When modeling asphalt, the challenge is to get away from an overly uniform color pattern…easier said than done. I tried something new this weekend.
-Start by painting your street or parking lot surface with Rustoleum Light Gray Primer and let it dry.
-For the second level I used “Charcoal” colored grout. A nice quality of grout is that it’s less aggressive and doesn’t “bite” as hard as weathering powders. That makes it more forgiving.
-Take an old one-inch wide brush, dip it into a container of grout and then dab it on the surface.
-Next, take a cosmetic sponge and using mostly vertical motions dab and grind it in a little. Spread it a little around side to side if needed.
-Vacuum off the excess and repeat if there are any bare areas.
-Seal with Dullcote.
-Apply some very, very thin cracks with a super sharp, black, artists pencil
Latch Shoes at 2201 17th Avenue is the last major structure on my Downtown Spur layout. My model of it will be finished in a week or so. Reality is sinking in, the layout for the most part, is “finished”.
“Finished” layouts, they can sneak up on you. It begs the question, what next? Do you roll along, shifting your efforts to smaller and smaller details and rolling stock? Was “finishing” the main goal from the outset? If so, congratulations. You can enjoy running it for decades. The answer will vary from person to person. If you’re a diehard operator you’d probably keep it and run it. If you’re a modeler, you realize you’ve worked yourself out of a job. If that’s the case, then what? It’s something I’ve been thinking about more and more lately.
Theme selection is one of the most important strategic decisions you’ll ever make. Get it right and your enthusiasm will propel you forward for many years. As decisions go, it’s not always the easiest. For some, the theme choice is obvious and doesn’t take much thought. Others struggle with it and never truly find the sweet spot. The hard part is it takes a lot of self-awareness, much of which exists in our subconscious. Making it even more difficult is that things change. Our modeling interests shift back and forth. Social circles change as folks move out of the area or pass away. Prototypes change and evolve. People move to different homes. Nests become empty. People retire. Do you need a pure prototype? Are you happy with a totally freelanced theme? (I couldn’t do it. Too hard. I don’t have the imagination to make it plausible).
I’m not going to make any immediate changes but by 2026? Maybe. Prime candidates would be the FEC in Miami, Baltimore, or LA. Each has pros and cons making any decision harder.
Here are some of the things I look at. First and foremost I want something that “grabs me emotionally”, a place that I want to feel transported to. That’s the most difficult to find. Without that, I just have miniature technical exercise, that may be fun to build but won’t sustain me for the long haul. How well does the theme lend itself to modeling? Linear roads with the spurs parallel to the main fit onto shelves easier. Themes that are more circular or square are harder. Baltimore and the FEC aren’t as linear. How many contacts do I have to help with information? I have lots in Miami and Baltimore, none really in LA.
I realize that my interest is modeling something that actually exists, not something that’s now history. Site visits provide a major injection of enthusiasm. How easy is it to get there? Baltimore is super easy. Miami isn’t bad, I can fly down and back in a day for less than three hundred bucks. LA is harder and more expensive given that my long legs can’t handle six hours in an economy seat.
How important are operations to you? This is a tough one because I go through phases where I operate a lot and then go for months just building. I want at least some operational potential. This is more difficult to find with each passing year as the prototype, understandably, shifts to servicing massive industries that don’t lend themselves to modeling that well. I’ve never really established a local operating crew, mostly due to inertia on my part. If I had one, I’d be more likely to keep the layout longer. How many small to mid-sized, architecturally interesting, rail served structures are there? All three locations still have plenty but the numbers are dwindling.
Lots to think about. At this point there aren’t any clear front-runners that compel me to make an immediate change.
A month after my August blog on York, PA I made a second trip to the area. The gods were with me and I got the evidence I was looking for that York Transfer is indeed still rail served. This shot, taken September 24, 2024, was a real mess. The sun was setting and things were getting dark. The clouds were heavy and there was a light rain. It took several hours of photoshop to clean it up. This shot will never be available again as a storage warehouse is being built in front of it.You’re looking west in this view.
In my blog in August I highlighted York Transfer in York, PA. It became clear that many of my blog readers are familiar with and interested in the area. If ever there was an industry begging to be modeled York Transfer is it. Built in the late 19th century, it is still rail served. It appears to be a modern-era team track under a roof. During my August visit the rails were shiny but there were no freight cars in front of it. I got lucky on a return visit a month later and caught a freight car spotted at the platform.
In this August 2024 shot we’re looking west. The contents appear to be some form of bagged product stacked on pallets.
Here’s another view of the truck side of York Transfer (north side) taken in August. You’re looking west/northwest. Note the cobblestone drive which must be a good 150 years old. I talked to the guys in the background and they confirmed the facility still took rail cars.
In his classic 1951 piece, If I Had A Million, Linn Westcott outlines how the money could be applied to the hobby. Would you do the same?
Those who have been around awhile likely remember Model Railroad editor Linn Westcott’s famous article “If I Had a Million”. The article posed the hypothetical possibility of becoming suddenly wealthy and how to apply that change of circumstances to the hobby. He immediately made the leap that the funds would be applied to a massive layout. Every few years, the same thought experiment pops up on one of the general discussion forums and evokes the same feeding frenzy leap to buying a pole barn and filling it with a railroad. In each case, a direct connection is made between square footage and hobby satisfaction. Is that the case though? For some people, maybe. The missing piece in all of this is having a true understanding of yourself and what aspects of model railroading you get the most enjoyment from. For most of us, that may take decades to sort out. If you don’t jump into the game and start building things, you’re running totally blind.
It does make for an interesting exercise in introspection both in terms of the hobby implications as well as life in general. The answers are likely all over the map and driven by individual circumstances. Here’s the thing though, just as with athletics, music, or the arts, no amount of money will make you a better modeler. Having a ton of money won’t make you a better tennis player or golfer and it won’t make you better at scratch building that saw mill scene.
I suspect what a person would do with the windfall would depend on how much they equate layout size with hobby enjoyment. When you really dig deep into it though, things become more interesting. What if you’ve spent twenty years building your current layout and don’t want to part with it? What if your satisfaction comes from structure and freight car building? In those situations, I don’t see how money will move the needle for you. If your enjoyment comes from having a representation of a long stretch of transportation system, it would.
I’m curious how my readers would hypothetically handle a windfall like this, not only on the modeling front but with life in general. My career experience has given me a fascinating, forty-five-year, fly-on-the-wall witness account of how personal wealth plays out in life, if not modeling. I spent twenty years in financial services working primarily with first-generation wealth holders, mostly small business owners and professionals. My custom building clientele is similar. What I’ve learned is that real-world wealth is nothing at all like what you see in the media. My clients typically “got rich slowly” and, for the most part, live pretty under-the-radar lifestyles. Many stayed in their old neighborhoods and drove Camry’s, Buicks, and pickup trucks. They are a generally happy and content group of nice, high-integrity, classy folks. What’s interesting is that none of them pursued wealth, they pursued a passion and the money slowly built up, almost unnoticed. By the time it dawned on them that they were in fact, “wealthy”, they were pretty set in their ways and not that motivated to make huge changes. (For a fascinating, and very accurate read, check out Thomas Stanley’s The Millionaire Next Door)
My guess is that on the modeling side, the answers would depend on how much modeling experience you have. The fans of the hobby, those with little or no experience, would probably want to go large. The more experienced modelers would probably be less likely to simply because they know the tradeoffs and have more self-awareness. Experienced modelers are more likely to be mid-stream into a layout you’d need the jaws of life to pry them away from.
What about life changes? Would you retire? Buy a new house locally? Move? Stay in your house and build an addition? Make no changes? My guess is that those folks who are employees would probably retire. Business owners and private practice professionals, as a group, prefer to keep working until they are planted six feet under.
I’m unlikely to hit the lottery, primarily because I don’t play it. If I did hit the jackpot, let’s say 5 mill, I suspect I probably wouldn’t alter my life that much. I find my custom layout building, design, and writing business satisfying (most days). I think I’d go nuts if I retired. It’s taken me decades to get my 1952 house close to the way I want it. I like my neighbors and living in DC so I’d be unmotivated to move. The thought of tearing down my layouts makes me cringe. My interests lie more with industrial railroading which doesn’t take much space to model. I’m keenly aware that massive layouts are not a free lunch and what they entail.
What to do with all of that money? Hmmm. All I can think of would be buying three or four top-of-the-line locomotives and sending those out for boutique electronic upgrades. I could use a full-scale LED light upgrade in my basement. Now I’m running out of ideas. As a scratch builder, I spend less than a hundred bucks a month on the hobby. I guess that’s it on the modeling front. On the travel side I’d make more frequent trips to LA and Miami for rail fanning. I might make some minor home renovations. That’s about it. In short, it would be nice to have the money from a security standpoint but I wouldn’t change that much in terms of my modeling habits or lifestyle.
What about you? What would you do on the modeling and “life” front if five mill. plopped in your lap?
Some questions about The Downtown Spur came up at the recent RPM open house. So, for the number crunchers in the crowd, here is some arcane minutiae. The rest of you can resume your other duties.
Era: 2007
Room size: 21’6” by 17’ 6”
Track: ME code 70
Turnouts: Micro Engineering #6
Turnout Count: 13 (functional, not dummy)
Grades: None.
Min. radius: 24”
Layout height: 55”
Run length: 80’ down the “main” plus the switch back at 12’
Run time end to end: 7 ½ minutes (15 minutes out and back)
Speed limit: 10 mph
Siding length: 11’
Layout construction start date: Summer of 2008 (where does the time go?!)
Max op. session time: 2.5 to 3 hours.
Train length: 10 to 15 cars
Number of Industries: 13 total (plus ad hoc team tracks)
Industries switched weekly on the prototype: FPT, Miami Iron & Metal, Sungas, Family & Son, Trujillo & Sons
Switched quarterly: CBI, A-1, Florida Bottling, Miami Produce Center
Switched annually: Miami Waste, Pan Am, Genaro, Provee
Car spot-dependent industries: 2 (Family and Son, Trujillo & Sons)
Total structures: 65 rail and non-rail served
The Monon layout has been removed and room prep. begins for the new layout (2008)
The first section modeled was the switchback peninsula and Miami Produce Center.
A very, very early photo looking east down the river. I later removed the left end of the run-around track. Much of the CSX/Tri-Rail “main” was removed and replaced with River Drive.
