Wanna see the show?

The Granite City train show is coming up soon I think I'll get Gonou out again and show it off. People like it.

So if you're in Minnesota and want to go to a good train show you can't do any better than this one. See you there.

Rumours of my demise...

... are greatly exaggerated as the quote goes.

I'm not dead, or like the Norwegian Blue* just resting. I'm still modelling, just not in T. Plus its summer and no self respecting person would shut himself in the basement and model unless the temperatures felt like 115 degrees. Which it did a couple of times.

I've passed through the T scale world every now and again and came across this posting from David K Smith on his blog. Very disappointing news if it turns out to be true. There is a lot of very exciting stuff out there. I guess things will remain available for a while. But new things? It doesn't look good. I was feeling quite depressed.

Then I saw this, another David K Smith tiny project. Moving cars in T? This is fantastic! This kind of fires me up again. I feel the need to build a small layout with a train and moving roadway on it. I've ordered a couple of kits of parts to see what I can do with it. I have plenty of road vehicles to try it out on.

What will happen?

We'll see...

*Dead Parrot sketch - Monty Python

Adding to the display

I shall be adding a new layout to My T scale display in the near future you can read about it here where I explain a bit about the history and reasoning behind it.

Grain elevator comes along some more

Bit of a progress update on the Grain Elevator Project. The model has been painted, though the weathering spray is a little bit over scale. The pipework adds some character to the model.

Some inspiration

Something a little special. Not Model Railroad related mind you. But inspirational nonetheless.

Whilst away in Red Wing this weekend I was browsing in a secondhand book shop and I spied this Chinese Cork picture on one of the shelves.

I was immediately captivated by it. It is no more than 3 1/2 inches wide but is incredibly detailed. Just look at the tiling and the latticework on the pagoda, the leaves on the trees.

It's amazing to think that this was all carved by hand out of cork.
What can I tell you about cork pictures?

Very little really. There is almost no information about the art on the internet. All I can tell you is that the elements in the scene. The trees, the cranes, and the pagoda shelter are all standard elements of the art. They eminate from the Fujian region of SE China and seemed to have started in the early 1900's and that's about it. So if anyone knows anymore I'm all ears.

What I do know is that I find it very inspiring to think someone did this by hand. Perhaps when I'm struggling with some T scale items I'll look at this and be spurred on.

Research Pictures

Safely returned from Red Wing. Here are some pictures of the Grain elevator. Though I found plenty of pictures on the internet that got me started on constructing the model. It was very useful to see the real thing. I discovered quite a bit that I couldn't see from the photographs, but I could also see that it didn't really matter if I missed them out or not. There are a lot more windows on the structure than I could see in the photos. As I plan on adding the windows as decals after I've finished painting I don't have to fret about cutting them out now.

This picture above clearly shows how much narrower my head tower needs to be compared to the prototype.
It clearly would be folly of the highest order to try and get all that detail in the cyclones shown here in T scale but there is no reason why I can't recreate them somehow with a selection of styrene rods and tubing and strip with a little bit of filler and some filing here and there.
There's several nice long down pipes there worth modelling and there is a part of me that wants to recreate those tall folding doors...

Site report

Courtesy of a weekend away. I am writing this entry from a hotel in Red Wing, MN not too far from the site of the subject of my current structure modelling project, the grain elevator. Having looked at it and photographed it I have quickly come to the decision that the head house tower is too fat. It needs to be thinner. Not by much, but it is obvious to me that the proportions are wrong. Other than that things look pretty good. Got to see some angles that I haven't seen from the photos I have purloined from the Internet. I have Monday off work so I'm looking forward to finishing the model off.