People give me great lauds for my modeling but I am just basically a "copy machine" using real life as a reference and my layout as a canvas. Art imitating life. Much of my inspiration comes from the photos of Mitch Waxman http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitchwaxman/ and http://newtownpentacle.com/2012/06/ Once you look at the photos you'll say "Gee, that looks just like what John was attempting to model!” The era I model is the 1960s and Newtown Creek and Dutch Kills were a water waste area. I remember the smell of that area as we drove over the Kosciuszko Bridge to visit my Grandmother and Grandfather in Brooklyn in the 1960s and 1970s. The Newtown Creek and its tributaries are still to this day a pollution nightmare, cleaner in a sense than they were decades ago but still probably THE most polluted waterway in the US. The NY Times just did a video on Newtown Creek with Mitch Waxman, it's a good quick summary of the area I model. http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012...n&st=cse&gwh=D17E362DB792591D53BB8B93DBDF5461 Some like to model idyllic mountains, farmlands and valleys. I model the dirty side of life - I'm an urban modeler. John
Very interesting footage. That's my philosophy, too. Reproducing the reality just like it is. The real life inspires me. Don't worry, John, you're not alone. I also have that strange fascination. ;-) A couple of miles from where I live, there's a large industrial area with more than a century of life and it's still working. Four years ago I had the opportunity to visit it and to feel that smelly air of the chemical processing. Two days after have visited the complex, I still could feel that sickening smell. I also had the opportunity to see some locomotives moving. All that factory environment is strangely fascinating. Cheers, Joao
Wow! Four months and I haven't posted anything about my layout. Trust me though I am working on it. Time away from working on my layout has been taken up by that four letter word called “life” and doing project research and a lot of trial and errors on a project I am working on that is almost completed and then I'll post photos and such. I just figured I'd let y'all know that I'm still kicking. Yours, John
John, Same story here.....I haven't touched my mountain module in months and months. As you say.....life gets in the way. I keep thinking about it though. That's a good sign......right?
It's a lousy club isn't it........ Funny how you look back and think, 'how in the world did I ever find time to do that in the first place?' It must be a conspiracy. I have always been under the impression that the closer you get to retirement, the more time one has.................NOT! Someone is lying to us. )
Loren, I AM retired and one still has to work to find time to play trains. You see, there is this list on the fridge every morning....... John
So what happened to us anyway? Could it be that the age factor is playing it's hand? Lots of desire, but not so much energy? Or does the grass grow twice as fast as it used to and the gremlins that live in the garage pile the junk higher while we sleep? All I know is that 'it aint what it used to be..........rats.
Thank you Hurricane Sandy!! No work today and possibly tomorrow due to Hurricane Sandy so I've been working on my layout all day!!! Yee ha! John
So six months passed and it would be easy to say that I wasn't working on the railroad but it was just the opposite because I was engaged in an enormous amount of research and more than my fair share of trial and error in building the "Morris Park Shops" area of my layout. The basic four buildings that I was working to create in this scene was the blacksmith shop (#4 on the diagram), the dinner (#31 on the diagram), the machine shop (#9 on the diagram), and the main office (#1 on the diagram). None of these four buildings exist today at the actual Morris Park Shops having be demolished years ago to make way for a more modern rail maintenance facility. http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/morrispark/morrispark19732.jpg http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/morrispark/LIRR_L397_Diner_081289Al Castelli_MPark.jpg In order to save time and effort in part of this area of the layout I used two buildings I already had from a previous layout project that Bruce Monroe http://monroemodels.us/home.htm custom built for me years ago the Merchants Despatch Transportation Company (MDT) car shop building and main office building http://photo.libraryweb.org/rochimag/rochpublib/rpf/rpf01/rpf01688.jpg Bruce did a fantastic job custom making each building with beautiful details so I just couldn't let them go and had to find a way to incorporate them onto my layout. Both ended up fitting well representing buildings located at the Morris Park Shops. The MDT car shop building was cut down to become a low relief building representing the Morris Park Shops machine shop and the MDT main office building was used without any modifications to represent the Morris Park Shops main office (although in real life it was physically located on the other side of the Morris Park Shops property not near the blacksmith shop like I have it). Bruce also custom built for me a low relief of the Morris Park Shops blacksmith shop (which hopefully will someday be released as an NSM product) and again Bruce's magical abilities and super modeling skills hit a home run in creating a fantastic replica of the Morris Park Shops blacksmith shop. The background photo between the blacksmith shop and the machine shop was photo-shopped from an actual photo taken between those two building http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/morrispark/West toward Main Gate.jpg which I was lucky to find. I think it works well to complete the scene, close the gap between the two buildings and hides the fact that the track ends there, giving the impression that the track continues on to a transfer table behind the machine shop. There was a lot of trial and error with this one photo to make sure it fit correct. The photo-shopping and using a photo for such a background purpose was a first for me and I'm happy with the way it turned out. That left me with the diner which presented the biggest challenge because there are only two and a half known photos that exist of the diner which made recreating it from reference photos limiting. Additionally I couldn't use any references from other modelers who may have made this diner because I couldn't find another LIRR modeler in any other scale who ever built the Morris Park Shops diner. So I was left to my own devices, with some advice from LIRR experts especially super LIRR-expert Steve Lynch http://www.trainsarefun.com/ , the two and a half known photos and my artistic liberties. To kitbash the diner I used: the side walls from a MTL #552 00 070 Southern Pacific Coach; walls, roof and small windows from a StoneBridge Models 5001 Two Piece Modular Home Kit; the roof from a PennZee Passenger Car roof; and parts from a GCLaser 5159 Out House (Anthony Warburton - The Z Scale Monster http://www.zscalemonster.com/ had to wondering why my orders were such one of a kind items). Needless to say there was an huge amount of trial and even a greater amount of error as I kitbashed this small but unique Morris Park Shops building which in real life supposedly did not have a very good reputation for serving quality food. I used MTL 990 40 901 Flex Track embedded in the "asphalt" to represent the shop's yard tracks. I made the shop's "asphalt" area following FOS Scale Models technique which uses Ralph Lauren River Rock "Stone Chasm" RR65 and chalk weathering. The building behind the main office is a KingMill N scale Radical Flats Commerce St. No. 2 - N http://www.kingmill.com/shop/popup_image.php?image[0]=images/products/comm2.jpg& http://www.kingmill.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=208 reduced by 73% on a color copier on to heavy card stock, sprayed with Testors Dull Coat, cut out and glued to black foam core. Another first for me and again I think it came out pretty good. Chris Jessee, KingMill's owner, did a fantastic job of creating realistic background buildings printed on high quality card stock in HO and N (I wish he would make them in Z scale) that many model railroaders use on their layout for background buildings. One of my favorite examples of Chris's paper background buildings on this HO layout http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showphoto.php/photo/138277/title/crane-1-jpg/cat/500 http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showphoto.php/photo/147378/title/freight-9/cat/500 I still have to add yard items, junk, fences, vehicles, figures, etc. and create a low relief version of the shop's distinctive water tower: http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/morrispark/wheel gringing shop.jpg Overall I am pretty happy with the way this has all worked out. Until next time enjoy the photos! Yours, John
I'm always standing gaping when looking at your layout... Please John remind us: is the piece of street running, with the small 2-axle switcher and the LI yellow caboose on, beeing rail linked to the remaining of the layout? Dom
Dom (et all), Thanks! That piece of track is not powered and is just for me to display items in a yard-like setting. Yours, John
