Welcome, Dave, and thanks for telling us a bit about yourself. You join a number of other forum members who live in your general area.

Hi,

1) Where do you live?

Near Norwich (Norrich NOT Nor- wich!) England.

2) How long have you been a model railroader, and how did you get started in the hobby?

As as serious hobby? A couple of years, but on and off for the last 55 odd years +.

3) Do you model a prototype railroad or freelance your layout?

Normally Southern Region of British Railways in the late 1950s to early 1960s so I can run steam, diesel, EMUs and DMUs without too much clash (But, no I'm not a rivet counter) and I'm starting to model, outside in the garden (backyard?) in HO the FCC (Central of Peru) both in steam days, and as 'now' with GE power. This is going to have to be a bit 'freelance, because of the non-availability of anything RTR. I'll try and get the colour and basic outline right.

4) Do you model a certain era and/or geographic region?

See above!

5) How large is your layout and what scale do you model?

The Southern Region bit is inside a 14ft by 12ft garden shed.

The FCC/FCCA is going to be outside, so will probably end up by being about 75ft by 6inches dumbell, unless I can prevail on her indoors to let me run along the back of the flowerbeds on a sleeper (railroad tie)trackbed.

6) What's your favorite part of the hobby? And what do you enjoy least?

Playing trains!,Least enjoy..... the money that USA profile stuff costs in England, and the damned extortionate import, customs and 'handling' charges imposed by HM Government.

7) How do you control your trains (DC, DCC, or something else)?

Its all going to be DCC

8) Tell us anything else about yourself you'd like us to know.

Ex seagoing Chief Engineer (steamships), then steam boiler inspector for big UK instrance company. I've been playing with 'real' trains since I was about 19, cleaning, firing and driving. Not allowed to drive or fire any more since having had two major back operations (old injury from my seagoing days come back to haunt me!) and not having a lower back full of titanium bolts and nuts! Now I'm relegated to Travelling Ticket Inspector on the Steam Railway where I volunteer.

Best railway experiance - driving and firing real steam on Polish State Railways at well over 70MPH..Its VERY different on the footplate at that speed then is is at 25MPH puffing gently up a preserved railway in England!

9) Post your picture - if you dare.

Are you sure? It will scare the horses! Anyway, it will not let me "not allowed, error in line 13?"

Alec

Alec, welcome to the Forum. We appreciate your taking the time to introduce yourself.

When posting pictures, the major problems come from either file size or the name of the file. File names should be limited to numbers and letters, no other characters. For more info on picture sizing and uploading, check out this thread: http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/t...TOPIC_ID=27749

Ditto to Alec! LOL Secure the doors, I finally figured it out.





Just a few of the scenes around the Horace and William Creek R.R.

Thanking the administrator George, for his patience and extra mile.

Now I feel like the proverbial kid in the candy store!

Dave

In response to your comment on the trees:

Welcome aboard, Dave and Alec.

Dave, when you "Reply to Topic, you get a box like this:



Notice the paperclip labeled Insert a File. Click on that and follow the instructions.

George

Well, blame yourselves, I managed to upload something LOL. Tether the horses, get the smelling salts out, protect the ladies.

Your upload doesn't like photoshop images, that was the problem.

Nope............ says its uploaded, but no image. Perhaps your programme is trying to tell me something

Alec, welcome to the forums.

Sounds like you are using Firefox.

If so you need to perform an extra step to post pictures.

See this thread: http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/t...TOPIC_ID=18629

Dave, welcome and congratulations on figuring it out.

Just one more thing.

You can make your pictures bigger.

Make the longest side of your pictures 800 pixels and save them at a medium resolution to keep the file size under 200 kb.

Glad you are able to post, Dave. Those are impressive trees in your pictures as well as the nice bare wood coloring of your structures. It looks like the Pacific northwest.

George

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[:-bigmouth]

Hi Everybody!

Thanks to Russ for the warm welcome; happy to be here.

I'm from St. Louis, MO - born in 1950 and raised in Glasgow Village and Richmond Heights.

My earliest train memories are of my dad's AF layout at Grandma and Granpa's house. We eventually built a big LIONEL layout around the old oil-burning furnace at 1711 Del Norte, 63117. Loved 027 and had a nice PLASTICVILLE city going when my brother and I simply moved away. The trains got put away. Then, wonder of wonders! they were rediscovered as we had kids of our own hit our thirties. I am the current keeper of the cause, but Rik always has 'dibs' on the set any given Christmas.

My current interests due to budget (read: retirement!) and space limitations are static displays of buildings and a piece of track or three with rollong stock, etc du jour.

For this past Christmas I found beautifully-preserved Japanese prewar papier mache' village and RR structures http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_saca...+papier&_rdc=1

at the AZAN Train show here in Melbourne, FL and on eBay. Ernie's Hobby Shop had old beater engine and tender which suited my needs perfectly. Tiny string of B.O. lights, some dacron snow blanketing, glitter and talcum powder and VOILA'! very evocative. wILL POST PICS asap.

Boy! I feel better now. This is gonn be FUN!

'

pylgrym

p.s. eventually, I want to model scenes from my favorite 'train-insane' movies, as here:

Download Attachment: BlackScorpionLAYOUT.jpg
38.68 KB

Thank you George. Yes, I am modeling the Pacific Northwest, but, no particular prototype. Completely freelance. That way I am not locked into anything "prototypical." The trees are all hand made. I hand carve balsa for the trunks. Then I run an exacto knife up and down the trunk to get the bark detail, then stain with alcohol and whatever india ink mix I desire. Then, using Western Sage, I make the different branches. The branching on the branching is done with sisal rope. The needles are done with a mix of different shades of flocking. If the pics were better quality, you would even see the pine cones. Now some of my trees are done with balsa trunks and juniper snippets. They are soaked in glycerin first, then treated the same from there.

Dave

Don't only practice your art. But force your way into its secrets. For it and knowledge, can raise men to the divine. Ludwig Von Beethoven

Hi Everyone

I am Boyd from Fresno,CA. I got started in model railroading in 1946 with Lionel. Switched to HO in my college years and remained there until 2010 at which time I switched to HOn3. Have always wanted to model Colorado type scenery. I model in an 11 X 13 space upstairs room designated as a media room in our house plans. I have all track laid and switches built using Fast Track Jigs. I want to incorporate scenes from Durango to Silverton on this layout. I have just begun the scenery and will post some pics soon. Thanks for having me. Hope to learn a lot from all the participants out there. Boyd

Welcome aboard, Boyd. You'll find our HOn3 area is becoming more and more active.

George

Hi Guys,

After 33 years in Alexandria, Va, I've moved East into old Maryland tobacco country. We had a new house built and moved in in 04. I'm a serious gardener, so the first five years were spent either landscaping, hard-scaping,or sailing. During the winters, I got the layout room in the basement done; the whole works was a do-it-yourself project. Sooo, the actual RR only got started two years ago, after the floors, walls, wiring, ceililng, bathroom and workshop for my wife got done, by me, the "retired" guy.

I've been a modeler for about 30 plus years. In the new space, I'm building a new and improved version of the New York Kittatinny and Western RR circa summer of '63 in New Jersey sky country. Same as before (see MR Oct 06) but larger with room for more industries, instead of just a building or two.

I most enjoy scenery and the artsy side of modeling and still do 1/35 armor vehicles and 1/72 aircraft, mostly US navy and Marine Corps.

I grew up spitball's distance from Manhattan in the dense burg of Union City, NJ, an 8 block walk from the Palisades overlooking the NYC yards. I was hooked. I first saw the part of Jersey I model now when I went to Scout camp; and I was hooked. Just beautiful. But I had little comparison.

The NYK&W has flat out stolen NYS&W, NYO&W, L&NE and L&HR track, rolling stock, operations and that's a good thing. It's a bridge line just like the L&HR, a milk carrier like the NYO&W, a commuter route like the NYS&W and hauls coal and cement and crushed lime like the L&NE.

More if you're interested.

Bernie - More, I'm interested!... loved the NYK&W article in MR years back... just went back and checked it out again... liked your design to get 2x around the room @ different elevations without two separate decks... would love to see some photos and trackplan of your new effort... please keep us posted... thanks.