Weekend Update 6/15/14

[up1950s]

[bbussey]

Making progress getting this fully operational and model-contest ready.

[mark dance]

Beautiful car Bryan!

I spent most of my hobby time this week preparing the layout for next week's ops session.  I did manage to replace the bulbs above the new swamp with fuller spectrum lights which moves the colour of the water to a more realistic brown which is now a very close match the our local pond.  I also sculpted a few water birds...

A pair of Mallards for the swamp


and a Common Loon for Kootenay Lake


Have a great weekend!

md

[bnsfdash8]

My NYC E7s running on a short excursion train. They're Life Like models equipped with ESU loksound.

[Philip H]

Mark,
How much do you charge per duck? I need some of those.

Brian,
Tha flat looks great!

[primavw]

Well, she's finally done...





 I will be using a pair of Corman SD40-2's to help load the coal hoppers at the Clymer coalveyor site on my layout. I haven't decided what is next, whether it be another Corman or another NS Dash 9. For now I'm going to focus on getting some work done on the Clymer side of the layout and go from there.

[unittrain]

Beautiful car Bryan!

I spent most of my hobby time this week preparing the layout for next week's ops session.  I did manage to replace the bulbs above the new swamp with fuller spectrum lights which moves the colour of the water to a more realistic brown which is now a very close match the our local pond.  I also sculpted a few water birds...

A pair of Mallards for the swamp


and a Common Loon for Kootenay Lake


Have a great weekend!

md

Thats some top scenery there  I like the way it shows the tracks in the backround in the top picture as it shows a good track/scenery ratio looks awesome The lighting is great too.

[randgust]

Love the swamp.  One of the layout concepts I've always admired was the 'studied reward'.   For those people that take the extra effort to build, they put it in there, and if you take the time to study the results, you suddenly find it, and it's great.   Casual observers and dismissive skeptics need not apply.   In this case, it's those ducks.   Wonderful.

[mark dance]

Love the swamp.  One of the layout concepts I've always admired was the 'studied reward'.   For those people that take the extra effort to build, they put it in there, and if you take the time to study the results, you suddenly find it, and it's great.   Casual observers and dismissive skeptics need not apply.   In this case, it's those ducks.   Wonderful.

Thank you for the kind words.  I have never heard it called "studied reward" before...I kind of think of it as little quirky little gimmicks kind of like John Allen had his work stegosaurus and the Edmonton Model railroad have their very well hidden Sasquatch. 

They are useful when I need to keep kids with no interest in trains occupied:  "find the bald eagles" "find the bear in the berry patch" etc.  I now have probably a dozen little creatures buried in the scenery and honestly I don't think the operators have ever seen them, or at least they have never called them out. I expect they will see the ducks as they prominently break up the swamp scene which itself breaks up the monotony of the never-ending tree covered mountains elsewhere on the layout.  I doubt they will see the loon.  We shall see.  Of course Gary, Tim, Andrew H and Greg K may read this and look for them now!

It does make me ask the forum, what is the most enjoyable "studied reward" you have uncovered on a layout you visited or saw at a show?  Happy Father's Day!

md

[randgust]

The HO display layout up on the Conway Scenic Railroad (which is nicely done) has one that stuck in my mind.   There's a couple bears out in the open.   If you study it, you'll see a hunter up on the hillside, drawing a bead on the bears.   REALLY study it, and if you look in the brush, behind the hunter, in the shadows, there's another bear sneaking up on the hunter....

I've got all kinds of stuff I've put out, and you can do that with a small layout that's "finished".  I've got a bear IN a tent, but you have to look in the tent end to see it.   But on a layout like Marks it seems like the owners 'never get around to that stuff' except in their imagination, so when you do see it, it's doubly good.

[craigolio1]

Thank you for the kind words.  I have never heard it called "studied reward" before...I kind of think of it as little quirky little gimmicks kind of like John Allen had his work stegosaurus and the Edmonton Model railroad have their very well hidden Sasquatch. 

They are useful when I need to keep kids with no interest in trains occupied:  "find the bald eagles" "find the bear in the berry patch" etc.  I now have probably a dozen little creatures buried in the scenery and honestly I don't think the operators have ever seen them, or at least they have never called them out. I expect they will see the ducks as they prominently break up the swamp scene which itself breaks up the monotony of the never-ending tree covered mountains elsewhere on the layout.  I doubt they will see the loon.  We shall see.  Of course Gary, Tim, Andrew H and Greg K may read this and look for them now!

It does make me ask the forum, what is the most enjoyable "studied reward" you have uncovered on a layout you visited or saw at a show?  Happy Father's Day!

md

Jerry Lewis, the old guy who owned the hobby store in the town I grew up in, loved this kind of thing. When I knew him he was an old man and genuinely loved kids coming I to the shop. He would let us run trains on the window layout or locos out of the case back and forth on his test track. This test track is where had these hidden delights. My favorite was a guy who was pooping in the bush and There was a bear walking towards him. Haha. Classic.

[craigolio1]

I also now believe us N scale modellers dream too much about bears.

[BCR 570]

I also now believe us N scale modellers dream too much about bears.

If you model a railway in B.C., bears are never far from the right of way.  Here is a BC Rail Chetwynd Subdivision bear from 2009:




Tim

[randgust]

It's only strange when it's irrational.   Having grown up in the woods of PA, I've been chased (i.e. 'woofed off' and followed) no fewer than three times in my life by black bears, and had a 'lifetime stupid episode' of accompanying an UNARMED game warden searching for a vehicle-hit wounded cub in front of my house, at night, in snow, when the driver said there were 2 more cubs and mother...which we both decided was way off the dumb scale and retreated.    A few years back my son was chased back inside a restaurant he worked in by a bear feeding behind the dumpster.... and my wife the teacher found a mother and two cubs at the back door of the elementary school she teaches at, looking for discarded snacks on the playground.  Last week.

We have no shortage of material to work from around here!

   

[hegstad1]

Started some scenery work on the Fish Creek side of my layout.  A-lot of this is experimentation and "learn as you go".  Still far far away from completion.