Honouring the research

In a thought-provoking essay about his prototypical waybills, Tony Thompson asks, “is it merely visual?” He likens the typical approach to model railroad paperwork to operating our railroads with freight cars made of blocks of wood decorated with post-it note reporting marks. If we are happy with representational paperwork, we should also be happy with […]

Rear end details for 622

It may look like #622 is all but finished, but I just put together a to-do list with 28 items on it before the engine is ready for paint. Many of those items need to be fabricated, which means each will take at least an evening. Here are the first three from the list.

Mud drum for 622

Somehow my fixation on mud drums feels a little deviant. Like “foot fetish” or “nasophilia,” “mud drum” is the sort of thing you Google for only after double-checking that your Safe Search filter is on. That the one group I wrote to when researching mud drums during the design phase never wrote back only cements […]

622’s air pump and the end of detail castings

It strikes me that 622’s air pump will likely be one of the last detail castings I ever buy. Certainly, it will be the last brass air pump I buy. The next one will be printed, likely here at home. It’s worth pausing here to enjoy the skill that went into the pattern for this […]

Display shots for 622

I finally decided to shoot the photos for the Railway Modellers’ Meet virtual display room this week. I’ll be presenting it during the Meet the Modeller evening this Thursday. If you haven’t already, you should register and submit a model to join in. We’ve never taken this approach before, but I’m hoping it will be […]

More chassis details for 622

The weather this weekend was definitely conducive to model railroading. This was fortunate because the Virtual Display Room at the Railway Modellers’ Meet is already starting to fill up. I’m planning to get 622 assembled for some photos so I can present her next Thursday. The major engineering and electrical work is hopefully complete, and […]

Handrails for 622

All I can say is at least it is straight across the front. Most North American steamers that I’m familiar with keep their handrails chastely separate on either side of the boiler. If there was a handrail across the front of the smoke box, it was another piece, disjoint from the side rails. Sadly, 622 […]

Start of chassis details for 622

The hardest part about scratchbuilding is that there are no instructions. Usually that simply means I’m on my own to solve every problem – territory so familiar, I don’t know I could actually follow someone else’s planned sequence of steps. This time, the piece of instructions I am missing is the map of the etch […]

i hijacked this wordpress account

Hello im Renes ,daughter coming at ya !! So it seems that these photos are of my dad,s model train. I think the silver thing is a coin and the tube welll ummm yup i have no idea . Moving on! In conclusion , the shark is still sad , and i still have no […]

Smokebox front

622’s smokebox front is another 3D-printed part. Like the domes and stack, it fit astonishingly well into the boiler. It was actually a nice press-fit. Interestingly, either the boiler jacket is slightly thicker than .020″ (would that happen as it curled?) or there is some inaccuracy in the 3D print. In either case, the smokebox […]