Living Steam: The Virginia and Truckee at the Nevada State Railroad Museum on DVD or Blu-Ray. DVD is $19.95, call for Blu-Ray pricing at 877 323-8002 or email video@livingsteam.comComstock Historical Society and Virginia & Truckee Info:Virginia Truckee History -- Links -- Photos -- Discussion |
MODEL RAILROADING with TRACK and TRAINAmateur Model Railroading -- Electric Model Trains for the Rest of Us |
My Take on Purists and Model Railroading
Everyone has a different reason for being a model railroader.
I began model railroading at a point where I realized I would have to severely restrict my Amtrak travels. I've always loved model trains, but never built a layout. Sure, we had an old Lionel train for Christmas, with the track on a 4'x8' sheet of plywood painted brown. For a few weeks every year, we did what most people do: build simple temporary Christmas train layouts and pack them up for next time.
I didn't know a thing about freight trains. I knew Amtrak Superliners very well, having traveled tens of thousands miles on the Coast Starlight, California Zephyr, Sunset Limited, and a few trains from Florida to D.C. to New York to Chicago back to Denver.
When I began my layout, it was on a kitchen table and cost $70 for a Bachmann Amtrak Viewliner train. I lived in a small space in a condo, so I knew to start with N scale. It was so cool. Here I was a grown man near 40 and I was fascinated by this little moving toy in front of me. The fascination with trains in the United States is the subject of another article.
From that humble $70 beginning, I scrounged up a leftover 4'x5' board, laid the track down on the board and began experimenting with various paint textures and materials to make trees. I was still on a low budget. That didn't last long. It became boring to see the train on less than ten feet of track, and I needed some switches, and so on, and so on.
As you read these pages, you'll see how easy it is to spend several hundred or thousand dollars running those little trains around the track. As you read my story below, I hope you find a way to enjoy yourself and express your creativity through model railroading. A healthy interest in trains can lead to unexpected discovery.
| layout_photos_coming so you can see what imperfection looks like. "It's OK to be perpetually in progress..." |
IT'S OK TO BREAK THE RULES OR MAKE YOUR OWN My approach to model railroad is non-traditional. I'll probably never make it into the pages of any model railroader fanzine like MR, CTCBoard or others. Here's why: I don't strive for reality. There, I said it. I'm not perfect. I don't run according to dispatchers, train orders and schedules. While my scenes and settings are strictly based on reality and specific times, in other ways I let myself be creative. It's OK to break the rules as set forth by the "experts." We can learn from experts but we can still treat this like a hobby, too. For me, model railroading is a solitary activity. My friends like model trains but no one has picked up the hobby yet, and that's OK with me. Perhaps the most important thing about model railroading is that it's therapeutic and relaxing. If you are not trying to win an award, then you can relax. Breathe a little bit, you don't have to build the perfect models seen in the magazines. Unless you are perfect, it's not worth the stress to strive for perfection in what is supposed to be an enjoyable hobby. MODEL WHAT YOU KNOW OR WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW I currently have two layouts. One is somewhat intricate with about 200 feet of mainline in N scale. That's over five scale miles. After being at it for a year, it's a mess. Recently I scavenged track from the layout to build a small Christmas layout for the living room. The Christmas layout is hosting my new intermodal container cars for a modern Christmas look. It may be corny, but to me that's funny. A Christmas train with models of the very cars that bring the presents to Wal-Mart! Just for good measure I added some modern car carriers behind the containers. This is what most trains in the Silicon Valley look like, containers and cars. I decided to model modern trains. When I get closer to finishing my big layout in the future, it will be set either on a day in 1993 when Amtrak melted down, or the day in 1996 when UP bought SP. The only other date I've considered is Dec. 31, 1999, so I can claim the layout is from the 20th century. While many people are fascinated by steam, it's just doesn't float my boat. Steam is great, but I wanted to match my model railroading with photography. Since I've only been photographing trains since 2006, I want to pick a timeframe that matched what I could still photograph. TAKE A BREAK -- BREAK THE RULES AT CHRISTMAS As I write this in December 2006 I am really having fun showing off the intermodal equipment. I have two SD45 tunnel motors, one a patched D&RGW and one a unpatched SP unit. They are pulling my long 30 car Kato Bethgon coal train on the inside track with a tightly curved run that is like a folded dogbone. On the outer track is an SD70 and AC4400 in Union Pacific paint with the US flags on the side. This pulls two three-car container sets recently released by Kato, plus six car carriers. The Christmas train is on the original 4'x5' board I abandoned for my 8'x9' frame and foam layout. It only took me a few days of work to built the Christmas layout, landscape it, paint an impressionist ocean/beach next to the tracks. The point of the Christmas layout is its value as a testbed. I built some mountains with paper towels and paper mache for the first time, having previously used chicken wire, cheesecloth, drywall mud and Great Stuff spray foam to build contours. For the first time I actually ballasted the track, glue and all. DID HE SAY IMPRESSIONISM? ON A RAILROAD? The Christmas layout has allowed me to try all kinds of things I might not do on my permanent layout. I mentioned impressionist painting. I am using acrylic paint and Impressionist techniques to paint my landscape, mixed in with real ballast, real desert rock and granite, plus real fake foam foliage. My name for my collective efforts is Train Arts. I see the train layout as an animated three-dimensional canvas waiting to be covered with the three dimensions of scenery and the fourth dimension -- the time element of the moving train. You can do a lot more on a railroad than on a simple flat canvas, just be aware of the overall impression you are striving for. FIND YOUR CREATIVE SIDE Not everyone is an art fan, and my taste in art tends much more toward realistic Dutch paintings by Vermeer, Bruegel, Rembrandt, Ruisdael and Frans Hals. When it comes to model railroads, though, I tend towards Vincent van Gogh. Find your way to make your layout unique, then leave that part out of the photos you send to the magazines. It can just be your little secret, whatever non-standard technique it is! |