Roundhouse doors cut

I warmed up the Cricut for a little workout this evening, cutting out the doors for the roundhouse. The blade is not super-sharp, and two passes didn’t reliably cut through the 3-ply Strathmore on the “Iron On” setting. No matter, it was a few minutes’ work to chase all the cuts with an Olfa knife, […]

The roundhouse man door

My thanks to readers Shawn and Ben for applying their thoughts and experience to the enigma of the roundhouse man door. The question is, what is causing the shadow across the top of the man door? In the previous post I conjectured this shadow was because the man door was a sliding door behind the […]

Roundhouse doors drafted

Tonight I drew up the roundhouse doors, which have a pleasingly interesting pattern of cross-bracing. Some panels have an X, and others have a Z. The braces match a Mattingly photo, taken in the 50’s, but the reasons why these shapes were chosen are lost in time. My friend, Mike Chandler, who worked at servicing locomotives, conjectures that […]

Cade’s Green

As guest editor for Model Railway Journal No. 250, Iain Rice profiled his own home layout, Cade’s Green. Now, Iain’s is one of the few voices that somehow avoids the stultifying muffle of the American press, even when writing for Kalmbach. So, left to his own devices, his feature article absolutely sings with his rich […]

More on driving doors

A couple of weeks ago, when introducing my clinic on the Cricut, my friend Mark Dance claimed that if there is a more complicated way to do something, I will surely attempt to do it. Apparently he knows me pretty well. I don’t know if that is altogether my choice, but the philosophy behind Pembroke […]

Roundhouse front wall

Progress on the railway always takes a bit of a dive in November as I focus on Christmas gifts. In stolen minutes since the Railway Modellers’ Meet, two weeks ago, I’ve managed to add the missing blocking and timbers to the front wall of the roundhouse. The pillars for roundhouse doors are generally very heavy, […]

Roundhouse arches

Information is a curse and a blessing. On the one hand, having real prototype information makes our models that much richer. On the other hand, once you have it, it cannot be ignored. In my case, Peter Newman shared a Del Rosamond photograph of the roundhouse after it had burned (unfortunately I don’t have permission to […]

Reflections on the first layout tour

Well, the Railway Modellers’ Meet is in the can for 2017. Everyone seems to agree that it was a super event. Pembroke was on the self-guided layout tour, which took place today around mid-day. I was still sweeping the silk tree leaves off the driveway when the first guests pulled up, and for four hours […]

Exploring the Cricut

There were about 35 folks in the audience for this morning’s clinic at the Railway Modellers’ Meet. That was pretty good, considering it was the first clinic of the day, and many attendees had a late night of operations on Thursday. As usual, I’m offering the slides under a Creative Commons license. Also, here is […]

Turnout controls started

Well, I really thought tonight was the end of Daylight Savings Time, and per tradition, I made use of the extra hour to work on the layout. It is an especially welcome hour this year as we are only 7 days away from the layout tour. Mark Dance suggested I attempt to get the roundhouse a little […]