Why are North American Train Magazines so Tedious?

Railroad Model Craftsman arrived on Friday. I haven’t even finished reading the last one, and to be honest, I don’t know if I ever will. It’s been drowning in the pile of books beside my bed for weeks now, occasionally thrusting out a feeble page when I resurrect the book atop, but sinking ever lower. By […]

Colour of the steam age

My cousin Tracey is a fascinating individual. Endlessly curious, inventive and energetic, she is a trove of ideas and discoveries. Knowing that I am interested in the turn of the century, she once mentioned that she had discovered a book of colour photographs taken of Russia before the First World War. Sadly, she couldn’t recall anything […]

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 […]