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 […]

The Opera of Railway Modelling

In Italian, the word “opera” means simply “work,” but to us English, it refers to a piece of art where robustly-sized talents exercise their robustly-sized lungs in a language we don’t understand. “Opera” the base for the model railroad jargon, “operations,” and as we consider our audiences’ responses to our layouts, the operator is one […]

Hilton’s Art

From the moment James Hilton announced his latest book, “The Art of Railway Modelling,” I knew a copy would take up residence on my bookshelf. In the buying frenzy of Black Friday, my mouse blundered onto the Titfield Thunderbolt page, and before I knew what was happening, it had completed checkout without any input from […]

Optimism and Industry

On Thursday, my friend, Mark Dance of Columbia and Western fame invited a few of us over for an evening of pizza and beer and talking about model trains. The question he wanted to discuss was whether model railroads can be art, and what are the implications if they are. It was a fun evening, […]

The Stars of the Show

A couple of weeks ago, Trevor Marshall mentioned Jonathan Jones’s intriguing article in the 2023 issue of Model Railroad Planning, specifically Mr. Jones’s* assertion that if everything is important, then nothing is important. I’ve been wanting to write about this article since it came out, as it is the most innovative thing I’ve read in […]

A Lesson in 3D Composition

During March Break we took a weekend break in Victoria, a short Ferry hop across the Salish Sea. We found ourselves sitting beside the statue of Emily Carr sketching on her corner opposite the provincial legislature, when a little tour group came by. The guide gesticulated vertically toward the statue, and enthusiastically expatiated in some […]

Art, Canada and 1905

I’ve just returned from a family vacation to Montreal, in which I was resoundingly and unsurprisingly outvoted in my application to get to the Canadian Railway Museum in St Constant. Fortunately, The Girl suggested we Hop-Off the Hop-On Hop-Off Tour for a visit to the excellent Musée des Beaux Arts. I had no idea Montreal […]

Crawl space nighthawks

While I enjoy the occasional model railway magazine, unlike most other modellers, I’ve never had space to keep them. For years, I have captured significant articles in binders, and this enabled me to save many feet of shelf space in ads alone. However, my idea of significance has grown narrower with each passing year. The […]

The Century of Canada…

As I wrote before, Pembroke could tell two very different stories. On the one hand, it could represent the sleepy end of a branch line, a second entrant into a market barely big enough for one. On the other, it could demonstrate the unbridled optimism of the age of progress and of small towns like […]

A little mock rhythm

A few weeks ago, as I was contemplating the composition of Pembroke, I noted that I want to pull the viewer through the space between the Pembroke Milling Company and the CA freight shed. The existing mockups had their roof ridges parallel to the backdrop to simplify hiding the join with the backdrop. However, in […]