In Lieu of Wordless Wednesday: Throwback Thursday Eve - On Giving Thanks and Making Trees

 

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

You've likely heard - and perhaps even participated - in the debate of whether model railroading is art. But have you ever thought of it as worship or contemplation?

After being sick the past couple of weeks, I woke up recently feeling much better and noticed the beautiful sunrise from my back deck. The mood was enhanced by some nice seasonal music playing in the background (do yourself a favor and check out this song in particular). I couldn't help but try and capture it in the photograph above and the scene reminded me of the poem by Joyce Kilmer - " . . . only God can make a tree."

I think any time we engage in any creative endeavor, whether it be music, painting, dance, sculpture, or any of the arts - any time we create something for the purity of it itself - we are affirming our innate humanness and participating with God in Creation. While we can never be God, I believe our creative endeavors are reflections of the Imago Dei in our lives.

In this respect, our attempts at creating miniature worlds are echoes of our true identity as humans. We are born creators and while our attempts can never be any more than a mere reflections of the real world, I believe that the process of creating that world can itself be a contemplative exercise, affirming our humanity and providing an oasis in the midst of troubling times.

Is it any wonder, then, that a creative hobby can be so calming and restorative? And I think doing it can sometimes be an act of thanksgiving, thanking our Creator for the privilege of being able to participate in creation, in even a small way.

I've spent the past couple of Sunday afternoons dipping my toe in the deep end of this pool, trying my best to make some trees . . .

I started with armatures from Scenic Express, separating them into separate "trees" and spray painting them a medium gray color. When I was young, I always colored trees brown - but, turns out, they're often mostly shades of gray.

While the instructions recommend soaking the armatures in matte medium, I'm following the path many others have taken and am using hairspray (the cheapest, firmest hold you can get) to affix the "leaves" (various colors of flocking) to the armatures. I heavily spray the armature, then sprinkle the flocking over an old pie pan, which I then use to pour the excess flocking back into the container it came from.

It's a slow process - it took me an entire afternoon to do the trees you see above - but hopefully I'll get faster with practice.

But the results are definitely worth the time.

That's another thing I'm learning as I do more scenery on the layout: the time it takes often results in a better product, and the process itself can put you in a better, calmer, more contemplative frame of mind.

This Thanksgiving season, I hope you'll have a little extra time to spend working on your layouts - or doing whatever hobby you're in the mood for. And if you do, I hope you'll reflect on how blessed we are that, no matter what our level of skill or ability, we're able to create something that can bring us joy and maybe even a little peace.

From our home to yours, we wish you, your families and friends, a blessed Thanksgiving and holiday season.

(While this post was first published Thanksgiving, 2022 I think it fitting to repost in keeping with the spirit of the season, and to remind me to keep things in their proper perspective, being truly grateful for all my many blessings despite all that's going on in the world around us. I hope it helps you too during these difficult times.)

Throwback Thursday: On Giving Thanks & Making Trees

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

You've likely heard - and perhaps even participated - in the debate of whether model railroading is art. But have you ever thought of it as worship or contemplation?

After being sick all this past week, and almost missing Thanksgiving entirely, I woke up this morning feeling much better and noticed the beautiful sunrise from my back deck. The mood was enhanced by some nice seasonal music playing in the background (do yourself a favor and check out this song in particular). I couldn't help but try and capture it in the photograph above and the scene reminded me of the poem by Joyce Kilmer - " . . . only God can make a tree."

I think any time we engage in any creative endeavor, whether it be music, painting, dance, sculpture, or any of the arts - any time we create something for the purity of it itself - we are affirming our innate humanness and participating with God in Creation. While we can never be God, I believe our creative endeavors are reflections of the Imago Dei in our lives.

In this respect, our attempts at creating miniature worlds are echoes of our true identity as humans. We are born creators and while our attempts can never be any more than a mere reflections of the real world, I believe that the process of creating that world can itself be a contemplative exercise, affirming our humanity and providing an oasis in the midst of troubling times.

Is it any wonder, then, that a creative hobby can be so calming and restorative? And I think doing it can sometimes be an act of thanksgiving, thanking our Creator for the privilege of being able to participate in creation, in even a small way.

I've spent the past couple of Sunday afternoons dipping my toe in the deep end of this pool, trying my best to make some trees . . .

I started with armatures from Scenic Express, separating them into separate "trees" and spray painting them a medium gray color. When I was young, I always colored trees brown - but, turns out, they're often mostly shades of gray.

While the instructions recommend soaking the armatures in matte medium, I'm following the path many others have taken and am using hairspray (the cheapest, firmest hold you can get) to affix the "leaves" (various colors of flocking) to the armatures. I heavily spray the armature, then sprinkle the flocking over an old pie pan, which I then use to pour the excess flocking back into the container it came from.

It's a slow process - it took me an entire afternoon to do the trees you see above - but hopefully I'll get faster with practice.

But the results are definitely worth the time.

That's another thing I'm learning as I do more scenery on the layout: the time it takes often results in a better product, and the process itself can put you in a better, calmer, more contemplative frame of mind.

This Thanksgiving season, I hope you'll have a little extra time to spend working on your layouts - or doing whatever hobby you're in the mood for. And if you do, I hope you'll reflect on how blessed we are that, no matter what our level of skill or ability, we're able to create something that can bring us joy and maybe even a little peace.

From our home to yours, we wish you, your families and friends, a blessed Thanksgiving and holiday season.

(While this post was first published Thanksgiving, 2022 I think it fitting to repost in keeping with the spirit of the season, and to remind me to keep things in their proper perspective, being truly grateful for all my many blessings despite all that's going on in the world around us. I hope it helps you too during these difficult times.)

Wordless Wednesday #423

 

Christmas Dreaming - 1982

I didn't realize it at the time, but forty years ago today I embarked on a lifelong hobby. And it was entirely by accident.

Among the many gifts my little brother and I got that Christmas morning was a computer and a train set. While I was into computers, all the attention was on the train - especially since it prompted my great-grandmother, who happened to be visiting, to tell us about my great, and great-great, grandfathers' careers on the old Illinois Central Railroad. I'd always been into history, but the combination of family stories and a fascination with miniatures was pretty compelling. The computer faded into the background as my dad and I "helped" my kid brother with his train set.

The limitations of a simple loop of track prodded us to find a local hobby shop to get more track - and maybe even some "switchouts." Once there, if I'd just been nibbling around the hobby before, once I saw my first issue of Model Railroader, the hook was now firmly set. I had no idea you could actually recreate history in miniature like this. I'd always been fascinated by museum dioramas, but these dioramas were way bigger - and had action! And you could create whatever world you wanted, limited only by your imagination.

Ah, the dreamings of a young model railroader - no matter his (or her) actual age. Subsequent weeks and months followed a pattern familiar to many: dreaming about layouts and track arrangements, being confronted by limitations of space and time, the uneasy detente with other things competing for one's time, money, and attention. . . Is there anything quite like those early days, when the future is full of possibility and, not unlike Schrodinger's cat, you're just as likely to create a masterpiece as fail in the attempt?

It's been 40 years today since it all started. The train set disappeared over time (although the power pack survives to light the Christmas layout, pictured above), my hobby pursuits have gotten much more sophisticated, and my ambitions more realistic. But every once in a while, I get another taste of the initial excitement I experienced all those years ago.

And a gift from my mom & dad around Christmas last year (actually, for my birthday, which is a week later), provided a huge helping  - just in time for this year...

Yessir - that, my friends, is a bona fide Campbell's Soup train set, "Limited Edition 1982" - exactly like the one from that long-ago Christmas. Over the course of time, I'd forgotten what the cars looked like, but the red and white F7 diesel was instantly recognizable. Of course, it's more than just an old train set - it's wonder and dreams and possibilities distilled into metal and plastic. It's a reminder of my entry into a hobby that's given me a chance to meet people from all walks of life from all over the world, that's provided hours of stress relief (while sometimes inducing stress), that's helped me develop a number of different skills - many of which I've been able to use outside the hobby.

Most of all though, every time I see it - especially now that I have it set up around the Christmas tree - it reminds me of being full of hope, anticipating wonderful possibilities, and looking forward to the future. And isn't that the essence of being young, if not chronologically, at least young in heart?

Here's hoping this Christmas that you're able to capture and hold on to the joy and wonder of the season, to be a kid again - if only in your outlook - and to enjoy time with family and friends.

And if someone you know gets a train set for Christmas, beware - you may just have a front row seat to the start of a lifelong passion.

Merry Christmas!

On Giving Thanks and Making Trees

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

You've likely heard - and perhaps even participated - in the debate of whether model railroading is art. But have you ever thought of it as worship or contemplation?

After being sick all this past week, and almost missing Thanksgiving entirely, I woke up this morning feeling much better and noticed the beautiful sunrise from my back deck. The mood was enhanced by some nice seasonal music playing in the background (do yourself a favor and check out this song in particular). I couldn't help but try and capture it in the photograph above and the scene reminded me of the poem by Joyce Kilmer - " . . . only God can make a tree."

I think any time we engage in any creative endeavor, whether it be music, painting, dance, sculpture, or any of the arts - any time we create something for the purity of it itself - we are affirming our innate humanness and participating with God in Creation. While we can never be God, I believe our creative endeavors are reflections of the Imago Dei in our lives.

In this respect, our attempts at creating miniature worlds are echoes of our true identity as humans. We are born creators and while our attempts can never be any more than a mere reflections of the real world, I believe that the process of creating that world can itself be a contemplative exercise, affirming our humanity and providing an oasis in the midst of troubling times.

Is it any wonder, then, that a creative hobby can be so calming and restorative? And I think doing it can sometimes be an act of thanksgiving, thanking our Creator for the privilege of being able to participate in creation, in even a small way.

I've spent the past couple of Sunday afternoons dipping my toe in the deep end of this pool, trying my best to make some trees . . .

I started with armatures from Scenic Express, separating them into separate "trees" and spray painting them a medium gray color. When I was young, I always colored trees brown - but, turns out, they're often mostly shades of gray.

While the instructions recommend soaking the armatures in matte medium, I'm following the path many others have taken and am using hairspray (the cheapest, firmest hold you can get) to affix the "leaves" (various colors of flocking) to the armatures. I heavily spray the armature, then sprinkle the flocking over an old pie pan, which I then use to pour the excess flocking back into the container it came from.

It's a slow process - it took me an entire afternoon to do the trees you see above - but hopefully I'll get faster with practice.

But the results are definitely worth the time.

That's another thing I'm learning as I do more scenery on the layout: the time it takes often results in a better product, and the process itself can put you in a better, calmer, more contemplative frame of mind.

This Thanksgiving season, I hope you'll have a little extra time to spend working on your layouts - or doing whatever hobby you're in the mood for. And if you do, I hope you'll reflect on how blessed we are that, no matter what our level of skill or ability, we're able to create something that can bring us joy and maybe even a little peace.

From our home to yours, we wish you, your families and friends, a blessed Thanksgiving and holiday season.

Stay Tuned . . .

Thanks to all of you that took the time to weigh in on the previous post. I really appreciate the thoughtful feedback as well as the many reminders of why I started this blog in the first place: to be a journal ("[we]b log") of the construction of my layout depicting railroading in the southern Connecticut River Valley during the late 1940s.

While Facebook admittedly (and aggressively/intentionally) makes it super easy to post and get feedback, many of you reminded me of what irritates me most about FB (in addition to the usual complaints :^) - I ultimately do not own or control the content. I'm creating content for FB. Of course, there's some "payback" in the comments, "likes", and the community that it creates - but ultimately it's not designed to be what this blog has been: a documentation of my layout's "journey" (as Marty put it) and a nicely archived encyclopedia of techniques that I can easily find and refer back to.

So, having checked in with the folks here - and again, my sincere "thank you" for the input - I'll be refocusing my efforts here. While I'm tempted follow the example of many in totally getting off FB (even the thought of that makes me smile %^), maintaining the Valley Local group there does have some value (e.g. it's great for posting a quick question during construction and getting instant answers and feedback).

But I'll be posting here primarily going forward, so stay tuned for more content coming your way. Hopefully it doesn't become too much - but as some others commented, the blog should ultimately be for my benefit and archive. If others get some value out of it, that's awesome but not necessary.

And it looks like I have a lot to catch up on - I can't believe that my last substantive layout-related post was about layout skirting way back on August 28(!). And for those of you who aren't on FB, you may be surprised at the amount of progress I've made (heh - and the rabbit holes I've gone down) over the past couple of months.

I'm looking forward to sharing it here with anybody that's willing to come along for the ride!

Thoughtful Thursday: Continue with the Blog?

First and foremost, I want to make it clear that this post isn't some lame trolling for compliments. I'm sincerely interested in some honest (even brutally honest) feedback and (hopefully constructive) criticism.

The combination of a few things have caused me to reassess whether to continue with this blog. In no particular order:

• Google is making some changes that will require me to revamp/rework things
• Blogger no longer appears to be sending out email notifications to folks that have "subscribed" to this blog (notices of new posts used to be sent out & aren't any longer)
• As much as I hate to admit it, Facebook is a much more convenient platform to post on - and posts there receive exponentially more feedback & comments than posts here. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks that will never get on FB - even to follow the Valley Local %^) - and, frankly, if I didn't have the Valley Local FB group I'd likely delete my personal account and interaction with FB entirely.
• While I continue to maintain the Valley Local website, Google will be shutting down that platform soon so I'll have to rebuild the site somewhere else.

So all together, I'm feeling a lot of headwind. Even the blogs over at Model Railroad Hobbyist (heh, you may not even know that I have a presence there too) have become pretty cumbersome to use, IMO.

Anybody that's done a blog will typically tell you two things: 1) it requires work, and 2) the work is worth it if you're getting responses and feedback. With Blogger no longer sending out email notices, folks need to remember to check in here on their own and - with all the other things competing for time - that can sometimes be a heavy lift. I get it. There are a lot of layout blogs I forget to check in on - especially if those layouts are on FB. It's just easier to subscribe and get the notices pushed to your FB feed.

But if folks aren't checking in & leaving comments/feedback, there's no way to know they're out there. You start to wonder if there's anyone left reading what you're posting & whether your time is better spent doing something else.

So if you're still here and are willing to take the time, let me know - even just to say "hey! I'm still here!" :^) And if you have a little more time, let me know whether the blog is helpful, something you'd like to see continue, or if you're getting your content elsewhere. I've read in a bunch of places that blogs are becoming a thing of the past. Maybe it's time for this one to close up.

As I said at the top - any/all feedback/criticism/suggestions are welcome and will be super helpful in evaluating next steps.

Thanks much for reading this far - and here's hoping you have some fun modeling planned!

Friday Fun - October Update

(just a heads up - this is a LONG post, but there are lots of pictures and I think you'll enjoy catching up, especially if you make it all the way to the end...)

I've often said it - when you have enough time to blog, you seldom have enough to blog about. And the corollary is even more true: when you have a TON you could blog about, you don't have the time to write!

Thankfully, I've been more in the latter camp than the former - though the posts here have suffered as a result. But I've tried to keep y'all up to date a bit with the "Wordless Wednesday"s - letting pictures do the work of thousands of words. And I tend to post small, very quick, items on the Valley Local FB group, But as Randy reminded me last night, sometimes it's not enough to just post pictures and a few words - sometimes you have to provide a bit more...

The skinny is - October has been a VERY busy month!

Right after my last ops session at the end of September, we started a MAJOR home improvement project . . .

Don't want to clutter a nice hobby blog with home remodeling stuff, but we're residing most of the house and are totally gutting/redoing the master bed & bath. Thankfully, all I had to do was the demo - the contractors are doing the rest.

While taking a break from demolition (and prompted by BillS, who'd been a sometimes-confused Saybrook Tower operator at my last session), I finally got around to changing the Saybrook Control Panel to reflect the changes in trackwork I'd done literally years ago. . .

If you've been following the blog regularly, you've seen the pics. If you haven't, click here. :^) Suffice it to say, this project was a bit scary (which is why I'd put it off for so long) since any mistake would risk totally screwing up the board I'd worked so hard on. Thankfully, it all came out alright - though inelegantly - at the end. . .

Even the prototype has to make such changes from time to time, so I'm just gonna accept how it looks.

I've also been efforting some engines - trying to make a DEY-3 and a DEY-5 out of a P2k S-2 and an Atlas S-2 - and finishing some freight cars (I've been sessions have been strangely short of cars since Bill needed his returned) . . .

Speaking of locomotives, my first-ever product review came out partway through the month:

Model Railroad News, November, 2021

And speaking of Bill, I was able to attend his first shake-down ops session on Oct. 6:

For more pics and a full report, be sure to check out Randy's blog post about it.

Just a few days later, Pete and I attended the NMRA's annual Northeast Regional Convention in Lowell, MA:

That weekend-long trip really merits its own post - or posts! - so stay tuned for more later...

The next weekend, The Missus and I made our way up to the Worcester Union Station for dinner:

As you can see from the pics, it's been beautifully restored and the restaurant has a cool 1920s/gangster theme. It's definitely worth checking out if you're in the area!

Back to some model railroading though, I found some time to decal a freight car:

It's been a LONG time (almost 4yrs?!) since I've decaled anything, so I was feeling pretty rusty. But as you can see above, the car came out pretty great. Since I'm sure I'm not the only one to be intimidated by decaling, I'm planning a separate post to go over how I did this car.

Someone (irritatingly) has said - "Embrace the Fear and It'll Disappear." Well, I still have a long way to go in that department, especially when it comes to scenery (despite what follows below), but I must've been in the right frame of mind since around the same time I tackled decaling again, I opened up one of my brass steamers to replace the capacitor.  

Apparently, during my ill-fated Shorting Session, K-1b #278 decided to die - at least partially. It would run fine, but the stay-alive didn't work at all. Consequently, it would die going across most of my unpowered frogs.

This is what I found when I opened up the tender - an old NCE keep-alive with (count'em) SIX capacitors! And, apparently, not a one of them working.

Now, I have on-hand a few Loksound Power Paks (ESU's brand of capacitor), but they require three wires to allow them to be easily turned off for programming. Thanks to a recommendation by KayleeZ, I got one of the new TCS KA2 capacitors which have only two wires (just like what I was replacing) and is actually slightly smaller than the PowerPak!

So it ended up being just a matter of cutting the two wires of the old capacitor, matching the wires, and splicing/soldering in the new capacitor. Now the 278 is ready for its next assignment!

As if all that weren't enough to do during a very busy month, I took a little inspiration from the remodeling project and did a little painting...

One of my (growing list of) Canadian friends, DeanT, has been on me for at least 7 years to cover up the pink foam with some paint. And I've just put it off, figuring it'd be a waste of time since I'd take care of it when I did scenery in the area. Well, it's been 7 years and there's still no scenery in these areas. It only ended up taking me a couple of hours and a roller to make Essex to East Haddam look SO much nicer!

So, speaking of scenery. . . .

It's been since January that I started (re)working on the scenery in Dividend, including my first-ever rock cut. And now that my ops session electrical issues have (hopefully!) cleared up - and since I'm staring down ANOTHER ops session, this time with some first-timers - I thought it'd be good to have some actual progress to show...

Here's where I'd left off:

I'd reworked the track here (back in July 2020?!), and added foundations to and pavement around the Hartford Rayon buildings, but the only scenery (other than a nice cut and some rocks) was green and "burnt grass" Woodland Scenics groundfoam, outlines for a house and garage - and a photo backdrop, covered in cellophane to protect it from what was supposed to be imminent additional progress.

And it sat that way for another 10 months :^(

But again summoning whatever motivation has taken hold lately, I decided to get out the static grass applicator and make some progress. ANY progress. I still have a long way to go before this area is complete, but the results so far are encouraging...

Here's an overall view for comparison to the photo above... I stippled a heavy coat of white glue over the groundfoam where I wanted the static grass, and applied the grass liberally. I let it set for a few minutes, then went over it with a vacuum to "pull up" the fibers nice and straight - as many of them as possible anyway (a stocking over the nozzle helps you retain the excess grass). The Missus helped me modify the color of my "field grass" mix to more closely match the backdrop photo.

A closeup of the area with Harford Rayon temporarily placed for the time being.

Closer view of the house & garage. The backdrop is actually only 2" away from the house (which is HO scale, despite how the camera makes it look).

I used a variety of chalks to color the road, which started out as a light gray. This end needs more work, but as you go up the hill you see where I'm headed color-wise.

Closer view of the foreground field and how it blends into the backdrop. PRO (& admittedly accidental) TIP: This area originally had the subterrain (cardboard lattice & plaster cloth) glued to the masonite backdrop. When I later needed to add a photo backdrop, I discovered - OOPS! - that I needed to cut the subterrain away from the masonite to create a slot to slide the photo backdrop down into. This was a blessing in disguise since the resulting gap created a bit of a "lip" between the horizonal foreground scenery and the vertical photo backdrop. As you can see, that little "mistake" really helps fool the eye into blending everything together.

Speaking of blending, I tried the same trick here I did over in East Berlin... had The Missus help me with color matching (remember I'm somewhat colorblind) and just kept working those different colors of chalks into the road until it matched the road on the photo backdrop. Be sure to click on the image to enlarge - I think it came out pretty nice (I've since patched, smoothed, and painted the gotchas on the masonite).

I'm certainly no Tom Johnson or Marty McGuirk, and setting them as my standard more often frustrates me into doing nothing rather than make even incremental progress. All too often, my reach exceeds my grasp. But if there's one lesson I'm learning this month - and RElearning over and over again - it's that you have to at least do SOMETHING in order to get better at it. The road to skill & progress is paved with practice. And you'll never get to where you want to go if you don't get moving.

So that's what I've been doing this month - moving, though in a LOT of different directions at once. The house project continues, my locos are improving, I'm adding more freight cars to my fleet, and I'm even - surprisingly - making some progress with my scenery. I'm in one of those rare modes/moods where I'm seeing opportunities everywhere I look and have enough variety of things to do that I can Always Do Something. 

Long-time readers know my natural bent is to work only linearly - one project at a time. And, unfortunately, like a malfunctioning Roomba, if I hit a wall, I'll just keep banging against that wall - trying to get through it, wasting time. Thankfully, I've discovered with all these project that I can always pivot to something different. If I hit a wall, I just take a step back and go at something else. Roombas work better that way, and model railroaders make more progress that way too.

But it certainly makes life busy - I'm always doing something rather than just sitting around. Right now though, after going over everything that's happened these past few weeks, I just want a nap. And if you've made it this far, you probably need one too.

Till next time...