After a model train accident, it was decided that a little insurance at the end of dangerous sidings was needed. A screw was in-
of wives, loves to shop. Over the years of being married to yours truly, she has had great fun picking up odd things that begets the question, “Can you use this on the railroad dear?” Right now she’s batting around .850! The stuff she comes up with is fright- eningly useful and are things I never would have thought of in a million years.
A while back she came home with a toy stuffed moose. While this fuzzy creature was cute, I could not, for the life of me, figure out what she had in mind for the stuffed toy. “What the @#$%^#@ are you going to do with that?” I loudly quarried. Whence she reached deeper into the sack and pulled out a bear, and a ridiculous look- ing floppy eared dog. Now she really had me going. Son Mark was a driving age teenager and my other child rela- tives were nearly driving age or older. She just smiled at me, took out a large pair of scissors, and proceeded to mur- der these innocent fuzzy creatures. She chopped the fur into oddly shaped chunks, and merrily began gluing them to the layout in oddly spaced groups. She then spritzed a little hair- spray on the tufts of “weeds” and sprin- kled on some fine scenic foam. Not just green, mind you, but browns, yellows, and dark reds as well. (I have to add here, that I model autumn.) Wow! The effect was quite startling. From child’s toy to model railroad scenery, in one easy lesson. A $3.00 stuffed animal at the dollar store, just became several scale acres of weeds. Since I hand-lay my track, there is usually no shortage of scale ties. It is a simple matter to glue up a pile of them, and add a bunch of “junk” on top, be it homemade or commercial in nature.
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
stalled for its stopping power and to disguise it, a lot of clutter was heaped around it. Now it was a scene with purpose.
Every section shed should have a pile of ties. Don’t hesitate to get creative with the
detail...it need not be rail-re- lated. Put a animal on there (or any- where else for that matter) such as a dog, cat or bird. One section of the lay- out sports a hunter, taking aim at a fine buck across a ravine. There is a scale grisly bear a few feet behind him. Before I changed to DCC, I used the Dynatrol carrier system. It had num- bered plugs placed in the throttle to address a specific locomotive. One time I placed the wrong plug in the throttle, and could not figure out why the loco- motive I wanted to move didn’t move. But, one in another room (inches from the end of a siding) did. You guessed it. A brass 2-8-2 made the scale two hun- dred foot drop to the concrete floor. Friends, I have operated my layout carefully to a fault. It is me that I wor- ry about, so I installed a stout, unsight- ly screw in the roadbed at the end of several dangerous sidings. It is a no- brainer to cover said screw with some clutter of some kind to disguise that scale four foot long fastener protruding from the landscape. I still, however, learn most of my lessons the hard way. A crossbuck takes about ten minutes to craft, with some appropriately sized stripwood, and some dry transfer let- tering. Drill a small hole in the bottom to accommodate a mounting pin, per- haps some weeds from a stuffed dog, and a scale dog with one leg raised to complete the scene. While I’m on that three-legged dog, try to make each mini-scene tell a small story, it will add spice to the layout, and its own story. How many times have you been on a
layout tour, and heard the comment, “Well, he hasn’t done a thing to the lay- out.” I find that an hour (well, maybe
two or three) spent hacking a hole in the trackside scenery with a coping saw, and installing a retaining wall will keep those comments to a mini- mum. I have been known to just throw in a chunk of scribed wood, braced by a few 12′×12′’s and some n.b.w’s (that’s the one hour) to make a nice wood re- taining wall. Sometimes when I get more ambitious (rare on my best days), I will carve up some plaster to form a stone wall, or when being lazy (far less rare) use some commercial castings. Either way, with a few hours work, an area can take on a whole new look. Outhouses are quick and easy. as are light poles, and exterior lights. The fastest way to construct an outhouse is to table saw a scale four foot square chunk of wood, cut it to length at an angle, and plank it over with 4″ or 6″ planks. Use a different size plank for the door. Styrene sheet tin is the other way to go here. Either way, they’re not even an hour each.
Commercial light poles are as simple
to add as drilling a hole in the layout and poking them in place. Likewise, ex- terior lighting on structures (I use a lot of Brawa’s No. 186-4621) is just a mat- ter of drilling the right size hole in the wall, and threading through some wires. Solder extensions on the wires; then use shrink tubing to prevent fu- ture shorting problems. A little more ef- fort is required for a camp fire. The “flame” is a fire-shaped piece of clear styrene, with a multitude of reds or- anges and yellows. Then there’s the time it takes to wire in the circuit board. Your looking at about 90 min- utes for a nice fire in a hobo jungle. Anything that adds interest, and guide the visitor’s eye along the path will add to the drama of the railroad.
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