Category: Model trains
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Can You Be Nostalgic…
About someone else’s past? Can you appropriate memories and images? In most societies this is severely frowned upon – like the outroar if a non-indigenous person were to paint themselves with dust and dots. Or a Canadian Prime to apply shoe polish to his face and hands for a frat party. Big explosion! So how…
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Do We Have A Trade War With Japan, China, Or The Czech Republic?
No? Goodoh. That means we really should be able to order kits and supplies from these countries free of any interference from the Petulant of the United States, Ronald Grump. I have been looking at the kits I build and the goods I want and am a little saddened to see that some of the…
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Merely A Model Builder
And old eccentric. Trapped in a second childhood. A harmless weirdo. Or so it would seem from a recent detective novel I read. Written about a modern-day serial murderer in Somerset and the detective work that catches her, it takes more than a passing swipe at model railway enthusiasts – and railway hobbyists in general.…
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A Pad Of Paper And Box Of Pencils
And the world is yours. Put on your pyjamas, get a hot drink, settle down at the table, and draw up the Universe. It is not blasphemous – Someone Famous did it a long time ago… Don’t draw a layout – that would be too committed – a table upon which you can move the…
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The Little World Sometimes Runs Along The Ground
And sometimes you can run alongside it… I have a spare table at the studio, and a spare ground cloth. And some old Kato HO track that once rimmed my RCAF WET DOG display. And some spare houses and buildings… What would be more natural than to lay an oval of HO toy train track…
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The Trains Now Arriving…
In my local hobby shop are wonderful. They have digital control, digital sound, and completely realistic motion. Their couplers are tiny and there are a full complement of passengers and crew. The wagons and carriages are lined and decaled and the only thing that deters me from sweeping up an armful of them is the…
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What Did You Make?
Or – if you are still cutting and gluing – what are you making? Is it a little airplane from a kit? A ship? A doll house? A working railway? Good – all you different makers, would you be surprised to realise that you are all making the same thing? What? You are making yourself…
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Do Miniaturists Live Minimal Lives?
You might get that impression from the television and movie portrayals of model makers. We seem to be the losers skulking in the basements of the world. Many of us are psychopaths. Well, that may be you, but it isn’t me. My childhood interest was converted to professional purposes and served me well for forty…
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Forbidden Modelling
What an odd concept. Who can forbid scale modelling? Well, quite a few official bodies, as it happens. Try to fly a model airplane, run an R/C car or boat, or scramble about the local oval with your model tank and see what a squawk it raises. These restrictions multiply when there are clubs and…
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The Toy Train People Have An Advantage
Model railway builders who exhibit their layouts have a pretty big task to do – they have some major haulage and construction to do to set up a display. Once done, however, they have a distinct advantage over the model builders who make plastic kits; the toy trains move. The model railway maker might be…
The Little World 