It’s been a long time coming, but here’s a view down the canal on my new East Rail replica layout. I’ve tried hard to keep the flavor of the old one while, at the same time, making some subtle improvements. Here’s the same shot on the old layout taken in 2009. Steel structures are relatively […]
Tag: Model Railroad Design
Moving Beyond Being an “8 out of 10” Modeler
Victoria Embankment, London. G.De Nittis. Last weekend I attended a lecture at the Phillips on the work of Italian impressionist Giuseppe De Nittis (more well known in Europe than the US). On the panel were two art historians and two museum curators, all excellent speakers. They’d put up a slide of a piece of work […]
Directing the Eye
No matter how much of a prototype modeler we’d like to say we are, the reality of our limited space is such that everything we do is ultimately somewhere on the “proto-freelance” spectrum. Since we can’t copy actual scenes exactly, decisions need to be made with respect to composition. One of the key principles of […]
Defining Model Railroad Design Success
A pair of boxcars sit in front of A-1 Farmers Choice on the switchback segment of my Downtown Spur layout. A successful model railroad design is one that provides a platform for several hours a week of relaxing hobby time…recreational time…..fun time. It doesn’t really matter how those minutes or hours are spent. If there […]
Another “One Turnout” Layout
Two boxcars sit at Family & Son, a foot products company in Miami, circa 2006. The two blue storage tanks in the foreground are for vegetable oil. This scene would be ideal for a small shelf layout and would provide a lot of operation fun as well. I’ve been doing more and more short “mini […]