Slinging Grass at the Fields

In a final dash to improve the layout before this weekend’s VanRail open house, I warmed up the static grass machine and let it loose on the fields in the foreground of the engine facility. In the messy flurry of ground foam, flock and glue, I learned several new tricks and techniques. On second day, […]

Filling Gaps

With my VanRail open house almost upon me, I’m racing to get a little more scenery presentable. Now, what to do about the gaps in the scenery caused by my preference for modular construction? The big gaps were easy to fill with some ground goop, but there are some smaller cracks that also need filling, […]

Wheat Field Experiments

At the end of summer, a wheat field should be a beautiful golden straw colour, and the seed heads should be well-formed and heavy. My research indicates that the varieties available in 1905 were taller than those we have today, which themselves are waist-height. Initially I thought I could make use of a Silflor grass […]

Fence Rails for the Hay Field

The fence separating the two fields will be about 70 cm long, and will consume a small mountain of scale logs. I made the logs from bamboo skewers by first cutting the skewers into 12 scale foot lengths with some side-cutters, then splitting those lengths into at least six pieces with a utility knife. It’s […]

Fencing in or Fencing Out?

The area I’ve been calling the hay field, it turns out, is too large for one of the Silflor grass mats that I’ve been storing for over twenty years. I have two, and so there will now two fields, and I’m hoping one can be convinced to become wheat. Then the question came up: should […]

AI and Model Railroading

When, after two years of social distancing, the Railway Modellers’ Meet met in person in 2022, all the clinics were online. That meant that the in-person part was only one day long, and consisted of on-the-spot content. We stole the idea of Birds of a Feather from technical unconferences, and have kept a slot like […]

Good Fences Make Good Neighbours on Pembroke

…There where it is we do not need the wall:He is all pine and I am apple orchard.My apple trees will never get acrossAnd eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’… Mending Wall, by Robert Frost Behind the engine shed on Pembroke, the fence separates track […]

Pembroke Hay Field No Good for Tea

The area inside the corner at the south end of the layout was originally conceived as “the place to put your tea.” The idea was unpopular with the real model railroaders out there who universally proclaimed food and beverages should not be on the layout. Nobody would listen to my protests that “the place to […]

Locating Pembroke’s Boundary Fence

The next piece of scenery on Pembroke will fill in around the water tower, and will include the boundary fence that will keep the hay field from wandering onto the tracks. But where should the fence be relative to the structures on the layout? The Internet is no help at all, stating a broad range […]

Cattails Planted

The cattails are now installed, turning the small pond between the pasture and the cattle spur into a marsh. I left a couple of feet near the culvert free of weeds, as I reckon the section man would have dug up that area to keep the culvert free. The pond is about 40 scale feet […]