Category: Model trains
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The Shape Is The Problem
And the solution. A recent trip to a model railway exhibition showed me a taste of the different styles of layout; the dogbone continuous runner, the oval with benefits, the back and forth…sometimes with magazine feed. There were thin layouts and fat ones, and a couple of very large ones with the operators sitting inside…
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Practical Lessons In Showmanship
Determined to get value for brass from the recent model railway exhibition, I have set aside my disappointment and drawn up a list of lessons learned. a. If you go to a show, go for a reason. You’ll be paying show prices so get value. b. The show should be on the stage in front…
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The Standard Can Of Soup
You may never experience three-star Michelin fine dining in your life. But you can certainly get a good bowl of soup – just look for the Heinz or Campbell label. It will not have the wonderful ingredients and spices of the restaurant’s speciality…but you will be able to depend upon it. So it is with…
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Disciplined Expectation
A phrase I would recommend to many when they go to an exhibition. I have attended an annual show and taken my own advice. I gritted my teeth at the price of parking on the grounds and for the door ticket. I noted with dismay the closure of half of the space used for other…
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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…
The Little World 