Model Railroad Blog

Latest Book is Now Available!

My most recent book, 8 Track Plans For Modern Era Switching Layouts, is now available through Amazon. Rather than trying to be all things to all people, this effort is directed towards my blog followers, friends, and Facebook folks. It’s written in the same conversational style I’d use if we were having coffee face to face at an RPM meet. To that end there is a fair amount of advice, philosophy, and editorializing inside.

In no particular order, here are some thoughts to go along with the book:

Designs are not meant to be wall art. They aren’t meant to be analyzed endlessly. They are guides and their only purpose is to provide a launch to a 3D railroad. This is a hobby of participation. It’s a hobby that is far more enjoyable if your time is spent building models, not spending months handwringing and debating design philosophy on the forums.

A strong emphasis was put into making sure the plans are buildable. There are no curved number 3 turnouts! The geometry of commercially available track components was used and all of the offsets and transitions have been carefully planned out for you. As I put each design together, I did a bit of mental walk through and tried to visualize what it would be like to actually build the layouts, especially from the viewpoint of somebody new to the hobby.

If you are a young person, student, or otherwise new to the hobby I recommend either the BNSF team track on page 67 or CIS Light on page 87.

We all like operating and the plans are designed for that. However, modeler’s spend most of their time “building stuff”. That being the case, a design needs to have elements that you enjoy modeling. I envision a construction sequence where you get the mechanical portion up and trains running fairly quickly. At that point, take your foot off of the gas, slow down, and enjoy building the scenery and structures.

All of the plans essentially “steal” prototype designs and are copies of how the real railroads lay things out. Sorry, there are no double switchbacks, unnecessary “just for fun” runarounds, or bowls of spaghetti.

Some of the plans (Malabar, CIS light, etc.) need staging track extensions. These would be single track affairs and can be straight or curved, permanent or removable. The size and shape of your room will dictate what can be done.

As simple as the track arrangments are, I’m confident that as a whole, the plans will keep you quite occupied in terms of modeling projects.

I hope everybody gets an idea or two out of this. Have fun!

Color Transitions

The smoother we can make the transitions from one color to the next, the less defined the boundary lines, the better subjects such as scenery and structure weathering will look.

One of the most important steps in improving a specific modeling skill, and it’s a hard one, is recognizing the subject is something that deserves attention in the first place. You can’t improve something if you aren’t aware it even exists! Case in point is how we handle color transitions, how smooth or sharp the flow is from one color to the next. Mastering this skill is exceptionally difficult but, the better you get at it, the more refined and advanced your work will look.

Examples where this comes into play are: bare soils, vegetation, the lines between soil and vegetation, pavement coloring, and structure weathering. Nothing is absolute but, in general, the flow from one color to the next with the scenery subjects we model is very, very subtle. In this same vein, in most cases we are dealing the numerous colors, all very close to one another on the spectrum, that gently flow from one into another. Rarely, if ever, are we dealing with a single solid color. For example, a street isn’t a uniform gray, it’s dozens of shades of gray.

The end goal, and again I’m not saying it’s easy, is to get away from harsher more defined lines when working with scenery and structure weathering.

Note the very subtle transitions in the two boxes at the top. There are no defined lines in the pavement color shifts. Note the number of gray shades in the pavement and gravel. Note the feathering of the grass into the ballast in the bottom box.

Mother nature is very complex. Note the color transitions from green to beige in the tall grass. Note the number of colors and transitions in the bottom box.

I can’t say I’ve mastered this myself. One thing that helps is application technique. For example, applying material with a sifter as opposed to pouring it from a cup. Just being aware of the vast number of colors, all very similar in hue, is important. Using smoother, delicate brushes (such as a ‘fan’ brush), gives you more control. Beyond that I think it comes down to practice, practice, practice.

East Rail Returns!

Looking east down NW 59th Street in 2013 we see several boxes spotted in front of SALCO, a swimming pool chemical supplier in Miami’s East Rail industrial park.

For many, many years I’ve bounced around the idea of building a second version of my old East Rail layout. The questions being: where would I put it? What form would it take? Is it crazy to do so!?

It’s been a slow decision in coming but ultimately I came to the conclusion that the layout had been so successful, on so many fronts, that it was worth making a replica. One of the main issues I faced with version 1 was dust control. It was located in my workshop and, no matter what measures I took, dust seemed to find a way to become an issue. I have a small photo studio in my basement. With a little re-arranging of furniture it became the ideal space for a version 2. Locating the layout there would largely eliminate the old dust problem.

Over the years I played with a few iterations. Ultimately I decided to stay very close to the original design. The leg holding the canal stays essentially unchanged. I did some streamlining on the left leg of the “L” by removing a few spurs that were overkill but, other than that, it stays pretty close to the old plan.

Getting a quick launch and establishing early momentum is crucial. It took ridiculously little time to get the bench work back up. I’ve temporarily placed some Atlas code 83 track down as “proof of concept”. At this point I can pick and choose my projects and develop and detail the project at a leisurely pace. Stay tuned!

Quick Start: Photoshop Elements

In a recent blog we discussed learning Photoshop Elements. The main points were: despite all of the tools on the screen, you only use a few of them over and over. Last time we discussed cropping, color correction, and adjusting lightness and darkness.

Today we’re going to discuss the “selection tool”. As its name implies, the tool is used to highlight a specific area that “you want to do something to”. That something could be making a specific area lighter, darker, a different degree of saturation etc. The selection tool is identical to what you do everyday in MS Word or on your cell phone…highlight something….do something with it. Simple.

In the photo above, I’ve shown the location of the selection tool at the top left. There are three versions: magic wand (which you’ll use most of the time), the rectangular selection box, and the lasso (which I don’t use much).

I use the magic wand aka quick selection tool the most. Just drag it around the area you want to work with. You’ll see the dashed borders immediately appear. If you look closely at the image above you can see the dashed zone around the boxcar. At the bottom of the page are toggles that allow you to increase or decrease the area selected. Clicking add and waving the wand will add to the area selected. Hit subtract if you want to decrease the zone. After some quick adjusting you’ll quickly have the outline of the area you want to work with. If you want to hit the eject button, right click and hit “deselect”.

Lets say you have an image that is perfect except for one area. For example maybe a locomotive pilot is too dark but everything else is perfectly exposed. If you apply the lighten tool globally it will make everything brighter not just the pilot. If you outline that pilot with the selection tool you can then fiddle with it without impacting the rest of the image.

Wrapping up. The quickest way to learn Elements is to get it on your machine and fiddle with it. The most frequently used tools are:

-Cropping

-Color Correction (never needed for outdoor shots. Almost always needed for indoor model photos)

-Adjusting lightness and darkness

-Using the selection tool to adjust a specified zone.

If I get the sense that readers are actually getting the software and trying to learn it, I’ll continue the tutorials.

Downtown Spur Video

When he was up here last weekend, Tolga Erbora filmed what was probably the best video ever produced of my Downtown Spur layout. It’s amazing to me that he filmed this…while operating..with a cell phone. Throttle in one hand, phone in the other. Great job my friend! I have to say I’m very happy with the sound of the offboard sound system you hear in the back ground. Click HERE to watch it.