Model Railroad Blog

Achieving successful looking modeling results is 80% color and material selection with experience/skill probably only accounting for around 20% .  The great news here is that beginners can achieve great results right out of the starting gate and more experienced modelers can improve their results quickly simply by switching to better materials.   One crucial area where this is brought home is ballast selection.  High quality ballast materials look so much better and are  much easier to work with.  Part of the problem is that the inferior ballast materials are  readily available and in such mass distribution that there is a natural tendency to use them.  DON’T!   What you need are ballast and soils made from natural materials that have subtle color variations and granule sizes.  Artificial ballast colors are too uniform in color and grade and are not stone so they tend to be difficult to work with.     If you want to make your life easier and improve the looks of your layout the first step would be to place a call to Phil Anderson at Arizona Rock and Mineral Company.  He will require a minimum order of six bags.  Listed below is a suggested starting order for ballasting rail as well as material for a soil base.  He ships within 24 hours and you’re looking at about $45 parts and shipping for that order.

Arizona Rock and Mineral.  Phil Anderson.   www.rrscenery.com   928-636-9275 (Mountain Time)

• (2 bags)   138-2 CSX Blend (this is just a basic salt and pepper color) HO scale
• (1 bag)     138-1 CSX Blend N scale
• (1 bag)     1221 Steam era yard mix N scale (very useful off black color)
• (1 bag)     1290 Concrete (a good muddy gray)
• (1 bag)     2000 Industrial Dirt

Note that I’ve listed a number of N scale grades.  This is because they have finer grains.  I generally do a lot of mixing in a paper cup.  For track ballast I mix the N and HO grade CSX blends together.  For dirty soil I mix the N scale CSX ballast and concrete together with a pinch of industrial dirt.  Use your imagination.

For ballast adhesive I’ve made a change in the last year and only use pre-mixed matte medium.  I suggest this from Scenic Express.  I’ve also changed the method of applying the matte medium to that of solely spraying it on with a fine mister bottle (as opposed to eye droppers or bottles).

 

Some lessons can only be learned the hard way, through experience and by doing.  My son is now a sophomore in high school and is at that age where he is increasingly interested in the dating ‘experience’.   Without exaggeration I think it’s fair to say he has his eye on a new female ‘person of interest’ every week.  A few weeks ago one of those ladies showed reciprocal interest and asked, ‘Oh, by the way, can I borrow fifteen dollars?”  Uh, oh.  You can see where this is going.  Sure enough, in short order said lady and his fifteen dollars were gone, never to be seen again.  Upon repeating the story at basketball practice the other dads were quick to put it in perspective by stating that as you get older the game doesn’t change but you can start adding zero’s after the fifteen.  Lesson learned and off he went, wiser for the experience.

The same applies to model railroading.  You simply can’t advance your skills without jumping in, building things, making mistakes and learning from them.  When you look at a well executed model or layout it has to be with the knowledge that it took a lot of missteps, twists, and turns for the builder to get to that level.

When I meet a new modeler I’m always curious about their layouts, past and present.  It’s fairly common to have the person look down, shuffle their feet and say with some discouragement that yes, they recently built a layout but it didn’t turnout out very well.    I’ll follow up with a question about what they mean by ‘not so well’.

“Well, the curves and turnouts were too tight, the trains constantly derailed, the aisles were too narrow, and the grades caused a lot of problems.  The hidden track was a pain and I laid a lot of track too far from the aisle.  The ¼” plywood I used for roadbed warped”.  They’ll say the layout was a ‘disaster’ or a ‘failure’.   After that experience they are reluctant to try again for fear of experiencing similar results.  Maybe they feel they don’t have the skills necessary to participate in the hobby and should consider a different pastime.  Maybe they should  play it safe from now on and just watch others participate.

In these cases the modeler is absolutely, dead wrong.  It wasn’t a disaster, or a failure.  Just as Thomas Edison discovered a thousand filaments that didn’t work in a light bulb, the modeler has taken the same path.

They learned an enormous amount from these early attempts.  If they were to try again, the next result would not only be better but light years better.  They’ve learned what they didn’t know.  They’ve learned where the trouble spots are.  Now they know what skills and knowledge gaps need to be filled.  These are all valuable lessons that could never be learned had they not built the ‘failure’.

After 35  five years in the hobby, I still find a lot of ways ‘not’ to do things, that is, I still make a lot of mistakes. If nothing else I discover a lot of things I’d do differently the next time.   The one thing I have learned is to practice on a scrap first so the mistake can be discarded without damaging a good model.

The mistakes of accomplished modelers won’t show up in magazines.  You only see the things that worked, not the five that didn’t.  What these modelers have done is noted past mistakes, adjusted, and tried again.

Don’t fall into the trap of not starting until you can achieve perfect results.  Don’t wait on perfection.  Jump in and enjoy the process.  Evaluate your results with dispassionate objectivity making mental (or written) notes on those things that worked and those that didn’t.   The key skill is to be able to recognize and make note of the mistakes.

Beating yourself up or giving up does no good.  Not doing anything for fear of making a mistake is far worse.  Look back on your past projects as valuable learning lessons necessary to move on to the next skill level.  If a layout didn’t turn out, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, make adjustments and get back in the saddle.

 

Why do we build model railroads?  Psychologically, what is at play that compels us to create something that, if viewed at face value, could be mistakenly taken for a detailed toy?

Like many people, both in and out of the hobby, I’ve made the mistake of trivializing model railroading.  Over the past several years I’ve become keenly aware of how deeply important the hobby (or any hobby) is to others.  It has nothing to do with toy trains.  It has to do with basic human needs and who we are.  Addressing those needs makes for a more vibrant, fulfilling life.  In short, the reason model railroad is so important is exactly the same reason that  creating a painting, composing a musical score, or restoring an automobile is.   In our case model railroading addresses three primary needs.

• Creative Expression:  The need to artistically create is a basic human need that almost becomes a compulsion for many of us.  It’s an inner drive.  To not address it, detracts from the quality of life.
• Satisfaction of assembly.  There is a certain level of satisfaction derived from taking several base components and combining them into something that is greater than the sum of the parts.  It is satisfying to take lumber, a can of stain, and create a bookshelf.  There is satisfaction in taking a collection of people and forging them into an athletic team or company.
• Creating a copy of a portion of the world we enjoy looking at.  This gene doesn’t exist in everybody.  It does in us and our hobby brothers in other modeling fields.   If we have fond memories of a location, structure, or way of life, there is satisfaction in having a 3d version of it in our basement.  It’s the same need that is satisfied by photographs or movies of a pleasing subject.  Closely related would be creating a copy of a human practice we find interesting.  In this case I’m talking about the fascinating chess game of railroad operations.

There are similar paths that can be taken, which is precisely why you see such an overlap in hobbies and interests.  Have you ever noticed how many model railroaders are also musicians, artists/painters, and automotive enthusiasts?

It’s not the model railroad hobby itself that is key, but what it does that matters.   I can accept, and often agree, that miniature trains, in and of themselves, are not important (just as throwing a white ball at a person with a bat, on the surface, is not important).  The key point is this, it is a vehicle that fulfills critical, deeply ingrained,  human needs.    Needs that are important.  Needs that are not trivial.    To not recognize and address this fact of life, to dismiss how we are wired, would be a serious mistake indeed.