At one time Wadsworth was an important town on the railroad hosting company shops, a roundhouse and employing large numbers of people. Then in 1904 the Southern Pacific rerouted the mainline and left the town high and dry. The remaining settlement – it’s not even a town any more – was the first stop on the Modoc Line after leaving Fernley.
The Modoc Trip – Fernley
After reading Jack Bowden and Tom Dill’s book on the Modoc Line – a cross-desert railroad that began in the north-western corner of Nevada – I decided to take a couple of days off work to go and trace part of the route.
Right embankment
I’ve been quietly plugging away at the diorama while track-laying on The Town. I try to do at least 20 mins in the evening and add some small detail during that time: a flower here, a bush there etc.
Tool roundup – Part two
Continuing on from last week. Here are some more tools that I’ve recently acquired or made.
Tracklaying continues
I have now finished the latest turnout of the 3rd (of 5) section. Nothing much to add other than that I’m still struggling with the clearances around the frog area.
Tool roundup – Part one
Hi all.
A bit of a long break but now just getting back to normal. I took a couple of days off and drove around the northwestern part of Nevada tracing some of the route of the abandoned Modoc railroad. I have a post coming up about that trip. I also got a little sick and have been out of modeling action for a couple of weeks and only now am I getting back to normal.
In the meantime wanted to post something about tools. I like to make tools and I like to collect tools. Some tools get plenty of use while others not so much. Some tools are purchased and then sit in their boxes for years before I can find a use for them.
French railway magazines
So I’ve recently been getting model railway magazines sent to me from France. It started a couple of months ago when by chance I accidentally set my eBay ‘item location’ settings to ‘worldwide’. Shortly after a lot of “Loco Review” – a French model railway magazine popped up, both cheap to buy and cheap to mail to California. I snapped up about 8 random back issues from years: 2002 and 2003 for around $20 in total – not bad considering just one copy can cost around $16 to mail to the USA under normal circumstances.
Back to Tracklaying
Ok so the ties are down at last ready for laying rail. By now the process of laying ties is straightforward:
Back to tracklaying
Just three more turnouts and one crossover to do. The remaining track lives on three sections. Here’s the first one. It has two turnouts. I’ve set up my other desk to work on it away from the main table. It’s laborious but fun. I just put some music on in the background and work on it late at night. My rivets have not yet arrived from the UK so I’m just continuing on with the PCB ties. I’ll have the ties laid by the weekend and will build the turnouts next week.
Scene composition
I keep staring at this scene of the east bank of the trestle I and keep coming to the conclusion that I’m not happy with it. The hardest part is that don’t know why. It should work. It ticks all the boxes: it has a mix of textures, materials, and colors; it avoids too great contrasts; I think it does a good job of reflecting the real world, while avoiding impressionism; and it tells a little bit of the story of the construction of the trestle. Yet I keep looking at the scene and finding it really boring.