This blog is to document the building of a model railroad, the Paducah and Lake Erie. The free-lance design is set in the current time, and meant to replicate the coal-hauling roads of southwestern Pennsylvania. This version of the P&LE is a bridge line that derives its name from my wife's home town (and well known to Illinois Central buffs) and our former long time residence about 50 miles south of Lake Erie.

Monday, September 20, 2010

A Little House

This is a craftsman laser cut wood model I just completed as part of a project for the Gateway Division of NMRA. It's the first wood craftsman kit I have ever done, the first time I have ever used chalk for color, and the first time I've ever weathered any structure!

Particulars for those interested in such things: it is an American Model Builders, Inc. (of St. Louis) laser kit; the house and trim are all done with chalks (house is green, with dirty yellow highlights), the trim is very light dirty yellow over brown, the roof is painted steel gray, the chimney is painted Tuscan red, it's ALL weathered with grimy black chalk powder, and it's all sprayed with Dullcote; I also added a little rust colored chalk to the roof (probably a little heavier than necessary); the chimney is dusted with white chalk after the Dullcote to highlight the mortar. The model is glued together with white plane-modelers glue, and the trim pieces are "pick & sticks" reinforced with CA.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to doing more such projects, including a model of MO Tower that once stood at Cresson, PA -- but first, back to installing Tortoise switch motors and getting trains running.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Gary Hoover's Incredible Railroad


I had an opportunity to visit Gary Hoover's incredible model railroad this evening. Gary, featured in Model Railroader on a number of occasions for his outstanding modeling, was a most gracious host. He is a prototype modeler with his large Cajon Pass and Chicago railroad replicating the western reaches of the Santa Fe in the transition period from steam to early generation diesel power in August, 1951. Gary loves to build prototype model railroads, and this layout will be torn out in the next few weeks to make way for his latest effort, which is already started. As I understand, this newest effort will bring us the Norfolk Southern and its heavy duty coal-hauling mountain railroading.

Tomorrow, it's back in the basement and back to the installation of Tortoise switch machines. We got the accessory buss wires put in today.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

New look to blog

I have updated the look of the blog to something I think looks a little more contemporary. I hope you like it ... but feel free to comment either way. The nice thing is that it can be changed with the click ... okay, a couple of clicks ... of a button.

For those looking for the installation of the Tortoise machines, that starts tomorrow and I'll have photos posted by the weekend.