file I have this quote, which I unfortunately can’t find who to attribute it to: “Someone once said of Magritte, that it was a blessing that he was not a better painter, since then he would have been a much worse artist - another Dali, all effects and virtuoso fakery, shallow rather than haunting.” I think haunting is what I’m after.

Hilton’s book showed up first in the mail, so I started with it. It’s a calm work that makes its case with brief chapters about a few key artistic principles that are beneficial when applied to model railways, and provides many photographs of layout scenes that illustrate those points. There’s also a collection of small layout plans, sketches, and notes to further illustrate the principles. There’s nothing how-to or prescriptive in this book, which I think is a plus as it helps push down how-to noise that might distract from the larger point Hilton’s trying to make: that the careful application of some artistic principles will vastly improve the look of your model railway, and allow you to get closer to expressing what you want to express.

The principles Hilton presents are the bedrock of traditional artistic practices, but one rather unusual one - well, maybe just unusual in the context of today’s model railroading scene - is the use of creative writing to further one’s imagining about how a layout could develop and what to incorporate. Creative writing as a modelling ‘tool’, especially in the form of fictional stories, has ebbed and flowed throughout model railroading’s history, but seems to have run aground in today’s very pragmatic scene. Seeing it revived in the book is encouraging, and I should add that the 2-page photo opening its chapter is particularly haunting.

Design-wise the book is thoughtfully laid out on high quality paper with lots of white space and large, clear photos, which I think helps implicitly strengthen its argument. I like the classic horizontal formatting and clean, spacious design. My only quibble is I’m never too thrilled to see business-school-speak creep into general use, especially into my hobby reading, so stumbling over phrases like ‘case study’ and ‘worked examples’ is irritating. 

Although I’ve gone through the entire book a few times I can see myself coming back to it often because I don’t think one can appreciate all its visual messages in just a few sittings. I’ll see what the coming year has in store. 

Mindheim’s book arrived the day after Hilton’s. After a few go throughs I think the book might have been better served if it had been titled something along the lines of Advanced Scene Creation Techniques for Model Railroads as it’s mainly a how-to on creating a better scenicked model railroad using concepts and methods from the world of visual arts. This is a good thing as it provides a fresh perspective on an old subject for people actually building layouts. I expect I’ll be dipping into this book for practical advice often in the months and years ahead. 

The examples and model railroad photos are from Mindheim’s own practice and appear to focus on layouts that have a modern day urban theme located in southern parts of the USA, although there are a few examples from other sites and eras of American railroading. Hilton’s book includes photos from a few modellers, and several eras of British railroading. Surprisingly, there are also some examples based on the Canadian west! That’s nice to see. 

The layout of Mindheim’s book leans more towards business-school-speak than Hilton’s with many page layouts looking a lot like Powerpoint slides and bulleted lists. I know my distaste for these artifacts of the corporate world is just my own personal quirk, but I thought I’d let you know in case they’re yours too - it turns out I like to use lists, but not in a Powerpoint way.

I was glad to see that both works encourage their readers to express what they need to express and not focus on contests, peer pressure, doing the ‘accepted’ thing, tradition, appearing in magazines and shows, and so forth. I can imagine James Carse referring to this focus as being engaged in the infinite game approach to model railroading. Each author pursues this in his own way: Hilton through visual inspiration and Mindheim through instruction. The infinite game focus is very folk art in nature.

Some books to start a comparison

Both books are worthwhile buying for those looking to improve their work. I hesitate when I say ‘improve’, because I think maybe the word I’m looking for has something to do with ‘looking for a path to better expression of whatever it is you want to express’ not the ‘your work will impress friends, editors, and judges’ type of ‘improve’.

Both books are also good contributions to the ongoing discussion about model railroading practice and its relation to art; however, neither is a definitive statement on the subject. Now, you might ask me if I would know such a statement if I saw one? Well, I’m not quite sure, but I think I’d like to see a serious inquiry begin with looking at photos of layouts or layout scenes, or layouts themselves if possible, from the entire history of the hobby to the present that people think are artful and mean something to them in some way - haunt them maybe ? -  and discuss those images. This would be a big task as there would a lot of images to study given that they would span all eras of the hobby. For now I’ll leave ‘artful’ undefined so as not to limit the investigation early on. So, there it is: start with meaningful images, lots and lots of images from the present to the beginning of the hobby, and discuss them. And while you’re at it try to deepen the discussion by comparing those images to ones found in other arts that make use of miniatures. It’s a beginning. Where this will lead I have no idea right now, you'd just have to see what the images might suggest.

Before I call it a day and go get coffee let me leave you with these thoughts on what art is with respect to Aestheticism according to Mark Greif’s essay The Concept of Experience that appeared in his 2017 book, Against Everything. If you’re stubborn and of the opinion that you absolutely must firm up a definition of art or artful before embarking on an image quest, Greif’s essay might get you going beyond thoughts of merely considering art to be something that you like (italics are Greif’s):

“Aestheticism asks you to view every object as you would a work of art. It believes that art is essentially an occasion for the arousal of emotions and passions. You experience a work of art. You go into it. Not just a calm onlooker, you imagine the figures in the painting, and relish the colors and forms, the style becoming as much an object of experience as the content; you feel or taste everything; you lust for it, let it overwhelm you, amplify it to titillate or satisfy or disgust you; you mentally twist the canvas to wring it dry.”