It's always 1943 in the back room...

[p51]

I built this On30 gauge model railroad in a back bedroom, taking place on a fictional branch line of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina RR, running east out of Elizabethton, TN. It runs into the valley in which my parents grew up. It takes place in late summer of 1943 when they would have each been about 7 at the time.

It's been in 7 model train magazines and I'm currently working on another article.
Click here for more information

 

[CT1138]

Love it, man!

 

[p51]

Love it, man!

Thanks, I was wondering whether to post on this or not, as model trains are pretty far removed from sci-fi...
There is some very good video shot by a magazine on the layout, which can be seen here

 

[Analyzer]

Very cool!

As far as wondering whether to post...

Well this is the "General Modeling" section and these are "replicas". While it may contain many Sci-fi related posts, by no means is it limited to sci-fi

 

[p51]

More photos, just for the heck of it:

"Howdy, Y'all!"

"Moo, Y'all!"

"Howdy... I mean, good afternoon, Sir!"

 

[Analyzer]

Have you had stuff in Model Railroader?

 

[p51]

Have you had stuff in Model Railroader?

No, it's the only magazine in the hobby that turned me down. That magazine doesn't like On30 gauge stuff because some in the hobby consider it a cop out, using O scale stuff with HO gauge track (30" gauge was very uncommon in the US). Also, MR has one of their staffers who does all their On30 stuff (which they almost run nothing on that gauge) and he pretty much has a lock on anything to do with it. I do not expect to get into print there, sadly.
Currently, I'm working on an article for Model Railroad Craftsman, then eventually I'll work toward getting into O Scale Trains magazine
I have, however, had the layout in:

• February/March 2019 O Gauge Model Railroading Magazine (feature article)
• August/September 2018 O Gauge Model Railroading Magazine
• 2018 On30 Annual (feature article)
• March/April 2018 Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette (feature article)
• January 2018 Trackside Model Railroading online magazine (feature article). They also released a DVD of all the video they shot.
• 2017 On30 Annual (feature article)

 

[Analyzer]

That's a shame.

I am actually a Model Railroader subscriber. I remember seeing some On30 layouts in there but never heard it called a 'cop out".
Then again I am a fairly casual model railroader i.e. i would be one of those people with no clue running steam engine and transition era diesels with modern stuff.

I've been collecting all kinds of scattered stuff hoping one day to get a working layout up and running

 

[division 6]

Nice work.
I really like the realistic look of the sepia pix.

 

[p51]

I really like the realistic look of the sepia pix.

Thanks, those are cell phone photos with a app called, "Snapseed," where you can save your favorite photo edit types. I also give them a little bit of film grain look.
The Narrow Gauge Gazette article, I got some cell phone shots published using that app.
Here are a few more:

I do these mostly to try to get a "standing there in 1943 with a Speed Graphic camera" look...

 

[Analyzer]

That last shot of the truck and one of the gas station could pass for a photo of a real place!

The others almost fool you, but the scale is given away by the depth of field.

Your camera seems to handle it much better than mine. I often struggle trying to get the whole subject in focus

 

[p51]

This video shows the layout in motion...
And this album shows the layout under construction. You can see the progress that was made from here:

This was the first day that all the sections were installed into the room then bolted together. Once that was done, the track starting going into place right away and by the first night, there was about 7 feet of track or so already in place, though not hooked up to anything yet. We clipped on some wires from an old power pack and ran # 12 back and forth a couple of feet. That will be 5 years ago in a couple of weeks...

 

[Frenzy1971]

Your landscaping work- trees, gravel, really make this come to life. Stellar work

 

[p51]

Your landscaping work- trees, gravel, really make this come to life. Stellar work

Thanks very much!
I was in the hobby in the 80s and 90s, and left in disgust from some very bad experiences with a model train group in my hometown (I live on the opposite corner of the country now). I got back into the hobby a few years back when a company came out with the exact locomotives I always wanted to have a layout for. So I bought one, tried running it and it ran great. The rest is history.
This is really the first real 'layout' with scenery I've ever built. I had to re-learn everything about model train scenery and found that a lot had changed, all for the better.
I never liked photo or painted backdrops, so I cut profiles of a far-off mountain range all around the walls, then covered them in fine ground foam. In real life, you see bushes and trees up close, then through the gaps in the foreground you see the far off hill tops. So I did the same here...
Here are some color photos:

Just a few home-made decals and some weathering and an out-of-the-box Bachmann excursion car becomes an Army troop car:

Note the interior to this little depot and the chalkboard I made myself:

This is from the window that runs in front of what is a staging area with scenery. I can shoot only if the sun is just right:

 

[Frenzy1971]

Have you tried shooting with a macro lense?

 

[p51]

Have you tried shooting with a macro lense?

Nope. I have had good enough results with long exposures, which does well for my depth of field issues.
This shot was taken with a 2-minute exposure, as the depth is about 8 feet from the lens to the wall:

 

[Analyzer]

That's a pretty good depth of field. I have trouble managing more than 4" or 5" at times. But then again I am zooming on on one subject rather than a scene as a whole

 

[thegnome]

really cool!!!

 

[p51]

I recently realized I’m at the 5th anniversary of the start of the layout.

So, here we are on August 18, 2014, the first train reaches the opposite end of the line. Only 6 days before, the first train moved on about 3 feet of track at the other end:

5 years later, the same spot (and same locomotive):

 

[p51]

Last night, 5 years ago to the hour, I took a 'now' photo compared to the first time anything ran on the layout.

There wasn't much track beyond the camera's view at the time. A friend with an HO layout was helping my lay track and wire it all into place (as I hadn't built a layout in many years before that) and he insisted we temporarily hook up some leads to the rails to run something. I'm just glad I got a photo of it then.