Tinplate or Hi-rail? Yes!


On the other hand, here we have a subject from 1998 that, judging from his grip on Bossy's button, could be harboring a marked type 5 streak... :eek:
 

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Chuck, thanks so much for bringing these back to us! Your posts were among our greatest losses when the forums went down, and I'm so glad you're willing to take the time to share them again. Your posts are the high point of my day. :)
 
Many thanx to all for the kind words. Claudia, you need to get out more!

Naw, I'm kiddin'. ;)

At last we come full circle, to the west end of the farm...

Much work remains to be done here, the green felt is just temporary "grass". This site awaits a realistic ground cover treatment, the buildings need paint and weathering, detailing, and of course, more people. These Ertl structures were scaled without Plasticville "shrinkage", being made to full 1/64 proportions. They may be moved to the foreground, eventually.
 

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During the long run in 1998, I would occasionally have time to prowl the room to get candid people shots. I tried to catch this little guy, "deeeeep in ze plachtau" while bouncing the gates up and down. He caught me in time to flash a practiced grin. I had the feeling he gets many photo ops.
 

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Well some of it looks a little blurred, but that smiling face is all it needs, makes it worth while don't it.
Cheers Willis
 
Moving on to the Queen Mary in August of 2000, here we see that sometimes things aren't all grins. This gate operator seemed to think that Billy the Bag Smasher (out of view) might respond to a pep talk:

"I'm pushing the button! So MOVE already!!"
 

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Grins were not to be seen here, either. The boy on the right apparently was hypnotized by the oil derricks. Dunno if it was the bubbling yellow "oil", or the red glow. I doubt it was the bubbling sound, since none of that could be heard above the general din.

The boy on the left seemed very unhappy. Was he just tired, or did one of his parents say, "No, we don't have room for trains..."?
 

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Hj Chuck, well the way I see it is the boys are very interested and intently focused on something out of the photo, That I can understand, because from the photos so far there is a lot to take in, I mean watching that layout in operation would push Disneyland right out of their minds and I'd bet they would be talking about it for years after. BUT! I do like the captions, keep em coming :D
 
These two girls were both very concerned with gate operation, but the girl on the left couldn't help wondering about the dog caught in traffic...
 

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Of couse, kids weren't the only people visiting the QM that day. Here, our diecast-collecting friend Jim (rt) discusses the natural interface of 1/64 car collecting with 1/64 model railroading...
 

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From 1998...

An American Models intermodal consist traces the edge of the city...
 

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Still 1998, still intermodal, my first scratchbuilding effort (finished March '94), a "steel" welded flat carrying an unprototypic load...
 

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Back to TTOS Convention 2000, aboard the Queen Mary...

Yours truly (left) and Jim take a deep breath before dragging another helping of the C+D System into a freight elevator aboard the Queen Mary.

Getting to our venue on G deck, 20 feet below the waterline, was... um, interesting. We had to first load as much of the layout as we could handle per trip into a freight elevator, which changed its altitude by 4ft. We were not allowed to accompany our equipment on this epic vertical journey, but had to take a stairway to the deck where our stuff would settle.

Then, we had to drag the stuff across E deck to a teensy, tiny elevator barely large enough to get the corner sections into, which would drop us to G deck. This elevator was part of the ship's original facilities. Since it was prone to failure, we would scramble up the central staircases to return to the dock. No sense in stressing the balky antique "lift". (That's English talk for "elevator".)

The elevator worked ok for loading in, but a few days later, when it was time to load out there was some anxiety among the exhibitors about whether the thing would hold out for the duration. Dropping thousands of pounds of toy trains two decks was one thing. Lifting them all two decks was quite another. Sure enough, it quit. As we were pulling sections of the C+D apart, we heard one of the more laconic members of the club strolling about the deck, calling out, "Iceberg! Dead ahead!" He came up to us and reported, "Great news, folks. The elevator has broken down, and the maintenance people seem about as concerned as the captain of the Titanic."

We had to hoist the layout up two flights of stairs, a little at a time.

Jim's expression three days earlier seems to anticipate the ordeal...
 

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Jim makes sure all is straight as I close latches and connect wiring underneath. Already, Jim has to take care to avoid bumping his head against the staircase.

Not quite visible in this shot, behind Jim, we found a hole in the carpet, which turned out to be a hole in the deck, about 4" square. Unable to contain our curiosity, we got a flashlight and peered down into the black abyss. What greeted us was the empty, rusty bilge of the ship! Nothing but rusted steel hull, as far as we could see, for another 20 feet down. Kinda creepy, really. :eek:

We put a container over the hole to prevent little feet from being swallowed...
 

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Besides kid types 1-5, seen here in 2006 is another type; the "follower". This type likes to follow the train as it rumbles nonstop around the entire layout, oblivious to any obstacles in the real world. These two followers have lost interest in Bossy, and with their attention focused on a moving train they bear down on a gate operator. Did they stop before colliding with the unsuspecting gateman? I don't remember, but the Stop-In-Time success rate for followers is often much lower than for 1/64 engineers stopping for Bossy. Not sure why.
 

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The whole layout, as of August 2000; all 22' x 10' 3" of it. :eek:

Looks kinda small from this angle. It seems much bigger when setting it up, or taking it down.
 

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