Tolga Erbora catches the local passing Family and Son on The Downtown Spur in this August 2020 image. The fact that the line is still active, and so well documented, keeps me motivated. What do you do when your layout is getting close to being “finished”? The day is in site when there will seemingly […]
Category: Opinion
Model the Trees or the Forest?
Model railroading is a hobby. It’s recreation. Our “success” is measured by how much satisfaction we wring from our efforts. While the occasional “attaboys” are nice, most of the time, we are performing for an audience of one, ourselves. Unlike a performing or commercial artist, we don’t carry the burden of having to please an […]
Fine Standards N Scale
When I started on the Brooklyn Terminal layout it wasn’t with the intention of making it a “Fine N Scale” project. “Fine N Scale” is a sub-section of the hobby dedicated to, as the name implies, much more delicate cross sections that are closer to prototype dimensions. It’s a small niche of a scale that […]
Cross Pollination
A recently saw the movie White Crow, a biopic on the life and career development of ballet star Rudolph Nureyev. Lots of lessons for us in there. How in the world could a movie on ballet have any applications to model railroading? I’ve always maintained that our hobby, if pushed to its upper limits, can […]
Prototype Modeling’s “Handcuffs”
The success of a layout, ultimately measured by the satisfaction we wring out of it, is usually determined before we even begin construction. I’ll take it a step further, it even starts before we begin drawing a track plan. It’s such a subtly complex topic because it may take years to ultimately know whether we […]