Game Face

My friend, Scott Calvert emailed some photos that he took of last month’s operating session on his Boundary Sub. I was struck by the studied concentration on Chuck, Bill and Colin’s faces as they switch the yard at Nelson above. I especially love this one of Brian Pate, assuming his classic pose while running the […]

Wither Proto:87?

A couple of weeks ago, Chris Mears pointed out a couple of Proto:87 threads and stories about Proto:87. Of course that really perked my ears up, but unfortunately, between work and other things I really haven’t had time to respond. One of the threads that Chris pointed out was on rmweb, and related to the […]

Debugging #10

It seems to be two steps forward, one step back on #10. No sooner had I fixed the quartering issue that had popped up, than I discovered that the engine truck weight was dragging and catching on guard rails. After I resolved that, I triumphantly placed the engine on the track. Where it sat. Silently. […]

No more double standard

Chris Mears kicked off an interesting discussion over on his blog back in October. Through a series of posts, he has been analyzing his desires with respect to the hobby. It seems to have gone quiet over there, but one post in particular struck a chord with me. If it is to be placed in a […]

A Little Encouragement

The Girl must have sensed my funk because I discovered some home-made positive affirmations in my drawers this evening. Thanks wonderful daughter!

The Models of our Youth

I’m in Ottawa this weekend, on my way to an educational program at Queens for the next three weeks. My mum has changed around the house in the past few months, and came across a couple of boxes of models. “What,” she asked, “should I do with them? They can’t take up room on my shelves forever.” […]

Practice Makes Perfect

Thinking more about how we get past the “I can’t do it” stage of skills development (See a great conversation from last weekend by Simon Dunkley, Trevor Marshall and Mike Cougill ), I realized today that one of the things I do is I try things out before I proceed. This evening, for example, I […]

My Railfan Five

Chris Mears challenged me to the Railfan Five this evening. As I mentioned in my reply to his post, I don’t regard myself as much of a railfan (who has time to wait for trains?), and so, I don’t have all that many railfan photos. However, here are some that I like, in no particular […]

Why Pembroke?

I suppose, given the recent conversation, I should come clean and explain why I am modelling Pembroke. My interest in the Canada Atlantic Railway started in my late teens. I was certainly influenced by Niall MacKay’s excellent book, “Over the Hills to Georgian Bay.” But, if I am honest, I was thinking at the time […]

Why do we do the things we do?

When Ron Keith sought me out at the train show in Burnaby in November 2012, the doctors were giving him until Christmas to live. Ron wanted to give me a plow that he had built from a photograph I had given him more than a decade before. A couple of weeks later, I was at […]