Eye Candy -- II

I painted the Rusty Rail shay casting and put it where it will eventually go, although it will get more vegetation and maybe more parts and stuff around it:

Next to it is a Bachmann Moore-Keppel Climax:

This loco has been restored and currently operates in Durbin, WV:

Eye Candy

One of the modelers who inspires me is John Allen, and it's worth pointing out that Allen wasn't especially keen on maintaining era or location consistency on his G&D.

But the prototype isn't all that era- or location-specific. We see preserved locos like NKP 765 touring all over the country, for instance, or tourist-"heritage" railroads like the Strasburg operating 100-year-old steam locos in freight, mixed, or charter-freight service.

My own layout keeps a tourist-museum flavor, in part because I like to visit such railroads. They're fun to railfan and fun to ride. One thing I enjoy is looking at their "back lots". Here's a shay carcass I found, fr instance, on the Roaring Camp and Big Trees some years ago:

Recently I found a supplier called Rusty Rail, which makes a lot of "eye candy" style detail castings in both O and HO scale. I was immediately drawn to their derelict shay engine (scroll down), which reminds me a lot of the W.M.Ritter Shay in Felton. It arrived in yesterday's mail.

It turns out to be well-detailed and reasonably priced. It will also fit where I intended to put it with only a little trimming on the base:

This will be the start of detailing this area.

Gondola Scrap Loads

In my last post, I linked to this Youtube video showing gondola scrap loads I like a great deal. The modeler sets his layout in the 1960s, and I've sometimes seen scrap loads like this in DVDs from that period. I think I may start working on a load like that.

However, there don't seem to be loads like that on the prototype any more. Here are some that I've caught at West Colton:

The ones above are fairly easy to find as resin castings on the web. Here are two gons I did with web castings, painted and weathered with chalk and drybrushing:

Comparing the model photo with the prototype, it looks like I could go over the loads with a little more brown and black.

Here's another style. It looks like steel mills are more interested in scrap ground more finely like this:

This eBay seller does loads like these.

Really Good Youtube Channel

Poking around Youtube, I found a channel by a modeler named Robert Todd, who models Des Moines, IA about 1967. His videos remind me of those by fellow bloggers Ralph V and John R. Check out this one. Then look at the really great scrap loads in this one.

One thing I like is how he's able to work in the actual sound from Bachmann and other reasonably-priced sound-equipped locos.