I print my own railroad backdrops from images that I google. Here I show roughly how I do it. My railroad is based on scenery in Northern California, so I google well known landmarks around the Bay Area for photos. I make heavy use of the...
When I built the floor to ceiling canyon on the HO-scale Redwoods and Railroad in 1997, I had some friends come over and help apply the plaster. To make the canyon, I roughed out the shape of the hills and valleys using strips of cardboard....
One of my favorite pastimes is to go fishing early in the morning at the beach at Crissy Field. I try to go at least twice a week before work during the spring and summer. One day I noticed a bunch of plastic litter up above...
In this 4 minute video I show how I built a ferry slip headwork for my Redwoods and Pacific Railroad. Even though the tracks of the ferry slip end at a wall I wanted something more than just a backdrop to indicate the structure. I...
Railroad equipment rarely looks brand new in real life, so I like to weather my trains to give them that well worn look. In this video, my daughter and I weather a couple of Bachmann Pacific Fruit Express (PFE) Reefers. In real life, the PFE...
Those annoying mice! A mouse ate all my HO-scale pumpkins, so I painted some more and fixed up the pumpkin patch. 3.5 minutes. Enjoy! ...
When I planned the Redwoods and Pacific, I purposely built in many bridges. My favorite so far is this deck truss bridge. [caption id="attachment_511" align="aligncenter" width="300"] NWP #179 crosses Island Mountain bridge on the Redwoods and Pacific RR[/caption] The bridge sits at the far end of a...
A long time ago I won a Details Associates beet car at a PCR door raffle and it was only last year that I decided to put it together. [caption id="attachment_504" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Sugar Beet Gondola built from Detail Associates kit[/caption] It’s a wonderful kit, but it...
I enjoy taking HO building kits and repurposing them. Here is one that I built for my seaside district. It's a seafood wholesale building sitting on a pier over the water. I got the idea for this kitbash from Art Curren's Kitbashing HO Model Structures book....
It is one of my favorite modeling techniques. Basically, I get a kit and throw out the instructions. The kit parts become raw materials to make something new and different, or to make a model of something from the real world that is not available...
I go fishing at Crissy Field at least once a week and I often think about some of the fascinating history of the field. During WWII the Army had built a long 4 track yard to stage hospital trains. You can see pictures of the...
I grew up as a toy train guy. My father started his first layout when I was three years old and growing up with trains meant that it was in my blood by the time of my first memories. His early layouts were not permanent until...
The Embarcadero Freeway was truly a depressing structure and made the Embarcadero near the ferry building seem dark and foreboding. And although the 1989 earthquake was a terrible experience, one of the few good things that came out of that was the condemnation and eventual...
My latest project on my model railroad is this waterfall. I've patterned it after McArthur-Burney falls in Northern California. It's still a work in progress, but I'm liking how it is turning out. ...
A passenger local crosses the Island Mountain Bridge on the Redwoods and Pacific Railroad. The bridge is kitbashed from two Vollmer 2546 Kastenbrücke kits. The passenger cars are by Roundhouse and Model Power and the locomotive is a Sunset brass engine. ...
Small wireless spy cameras are widely available, and there are even a few available specifically for HO-scale trains. This got me to thinking about letting my cousin in Germany run a train on my train layout, using Skype. Why not? Connecting the camera receiver to...
Jeroen used Shapeways.com to print a three dimensional model of a train station. He has photos and a description of the pieces he received and how he is putting it together. I am totally jazzed by the possibilities of creating 3D models and having them printed...
Geeks3d is "All 3D Tech News, All The Time", and they just covered the Shapeways announcement. ...
Shapeways looks really interesting. According to Technology Review you upload a 3-D design to the website, and 10 days and $50-$100 later, you receive a polymer version of your design. I can see this as really handy for creating masters for items that I want...
Mantua locomotives are among my favorites. These locos were first produced in the 1940's and 50's and are tough and reliable. Here are a couple resources for locos and parts. Loco kits - http://www.jaystrains.com/HO-HOn3/Locomotives/hosteam.htm Parts and remotoring - http://yardbirdtrains.com/index.htm Remotoring - http://www.ablehobby.com/Alliance%20repower%20Parts.htm...