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and all but a few had the water tower/elevated shanty set. The variety on most layouts came from the build- ings the owner made from scratch. The variety of products we enjoy today was not available back then, so scratch- building was no big deal (it’s still no big deal) because everyone just did it as a matter of course. Every month there was at least one structure build- ing article in each magazine, and a car building piece about every other month, or so it seemed to an impres- sionable teenager.


Contrary to when I came along, in the 1930’s you had to be a scratch- builder if you were going to have much more than a toy train set. As always,


able to say the windows were mine. They did not turn out all that well, and I should have used commercial offer- ings. That is when I learned to use commercial parts where appropriate, for the sake of the model and save the ego trip for more meaningful endeav- ors. Once you leave the ego behind and use whatever is available, your models usually get better and you have more time to spend on other areas of the hobby. In the time it took me to build those windows I could have built a turnout and been that much closer to operations.


things got better (it’s called capital- ism), and the basement industrialists got to work. Soon there was track, cars, and engines you could buy off the shelf to ease into the hobby without being the equivalent of an MMR. Not long af- ter that, in the 1940’s after the war, there was an explosion of model rail- roaders and model railroad products. Some of these products included some very nice detail castings, stripwood, scribed wood, and a lot of other goodies that made building from scratch a lot less challenging and a lot more fun. By the 1950’s, when yours truly came along, things had gotten pretty easy in the model railroad world. I nev- er had to beat a locomotive out of a tin can or become a foundry worker to get an air pump. I never had to scratch out windows. I did, but it was just to be


RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN


As a kid in the 1950’s I saw that Bill Ryan had already started bringing in brass locomotives from Japan, (Wow, $29.95 for an engine. Who could afford that much?). The 1960’s also saw Cliff Grandt’s line of windows and doors grow like kudzu. We were in hog heav- en. Just as scratchbuilding was becom- ing less and less necessary, it was be- coming more and more fun and a whole lot easier. I was scratchbuilding a lot of my models, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. By the time I got back from the serv- ice in 1969, I had been a modeler for a long time and was looking for new challenges. Back then, O scale narrow gauge was a haven for scratchbuilders. I sold all my HO standard gauge equip- ment, and even my HOn3 stuff, and jumped headfirst into On3. At that time, Grandt Line was making a few car kits, and there were some brass lo- comotives available (if you had a good job, or were a bank robber), but, over all, you needed the ability to build cars and structures from raw materials if you craved any variety whatsoever. I have never robbed a bank, and my job was slightly less than good, so it was a good thing that I thought of myself as a itinerant scratchbuilder. The year 1970 was the year brass broke the $1,000 mark with PFM’s magnificent On3 Kodama K-27 at $1,079.00. It was so far out of my league that I gave up Colorado narrow gauge in favor of an eastern flavored West Virginia Midland. The WVM was a real three-foot gauge line that ran close to where Cass (Mower Lumber Co.) met the Western Maryland. It was eastern logging at its finest. By 1970 I had started writing for Carstens Publications with an article on the Wellsville, Addison & Galeton, a Pennsylvania/New York shortline in the December, 1970, issue. Then editor Tony Koester suggested the WVM as a viable alternative to the western nar- row gauge lines, and I took him up on it. Tony had a lot more influence on me than he will admit. In that era, I felt that almost everything I had on the


railroad should be scratchbuilt. The structures were all built from scratch, as were the cars, trees, and track. The motive power was a 4-6-0 and a 2-6-0, both of which were built from scratch. The Ten-wheeler was the subject of a four-part article in 1977 and 1978 enti- tled “A Beginner’s Attempt at Scratch- building.” It is a good thing there was the word “beginner” in the title, be- cause it was not all that good. The Mogul became the main power, because it was a beginner’s second at- tempt and ran better. I then built a Kemtron Shay kit (several bags of brass castings, much akin to building from scratch), but had the good sense to let a pro (Dennis “Shay in a day” Manwarren) put the running gear to- gether for me. Like Dirty Harry said: “A man’s got to know his limitations.” That was an eye-opening moment, and I discovered that some things are best left to friends who are better modelers than I am. That Shay was one of the best running locomotives I ever had. I guess you could say that I have a


“thing” about Christmas cards. For the last twenty years I have scratchbuilt the cards I send. Back in the 1990’s it was with film and a somewhat arduous pro- cedure. Now, with the new digital equip- ment, it is a snap (pun intended). Right after the Thanksgiving holiday I scoop up the tripod and lights, head for the basement, and go to town. I take most of my Christmas card shots up on Lizard Head pass where there is some snow. I’m told that the prototype has two sea- sons: 4th of July, and winter. I believe it. I was there one July in a hail storm, and one mid-September in a blizzard. I am modeling the fall of 1942, so I model the area snow covered. I used Builders In Scale snow, which is actually marble dust. It is microscopi- cally jagged and sticks to everything (just like wet snow). Many of my friends send these kinds of cards, and they are fun to receive as well as send. Our fami- ly is where our real spirits live, and a hobby is where our spirits play. Model railroading is much like fine art, only practiced in all four dimensions, there- fore infinitely more complex. As with any hobby, we wish to excel at it. Model railroading is an on-going endeavor whose limitations are set by the partic- ipants, us. Those who build from scratch today do so for the love of it, and, for the most part, not because they have to. The joy of creation and the endorphins re- leased in that process are the essence of what the hobby (really any hobby) is all about. Scratchbuilding is only one small part of an enormously complicated set of activities, the end result of which is sometimes the creation of a smaller, more perfect reality.


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