E. L. Moore's Caricatured Rowland Emett Castle survives!

All photos courtesy James L. Dixon

While we're on the subject of Rowland Emett, I was pleased to see that the castle ELM built for his Rowland Emett tribute diorama still exists. It's in rough shape, but this is one of the very earliest ELM models to have appeared in a published photo - dating from January 1956 in Railroad Model Craftsman.

I wouldn't consider any repair or restoration of this model. Like many time ravaged real castles, this one exhibits a regal beauty that shouldn't be tampered with.

As we see in the diorama photo, the castle was a background building, and didn't need to be detailed on sides that wouldn't be seen.

The stone colours are quite nice and have aged well.

My LOT* in life: Memories of Toronto in HO scale

World's Biggest Bookstore on Edward St.

I was chatting with Dave recently about the Canadian Press building, and I began to realize that I didn't have reference photos for many of my models of Toronto's old buildings. For me - and Dave - here's a post to fill that gap. 

Thrifty's

Thrifty's jeans store on Yonge St.

A&A Records & Tapes

A&A Records & Tapes on Yonge St.

Art Metropole

The Art Metropole building on Yonge St.. This still exists, but with different businesses. 

Steinberg

Steinberg supermarket in Scarborough's Cedarbrae Mall.

Thomson Building

A highly selectively compressed version of the Thomson Building on Queen St. W. Note: if you look closely you can see my camera reflection :-)

 

McGregor Park Library

An extremely selectively compressed interpretation of the old McGregor Park Library on Lawrence Avenue in Scarborough.

Canadian Press Complex

And finally, what I've called the Canadian Press Complex on King St. East. The Canadian Press building, the building Dave and I were discussing, is in the centre.

---

*LOT = Little Old Toronto

E. L. Moore's Earthquake Producer: Now in Living Colour!

All photos courtesy James L. Dixon

I've only seen an old black-and-white photo of this thing and assumed the model was lost to time.

I assumed wrong.

And, as an added bonus, there are operating instructions on the back!

Rube Goldberg, eat your heart out.

You can see the vertical columns are missing from the corners, but at least all the equipment seems to be present and accounted for.

The columns in the old black-and-white photo look rather simple, just cylinders, probably wooden dowels, with squares of wood glued to either end, so restoration wouldn't be difficult. Colour matching could be a little tricky though.

The light still works! 

Speaking of seeing the light, I wonder if this contraption has a bit of Roland Emett in its DNA as well as Rube Goldberg. ELM was a big Roland Emett fan, and maybe ELM's use of 'railways' instead of 'railroads' is a clue. Ok, ELM does slip in a 'railroad' and 'pike' in the instructions, but the use of railway seems more than accidental. Not to mention the crazy vibe fits very well with ELM's Emett fan builds. Well, this is the internet, and that's my contribution to wild speculation for today.

Spire above the wire

I was in Toronto last weekend, and was lucky to walk by The Cathedral Church of St. James while a King St. streetcar was stopped out front.

A second E. L. Moore bandstand

All photos courtesy James L. Dixon

This is the second bandstand model we've seen. The first one popped up in 2015.

These bandstands appeared in ELM's Crosby's Bandstand back in the November 1972 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. This is one of his articles where he mentions he made several versions of the model being discussed:

Having just completed my fourth bandstand of this particular design, I rather fancy myself something of a specialist. The first I built several years ago for Bart Crosby, a fellow model railroader. This stand evolved through an exchange of magazine photos from which we selected the most outstanding, or rather combining the best features of two or three. Recently another friend asked me to duplicate the stand for him. Somewhat reluctantly I dug out the old plans and started in, but with one important difference. The first one was entirely scratchbuilt, but in this later one (and while at it I decided to build one for myself and yet another commercially!) I used Grandt Line railings with turned spindles, a styrene product that is really beautiful, and would have bought the lattice work that graced the bottom had I found some available.

After reading that I wondered what he meant by "and yet another commercially"? So I had a look in the manuscript and cover letter to see if there were any clues. It looks like that sentence in the article where 'commercially' appears was the edited version of these:

The first one was entirely scratch built, but in this later one (and while at it I decided to build one for myself). I purchased and used Grandt Line railings with turned spindles, a styrene product that is really beautiful, and would have bought the lattice work that graced the bottom had I found some available. And when I completed these, my friend showed his to a lady who cajoled me into building one for her. This, I did, though most reluctantly -- and for a cash remuneration. It gets old hat and the zing goes out of it when you build too many of a design.

So, to summarize: the first one was entirely scratch built for Bart Crosby, the second was for another friend, the third for himself, and the fourth for sale to a lady friend of the friend.

The article states the first one's roof was made by hollowing out a solid block of wood, but we can see this one's roof is built up, as is the roof on the first one we saw, so this version isn't the completely scratch built original. It's likely the one he built for himself.

The other thing both bandstands have in common is the date inscribed on their bottoms: both say 71. The manuscript was submitted on 2 May 1972, and published in the November '72 issue, so both of these were made the previous year.