Thicket Armatures

We had house guests staying in the train room for the past week, and anyway it’s summer and the weather is too nice to spend days in the basement. It turns out that bending tree armatures is an excellent patio activity that requires minimal tools or precision, and is thus compatible with the consumption of […]

Thicket Trial Run

Using a paper template, I jig-sawed a plywood base for the thicket. The plywood is 6mm thick, and so, I cut the cork away to bring the new landform closer in height to the edge of the pasture. With a little luck, I won’t have to fill the gap between the two sections as it […]

Thicket Shapes Begin

Very few model railway activities lend themselves to sunny days on the deck. I reckon tree-making might, and so, I’ve started laying out the shapes of the first row of trees in the thicket. I started tracing the trees in InkScape, but that turned out to be very slow. So I switched to an iPad […]

The Changing Landscape of Ontario

The Girl and I are travelling around Ontario this week, looking at universities. On the long drive from Ottawa to Fake London, there was ample time to ponder how the landscape has changed, even over my lifetime, and the implications to modelling Pembroke in 1905. The most alarming change has occurred in the past ten […]

Massing the Thicket

Whilst in Ontario a couple of weeks ago, I kept my eyes open for inspiration for a screen for the edge of the pasture background. My requirements were simple: trees in the 30-foot range that loosely formed a triangle. I didn’t have to search long. For twenty years my brother has been surreptitiously caring for […]