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 […]

1000 Posts on Pembroke87

I just received a notification that this week’s inauspicious post about repairing the turntable was the 1000th post to this blog. Knowing they’re just trying to gamify their platform, I usually ignore such notifications, but 1000 seems like a good moment to reflect back on the embarrassingly long time I’ve been writing about the challenges […]

Ugly Turntable Repair

A few months ago, as I was turning the engine for another run, there was a clatter and an odd-shaped piece of brass tube tumbled onto my desk below the layout. It took me a moment to realize it was one of the indexing tubes for the turntable. After repeated locking and un-locking, the stress […]

Hay Field Fence

Despite countless household projects, the fence between the hay field and the wheat field managed to get completed this week. The hay will be on the near side of the fence in this view, putting the bright gold wheat field in the foreground from the usual viewing angle. I oriented the fence so it points […]

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 […]

Ballast Frustration

Ballasting track is a well-known method for stopping it from working any longer. Most of the track on Pembroke was ballasted before any rail went down. The exception was the parts that are most likely to fail after ballasting – turnouts, specifically the switch. Knowing the risks I faced, I took it slow and only […]

Kickstarting Group

Summer is always a busy time, and with the good weather, my thoughts turn to outside activities. It’s difficult to keep momentum on the railroad through July and August, and I can imagine arriving in September or October to find all my projects locked in a thick layer of moss. So the call for the […]

Peopling Pembroke

Figures present a contentious subject for model railroaders. Some of us enjoy creating stories and cameos with groups of figures frozen in mid-swing or suspended between strides. Others prefer their figures in static poses so their lack of animation is less obvious. There are layouts teeming like the sidewalks of Manhattan and layouts as lonely […]