Drink Milk Love Life

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

Blue trucks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Dam Busters, 1955

An image from the famous take-off scene in The Dam Busters.
Three of the nine Lancaster bombers on their way to Germany's Ruhr Dams on 16 May 1943.

I jokingly referred to the 1955 movie, The Dam Busters, in a post about busting beaver dams near the Havelock yard. I hadn't watched it in decades, so I rented a copy and sat down one blustery afternoon last week and watched again. I wasn't disappointed.

I can't comment on its historical accuracy, but I will say it's a docudrama. I don't know how it would fare with today's audiences as its dialogue is sometimes politically incorrect, the special effects are crude by today's standards, and the pacing is slow compared to modern films.

A Lancaster bomber at the Canadian Aviation & Space Museum circa 2018
Of the 133 airmen on the dam busters raid, 30 were Canadians, half didn't return.

But, that said, the aircraft scenes, the portrayal of the mission, the acting, and the emotional and psychological veracity are compelling. Also, the portrayal of real-life engineering, its ups and downs, its bureaucratic frustrations, and its sometimes exhilarating successes feel real to me as a lapsed aeronautical engineer. I was glad to see the legendary engineer Barnes Wallis portrayed in the movie, and that his role wasn't minimized.

I'd rate it 8.5 to 9 out of 10. 

Paperback version published by Abacus, 2008.

I said I'd write more about books, so here's one with a little Dam Busters spin. 

I read this one by Harry Pearson, Achtung Schweinehund!: A Boy's Own Story of Imaginary Combat, over the winter. It's an account of Pearson's lifelong involvement in the hobby of war gaming, miniature figures, and military models. It's fact filled, fascinating, sympathetic, and endlessly humorous. He has this to say about the movie:

"The Dam Busters starred Richard Todd [JDL: he plays Wing Commander Guy Gibson], a mainstay of British war films. He had also been a mainstay of the British war. The Dublin-born actor had served in the 7th Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, taken part in the Normandy Landings and had been a member of the Allied spearhead that cut through German lines to join the airborne troops, commanded by Major Howard, who had captured the Pegasus Bridge. In the film D-Day the Sixth of June Todd played his own commanding officer, while in Darryl F. Zanuck's epic The Longest Day he played the part of Major Howard, with a younger actor taking the role of Richard Todd. In the 1958 film I Was Monty's Double, meanwhile, M. E. Clifton-James, who had indeed been Monty's double, took the parts of Monty and his double, thus playing himself being himself as well as playing the man he had been playing at being. The war had already gone postmodern. Little wonder that a primary school boy [JDL: the author] could get confused between fact and fiction."

The book is full of these sorts of gems. Get it, and watch the film.

Only in Ontario you say? Pity

Gosh darn those cursed beavers!

Looks like it could make for an interesting addition to an Ontario yard on a model railway: tracks, helicopter, and nearby beaver dam. 

Who ya gonna call? Beaver Busters? Dam Busters? Wait, that one's been done.

Well, it's gosh darn early to be writing on a Saturday morning. I could use a coffee, and maybe a couple of biscuits!

Delving into the Mysteries of Model Railway Illumination

It weighs in at a slim 59 pages

Back in January I was rooting around Abe randomly looking for unusual model railway books. I'm always curious to see what might turn up. I was not disappointed on this expedition. 

As soon as I saw the title of this book I knew I had to have it. It's not a subject you typically see an entire book devoted to. Especially when you consider its year of publication, 1955. It's written by E. F. Carter and published by Percival Marshall of London. An inside page tells me Carter wrote 15 other model railway books for this publisher.

Of the 15, Carter hints at this book being a little unusual in his preface:

"It may be said by some that Model Railways already give sufficient satisfaction in operation without any additions or complications, and, in one sense this may be in part true. Yet there must be an intense and added interest from watching railway operations in full scale being carried out after dark. There is a subtle fascination due to not being able to see all that is going on. An engine is then only recognisable by its running lights and the indication of a semaphore only by its lamps. There is an air of mystery over the whole railway scene.

"The running of a railway - real or model - during the hours of daylight is only half the story, and if it was only fully realised that as much, if not more, activity takes place on our railways during the hours of darkness, there would undoubtedly be a whole-hearted attack on the "night running" problems of our model lines.

"It is this end that the present book has been penned, and it is the writer's sincere hope that the reader will through its medium be tempted to explore a most fascinating field. The work involved is simple and not in any sense meticulous; moreover, the basic cost of materials is low, and the writer has - as usual - endeavoured to show how the greater bulk of the auxiliary apparatus can be made from "bits and pieces" usually to be found in the junk box or around the house"

An example of 'piping' light into a building via a tube or glass rod

So, in the junk box or around the house in 1955 - well, let's call it the early 1950s - there were no LEDS or fibre optic cables. And, they weren't for sale or in use on model railways. The internet tells me the first practical LED wasn't produced until 1962, and the first fibre optic cable was invented 10 years earlier in 1952. Without those mainstays of today's lighting systems, we're looking at lighting with small incandescent lamps enhanced with some interesting tricks, some of which Carter presents in this book.

I was particularly interested in the tricks discussed in chapter 2, On Lighting Station Buildings. Carter outlines three. The first is what he refers to as 'piped lighting', which one might think of as a rather rudimentary way to channel light in the pre-fibre optics era. Basically, a metal tube or glass rod is placed in front of a light bulb and pointed to where you want to the light to go, usually towards something that will disperse the beam, like the suspended clear glass jewel shown in figure 12. This allows light to be piped into relatively confined spaces with the bulk - and heat - of an incandescent bulb remaining outside the structure. Carter also notes the building's interior should be painted matte white to aid light dispersion, and the pipe, whatever its material, should be at least 1/4" in diameter. I suspect light losses, either in a tube or glass, would be considerable. 

Other examples of using light piping for various sorts of lighting fixtures

Carter also mentions that mirrors can be used to light a building's interior by mounting a mirror "at an angle of 45° to the underside of the baseboard, reflecting the light in "bulk" upwards through a hole immediately under the building to be illuminated, on to the surface of a faceted bead or beads hung by a wire from the roof, as well as to the white-painted ceiling of the structure."

Carter ends the chapter with a third lighting method, and one I certainly wouldn't recommend experimenting with: luminous paints that make use of strontium compounds and uranium nitrate. He gives recipes so you can mix your own! If I'm reading the text correctly these were available at the local chemist's [aka pharmacy for us here in Canada] at the time, although he mentions some might need to be special ordered :-) Different times indeed.

Overall it's a fascinating look at lighting methods in the immediate post war era prior to LEDS and fibre optics. 

The back cover and spine are blank! Cost saving I assume?

---

The videos illustrating this post were sourced from the following three YouTube channels:

Havelock Yard

Eric Gagnon

Steve Boyko

All are excellent and highly recommended.

MCM-7: A New Layout Genre?

Soon after taking pictures of the Le Grand DEFI dioramas on the family room coffee table I realized several of my layouts have been inadvertently sized to fit that piece of furniture. Maybe there's a new genre of layout in there somewhere?  

The 3 Le Grand DEFI dioramas

Ever since I stumbled across Bill Baron's mid-century modern coffee table layout proposal in the June 1966 issue of Model Railroader I've had thoughts of small, portable, and convivial family room layouts rattling around in my brain. I haven't explicitly set out to design one, but in a few cases it has worked out that way.

The Centennial Experimental Farm, aka the LOL III

The Micro-Layout category has an upper footprint limit of 3 to 4 square feet. My coffee table measures approximately 50" x 20", providing an area of a little under 7 sq. ft. for a layout. That's considerably bigger than the Micro-Layout maximum. 

Havelock Yard

Hence, maybe there's a new category in there for layouts that fit on a Mid-Century Modern coffee table of 7 sq. ft. or less: MCM-7 :-) And no overhanging, that's cheating :-)

Speaking of coffee, the family room is near the coffee machine and that's where I'm headed.

First visit to Havelock yard this year - no Space Hopper :-)

I closely scrutinized the ballast for Space Hopper evidence even though I didn't have my tinfoil hat or Geiger counter with me :-) No dice, but I made some important colour observations for ballasting the Havelock yard inspired micro layout.

And I picked up a trepass-free sample so I could get the colours right.

I'm getting interested in the Havelock yard micro again since I found a suitable locomotive for it at Maritime Hobbies & Crafts while we were in Halifax.

It's a DC powered Bachmann Alco S-2. It's a used item, but runs very well, and the body is in excellent shape. I need to try my hand at weathering and detail painting on this little thing. I've never seen one of these at Havelock yard in all the years I've visited, but it's in CP colours, so it thematically fits in, and also as important, it's small and fits in very well size-wise with the other items on the little layout.

MH&C say they're the oldest hobby shop in Canada, what with being established in 1946. That does make them considerably older than my regular hobby store, Ottawa's Hobby House, which had its 70th anniversary last September. The guys at MH&C were very friendly and helpful, and even knew a lot about Hobby House! 

Space Hopper sighted in Belleville, 16 July 2023!

Havelock Yard on YouTube alerted me in a comment to one of my videos that he had made and recorded a Space Hopper sighting in Belleville, Ontario. Apparently it has been there awhile, but this reporter was no doubt asleep when he passed through its landing site recently :-( 

The truth is out there - but only if I'm awake :-)

And one other thing, Havelock Yard has lots of excellent and well produced videos at his YouTube channel. I recommend having a look.

Design of a micro layout sized Havelock Yard in HO-16.5

Unscenicked Havelock Yard micro layout on our living room coffee table

For two weeks last July I was obsessed with building the Havelock Yard in HO scale. The idea just popped into my head one day and wouldn't go away. I ran with it. This is the story of what went into designing that obsession into reality.

Track arrangement

Looking at the track arrangement you might be tempted to say, "an Inglenook on the left with some unconnected pieces off to the right, so what." It turns out, when the design dust had settled I more-or-less said that too, but there was a lot of head scratching before I got to that point.

There are a few considerations that went into the design I should talk about. I'd like to say there was some sort of A leads to B leads to C leads to ... order to the so-called design process, but there wasn't. There were simply a few things that had to be juggled and mixed and tried until I arrived at an object I thought would be interesting. I'll discuss those things, those considerations, here, but you'll have to imagine the juggling et. al. for yourself.

Size

Havelock yard is a big place. It's not the biggest yard out there, but it's still way too big to build it exactly as-is in my house. To make the problem manageable I arbitrarily decided the miniature yard would have a 1'x4' footprint - maximum size for a micro layout - and be modelled in HO scale. Clearly I was insane. Well, no, what I was really interested in was trying to capture a feeling, a sense, a taste, of those aspects of the place that brought back fond memories of 50 years or so of dropping by. It was to be a madeleine, a friendly miniature time machine, an abstraction of sights and sounds and feelings. It was never going to be a model railway in the conventional sense, but it might be a pleasant, entertaining object with a story.

Track arrangement

I should really use the term track plan, but, contrary to this post's title, this isn't really a model railway layout, so it doesn't have a track plan. There was however thinking about how the track should be arranged. I reviewed the Full Observation entry in the Non-existent Dictionary to help out with this job.

Parallel lines of track seen at eye level

When I'm visiting the yard I'm standing on the ground between the parking lot and the yard boundary. I see whatever it is I see at eye level. I don't have a drone's eye view.

And what I always see are many parallel lines of track extending from the edge of the parking lot to the tree line at the back of the yard. Lines and lines and lines. Lots of straight lines.

More parallel lines of track

Regardless of which direction you look it appears to look like parallel lines of track.

Parallel lines of track even in the 1970s

All those lines of track aren't a new thing. Even in the '70s it was the same scene, and likely so going back further in time.

Ok, so how does the layout do on the parallel lines at eye level score?

Eye level view into the right side of the yard.

Not too bad on the right.

Eye level view into the left side of the yard.

And not too bad on the left.

If all I wanted was a base for taking photographs (which is one thing I'll use the layout for) I could have stopped at this stage in the design and just laid down a densely packed set of parallel tracks. However, I wanted this object to also have a little bit of play value to heighten its attractiveness as a conversation piece.  

Looks a bit like an Inglenook

I thought, well, I could put a switching game in there, that might make things fun.

At first I tried variations on John Allen's Timesaver - which is what I did with the original 30Squares layout that got this blog started. I couldn't make it reminiscent of Havelock Yard, and I didn't want the track to be too hard to play with, so I rejected the Timesaver.

Looking around for alternatives on the internet I was reminded of the Inglenook. As you can see in the above photo, there are some Inglenook-like track sections in the yard. Well, ok, there are Inglenook-like track sections in many, many yards. 

Same Inglenook, different year.

You can see in the photos the real Havelock Inglenook uses left-hand switches and I've used rights. That's because I adopted the philosophy with this layout that I'd use only leftover materials stashed away in the workshop as much as I could. The best pair of switches I had on hand were righties, and brass ones to boot.

In fact, all the track on this layout comes from my box of leftover and scrapped track. There's a lot of old brass track in there, some dating from layouts I built in the '70s. I think it's quite fitting that that track is getting a second life on this object. I think it adds to the story. Ok, brass track is a little finicky in that cleanliness is extra important, but the layout isn't that big, so keeping it in good condition isn't a huge job.

Construction

In a word: foam.

Waiting for the glue between the foam sheets to dry

I admit this method of base construction is idiosyncratic, but I like it. It produces a lightweight and rigid base. Now, I don't use powered switches or any sort of signalling, so this method would be a problem the more electrical accessories are added. Incorporating those would likely mean I'd have to shift to some sort of built-up or honeycombed core instead of the solid slab I normally build. I've used this method on the Loonar Module, the LOL II, and the Centennial Experimental Farm layouts. So far, so good.

Base stack after the glue has dried

I had some coarse foam sheets left over from the LOL II and Centennial Experimental Farm projects so I decided to use them here. They're items from Home Depot, and the package they came in says they measure 48" x 14.5" x 1.5". I glued 3 together with white glue, and when the stack was dry, cut the width down to 12". I should note that the sheets are actually something like 47-3/4" long straight out of the package.

I should also note the use of a thick base is more for aesthetic reasons than structural. A foam base can be rather thin and still be plenty rigid, but I like the substantial look of a thick base regardless of what it's made from. To me it provides some visual balance to the things it supports, especially if there are tall items on top.

Piecing together the track

The next part was piecing together the track plan from the old, leftover sections in my stash. This took sometime as I had to make sure there was sufficient clearance to move cars around without them blocking or scraping each other, or falling off the end!

My Inglenook is only suitable for older style cars that are around a scale 40' in length. Well, any car around 40' will do ok.

Once I had the track puzzle figured out all the sections were stuck down with 3M transfer tape.

Hole for power leads

Wiring power to the Inglenook section is pretty simple: it's provided by a pair of wires soldered to the bottoms of the Inglenook rails on the right hand end. To plumb the wires through the foam I used a bit-and-brace to drill a hole halfway down through the slab and another through the slab from the front to meet the first hole at ninety degrees. 

Connecting the power leads to the jack

The wires were then soldered to a jack that had been inserted into a square piece of styrene. The styrene assembly was then glued to the front of the slab.

Installation of switch controls completed

The switches are operated with old fashioned wire-in-tube homemade push rods.

Trenches were carved into the foam and styrene tubes containing the actuating wires were inserted into them after the wires were connected to the switch throwbars. The little balls on the wire ends are plastic items from the scrap box drilled and epoxied to the wires. 

Uncoupling magnets installed

The only components I had to buy were 3  Kadee under track uncoupling magnets so I wouldn't have to do manual uncoupling in the yard. I have some in-track uncoupling magnets in my stash, but when I placed them I thought they looked unsightly. So, I broke down and bought under track versions because I think the alternative of manual uncoupling would degrade play value.

Parking strip on the right; picnic shelter adjacent

In the photo showing the uncoupling magnets you can see on the right a strip of styrene sheet that has been glued to the foam slab. That is going to represent the long parking area that parallels more or less the length of the entire yard.

Between the parking strip and the yard is a grassy picnic area. On my layout that will be significantly compressed once I start to do scenicking. 

One last parking thought. On my rendition you can see the parking lot takes up considerable space, and one might be inclined to ask why? Memories, that's why. Every visit began and ended in that lot, with our car parked perpendicular to the tracks. I feel that aspect needs to be modelled even though it contributes nothing to the play value of the thing.

Civility and Conviviality

Since the layout is lightweight and readily moveable I wanted it to look sort of neat and clean so it could be played with in the living or family room without appearing too out of place. Painting the slab black and trying to give it a uniform appearance was one step in that direction.

1" thick foam added to the bottom for 'locking' into coffee table side rails

Another was to add some 1" thick foam pieces to the bottom so the slab would sit easily on the side rails of the living room coffee table.

Back of the coffee table

You can see the slightly protruding legs of the coffee table act to prevent the layout from sliding off - basically, the layout is locked in. The 1" thick addition to the slab's bottom lets the layout rest easy on the table's top and doesn't scratch it.

Layout overhangs a little

You can also see that the layout overhangs a little. I hummed and hawed about that during slab preparation, but in the end decided it was okay. The Inglenook was already quite short and I didn't want to shorten it even more. I don't think the overhang is unsightly.

Hanging out with the gang

When not in use the layout hangs on the studio wall. I pinned and glued some picture hangers to its back and it resides next to the modules from the old Alta Vista TC, which are now used as photo bases.

So, there you have it. Hopefully during the winter I'll catch another 2 week obsession to scenic this thing :-)

Space Leprechaun and friends from planet Havelock?

Space Leprechaun?

All summer I've looked up and down the Havelock yard for a reappearance of either Space Hopper or Son of Space Hopper. No luck. Ok, technically summer doesn't end until 21 September, but I'm not hopeful they'll show up in the remaining days. 

But, I did see this. A Space Leprechaun? An emissary from a far away world come to celebrate the 6 month anniversary of launching the E. L. Moore eBook on St. Patrick's Day 2023? Inquiring minds don't need to know.

Space Leprechaun doing its duty in the Havelock yard.

Other sightings of note include this ancient Boston & Maine covered hopper. I think these cars were manufactured around 1980 or so, and if true, that's one long service life. Does the Havelock yard also hold the secret to longevity?

AEQX 3044 seen July 2023

Who knows? Here's another Boston & Maine covered hopper I spotted in Havelock yard back in June 2020.

AEQX 3013 seen June 2020

And look! There're two more sighted in August 2021.

AEQX 3020 & 3035 seen August 2021

An ancient Templar pyramid?

I don't have any sightings from 2022, but that doesn't mean they weren't there. For me that was the year of an injured shoulder, derecho, and a wrecked car, so I didn't get out much.  

Here's a photo to tide you over until I can find another B&M covered hopper. 

Is this structure, found while exploring the lakes near the Havelock yard, an ancient submerged stone Templar pyramid ?

Of course not. That rock was likely deposited by a retreating glacier about 20,000 years ago and shaped in accordance with its molecular structure by years and years and years of being submerged in moving water.

Ok, found one, here's another from just a few days ago.

AEQX 3025 seen September 2023

Ok, there are a lot of those old B&M blue covered hoppers in Havelock, but they weren't the only anomalies. Other sightings this summer included a big name:

Some protoplasmic lifeforms:

Here are what look like some spermatozoa doing what they do:

 And I couldn't resist shooting this one paparazzi style from the passenger seat of a moving car:

In case you think planet Havelock is only populated with covered hoppers I'll leave you with this teaser:

The search continues.