Friend of the blog J asked the immediate obvious question when I announced my triumphant return to blogging: Will there be layout progress pictures? My answer: Of course! Much more fun than bemoaning the state of the 1:1 world.
For those of you just entering, a brief background: I have been a model railroader for over 45 years, working in N scale, where the scale (1:160) works out to about thirteen feet to the inch. My layout is set "somewhere in New England" during the "transition era," the period in the 1940s-50s when diesel power supplanted steam locomotives. My goal is not just to run trains around (though that is fun, not gonna lie) but to actually simulate the operations of a railroad as it delivers goods and people from one place to another, which is really the whole point of a transportation system.
The next question (you people are asking a LOT of questions today) is "What is 'Fedex Day?'" Fedex Day was originated by Atlassian as a team activity designed to achieve some kind of goal in a 24-hour period. (Get it? You may not be surprised to learn that they had to change the official name; please don't rat me out.) Significantly, the goal does not necessarily have to be work-related. At the conclusion of the 24-hour period, you present your work via a short video.
In early 2021 my company announced that we would be doing such an event. As it happened, I had taken advantage of working from home for the preceding year to skip down to the basement every so often to make a lot of progress on basic layout scenery work such as painting* and ballasting** the track, and completing the basic shape of the mountains on one part of the layout. I took the opportunity to tackle what is always a time-consuming activity in model railroading:
I had to skip the next couple of years for schedule reasons, but participated again in 2024. That will have to wait until I get that movie file ported over to my home computer, so stay tuned for that AND my 2025 entry, coming toward the end of February.
All aboard!
*Model track is almost always shiny out of the box, so even a quick coat of brown/rust paint on the side (web) of the rail can improve its look or at least not immediately draw the eye to its shininess. You leave the top of the rail unpainted as that is almost always how electric power gets to the engine.
**Ballast is the crushed rock used as a roadbed by railroads, holding the ties in place. There are several purveyors of model ballast, the best of which is, yes, you guessed it, Frank Stallone crushed rock. It's held in place by diluted white glue. I should have bought stock in Elmer's.
2 comments:
Just post some damn pics, Dave.
I do and do and do for you people, and this is the thanks I get?!
Post a Comment