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roader.” All of this would have set you back around a week’s wages give or take a few dollars, and you could be up and running trains in a week or less. Maybe even just a day of so. One week’s pay, and a long Saturday, and you were a model railroader.


Fast forward to 2012. You get your-


self a 4 ×8 foot sheet of plywood on two saw horses, and a train set. Use a sim- ple track plan, and some pre-ballasted nickel-silver track on a way more so- phisticated “grass matt” (you know, something from Woodland Scenics or Scenic Express). Go out on e-bay and buy a few pre-built buildings and trees. Throw in a beginner’s DCC system, and you’re a model railroader. All this will set you back about a month’s wages, Wow,


the only thing that really


changed was, let’s see now, better track, on more realistic looking scenery, with models that look and run better, with an extremely complex con- trol system that is totally transparent to the end user. Neither the model rail- road, nor the model railroader needed any skill whatsoever. Then, like now, the skill comes later. But it comes! What changed was the number of hours you have to work to pay for all that newer and waaaaaay better stuff! You could probably still have brought it off on a long Saturday.


Taking the consumer price index from say 1960, today’s model prices are cheaper than dirt. It’s not just China, and its less expensive labor, it is better materials, and more efficient methods and machinery. In a lot of ways, things keep getting better.


None of us started out as a master


craftsmen. That particular level of skill developed over, who knows how many years, and will hopefully continue to develop for the rest of our lives. One of the beauties of this hobby is its all- fired lack of simplicity. You would have to really work at making it simple, and, even then, it will not stay that way. It is complicated by its very nature, and I doubt there is a model railroader on the planet that knows ALL there is to know about every aspect of the hobby. I will be glad to confess, however, to having run into a few who thought they did. Those are the folks that bring me great joy, as does Bill Cosby, Ellen Degeneres, and other comical folks. I have been a “model railroader” (not counting the Lionel years) since 1958 when I was fourteen. In that almost 20,000 days, I have learned something new, darn near every day, and yet you could fill volumes with what I don’t know. In those early years, I was no more a model railroader, than any of to- day’s beginners starting out with the ready made products. Most beginners start down the road with the r.t.r. prod- ucts, and slowly graduating to simple kits. The more complicated kits follow closely as the appetite is whetted for more challenging projects. It is that next step that I concern myself with in the writing of this column: that step from higher end kits to scratchbuild- ing. Here is where it gets good, you know, the really fun stuff. What the heck, it’s time for a story: You have visitors to the basement. Not the usual gang of friends, who know you well and are not above teasing you a little, but a few strangers. A friend of


a friend sort of thing, where someone you know well says, “An old army bud- dy, and his two friends are going to be in town on vacation, and thought it would be nice to see a couple of layouts. Can we come by tonight?” You answer in the affirmative, and the next thing you know, a friend, and three strangers are inspecting your handiwork. They seem to be pausing by what you know is your pride and joy. The model you spent all that time on, and wondered if it was worth all that extra effort. “Whose kit is that?” one of the strangers asks. You answer, politely, that it is not really anybody’s kit, and that it is crafted from scratch. That’s when you may well get “the look”, you know, that look that says “you what?” You could have said something like “I hit .335 with the Cubs this year, just before I made that space shuttle flight.” But, that wouldn’t have gotten quite the same wide- eyed look. Suffice it to say that the strangers were impressed. It now dawns on you that it was worth all that extra effort.


There are a lot of people out there for whom the art of “scratchbuilding” is akin to alligator wrestling, or crab fishing in the Barents Sea. While it is mostly the rookies, some pretty well seasoned mod- elers still mistakenly hold scratchbuild- ing somewhat in awe. A non-modeler’s reaction to a scratchbuilt models is off the charts in one of two directions. The first is absolute awe, and the second is total non-comprehending. It is my con- certed opinion that the first group are seasoned modelers, and the second has yet to experience the joys of making a model from raw materials.


Customizing structures for a layout allows the modeler to fit a business into a corner of the layout. The small, one-pump gas


RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN


station not only defines the period of time being modeled but al- lows the modeler the flexibility of add on lighting and extra signs.


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