Sticky, Silly Short

Of course it happened when I had a visitor. The train had set off from Golden Lake, and was triumphantly passing the Pembroke freight shed, having stayed obediently on the track for the whole run. But when it stopped short, no amount of cajoling would move it. I finally looked at the command station, and […]

Wet Palettes Transform Acrylic Painting

The loss of model railroad paint manufacturers like Floquil may actually be one of the best things to happen to this hobby. When our crusty bottles of Grimy Black and Boxcar Red ran dry, the creaking was almost audible as we collectively raised our heads to see how other modellers coloured their miniatures. We found […]

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 […]

Coal Car Test Print

From 3D file to the first print always makes me feel like a ten-year-old on Christmas morning. A ten-year-old with a ventilator, gloves and safety glasses in a basement workshop that smells more of chemicals than of pine. With this being the first whole car I’ve attempted to print, I hardly expected it to work […]

Coal Car Brakes

The brake systems on hopper cars are often tight for space. So, it’s useful to be able to check clearances before construction. In the case of the coal cars, I found the train line was a little too close to truck bolster for my liking, and so, I raised it a scale inch or two. […]

Flat Cars Finished?

With the loads painted, the flat cars are substantially finished. I sprayed the underframes with a dusting of Vallejo “Smoke” so they’d look like they’ve done work if they should ever flip over. The trucks, body and the steel and iron parts received a muddy wash of raw umber and white so they’d look look […]

Painting Wood Loads

I had three flat car loads to experiment upon, and with time running short before the Railway Modellers’ Meet, I got right to work. I had picked up a Vallejo paint pack for wood and leather when I went to Burnaby Hobbies for some primer. The “Dark Sand” in the pack seemed a good starting […]