Constructing Santa Rosalia — backdrop, Part 2

My first post about the Santa Rosalia backdrop described the installation and blending of the transition piece between Ballard and Santa Rosalia. You can read it at this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/01/constructing-santa-rosalia-backdrop.html . Next I needed to paint the sky. My procedure was much like what I did on the Shumala extension, described in a prior post (at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/03/shumalas-extension-part-5-painting-sky.html ), so I won’t repeat all the details here. Here is the painter’s tape applied, using a level to make sure the alignment is the same across the length of the backdrop.

Next I used my four blends of blue, from a moderately deep color at the top, blending downwards to lighter and lighter blue. Shown below is the first, uppermost blue, tape still in place.

I then added each successive, lower blend of lighter and lighter blue. Although some further refinement was still needed, the sky appearance was good enough to permit continuing on with the skyline.
     By “skyline,” I’m referring to the landforms to be depicted. These were based on photography acquired in a visit to the prototype area I am modeling, sample photos of which were in an earlier post (my description is at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/11/visiting-area-you-model.html ). I like acrylic colors for this kind of job, not least because the color you mix is quite close to the color you get when it’s dried in place.
     For my California backdrop, I used a lot of Yellow Oxide, “browned” with some Raw Umber, and plenty of White to lighten it. A few areas were represented as farther away, and I used some Neutral Gray in the mix to suggest that. And where I wanted to show vegetation clumps, I used Chromium Oxide Green, often darkened with a little Black. There is nothing magic about these colors — they just enabled me to get the look I wanted.
     I’m no artist, and have zero experience in painting landscapes. But I can peer at a slide of the area I model, and try and copy the hill shapes and colors. I would emphasize my belief that the simpler and more generic a backdrop is (in most cases), the better. You want the focus of a layout viewer to be on the layout, not on your wonderful (or otherwise) backdrop art.
     I once experimented with a mere wavy line of bluish-gray to suggest a distant skyline, and it was magically effective, though it really portrayed nothing recognizable. You can see that effect in a photo of it, in my previous post on staging, at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/09/my-note-about-staging-in-model-railroad.html . One need not be quite this simple in all cases, but to me it is a suggestive example.
     So I now needed to extend the old-backdrop skyline visible in the photo above, and also to match colors across the vertical white patch which is at the very left of the photo above. My acrylics, described above, allowed me to do this.
     Here is my first step, covering the patch and extending around the curved backdrop, some ways to the right.

     I have not decided yet exactly what I will paint at the far right of Santa Rosalia, so that part remains sky only, at this time. I think the work you see here is good enough so I can proceed on layout work in the area in front of the new paint of the backdrop.
Tony Thompson

Repairing the Ballard hill — conclusion

Having progressed well with applying scenic materials, in the way I described to make two coats of ground foam, I was ready to add details. To see a description of my process of placing the two coats, you may read the earlier post 5 at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/12/repairing-ballard-hill-part-5.html .

     But at this point in the Ballard hill project, I needed to step back and make sure where I was headed. What about the goal? How did I want this to ultimately appear?

    Part of my reference for what was needed was the originally modeled appearance of this side of the hill. I can illustrate it with this photo (a detail of one which has been used previously in a number of places), to clearly show how this side looked on the layout in Pittsburgh. 

     Note the darker vegetation in the lowest part of the valley which descends from near the ridge top, typical of dry-climate vegetation in places like central California. Again, my understanding of this topic, and my approach, stems from the ideas I developed in that post about vegetation communities, at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/03/vegetation-communities-as-guide-to.html . So how do I do this?
     There are two main parts to my detail additions. The most important in creating the typical oak woodland look, with darker vegetation (chaparral and live oaks) in the bottom of drainages, is to use dark green colors of various sorts of Woodland Scenics materials, clumped with Matte Medium. Since these are represented as being some distance away from the viewer, they are and should be fairly small.
     I already mentioned the corresponding detail item in my coastal sage community, representing the chaparral with dark olive-color foliage fiber (see the previous post, cited above). That is mostly the area above my ocean beach.
     I use a lot of Woodland Scenics “coarse turf” for distant foliage clumps. That they are small helps the illusion that the mountain is bigger and farther away. For most of the grassland area, I primarily use the Earth (T60)  and Dark Green (T65) colors, and in some cases mix the two. These should be somewhat randomly scattered, but if you look at real-world foliage patterns, clumping is common, likely areas of better soil or slightly more water. I try to reproduce that look on my hillsides. Here they can be seen, especially on the upper reaches of the hillside, during the process of adding this vegetation, and before any trees.

     The second main part, particularly for oak woodland, is brush and specimen trees. For brush that is reasonably close to the viewer, I swear by the Woodland Scenics “foliage” material (Dark Green, F53), which I can tear off in suitable-size pieces, stretch and make three-dimensional, and glue down with matte medium. That is what makes up the larger vegetation in the photo above.
     I like trees built on armatures, such as the Woodland Scenics soft metal ones, but have used plastic armatures and clippings from natural shrubs also. I add the trees judiciously, and I state it that way because the area I model has a high ratio of open grassland to trees. It is essential to have a few, but would be a mistake to have a lot. I have used a number of commercial starting points for trees, including the Woodland Scenics metal castings, which make into pretty good oak trees.
     I added a couple of trees at the bottom of the hill, and also extended slightly the dark vegetation in the stream bottoms. Here is how it now looks, with structures back in place and Nipomo Street in the foreground.

Not obvious in the above photo are the trees at the base of the hill, one of them a palm tree. Here is another view to show them (click to enlarge).

     Getting this hill rebuilt (my idea that it would be a simple repair turned out to be incorrect) is satisfying, because it is the first thing you see coming into the layout room, and in its former damaged state, it did not give a very good impression. I can now redouble my efforts on new sections of the layout!
Tony Thompson

A roundhouse for Shumala, Part 4

The previous post about the main building making up this roundhouse, which is a Banta Modelworks kit, was called Part 2, and can be viewed at this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-roundhouse-for-shumala-part-2.html . I have also posted a description of the scratchbuilt machine shop structure I built to add to the rear of the roundhouse, which is at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/01/shumala-roundhouse-part-3-machine-shop.html .

     My work at this point in the project was to finish adding the trim strips all around the structure. This actually went pretty quickly, though there are a lot of these strips. The kit provides a generous amount of material, so there are no worries there. Here is the right side at this point. I have already done some weathering over the doorways.

While finishing up the trim on the main building, I also started adding the scale 2 x 8-inch trim strips around the edges of roof sections.
     My next step was starting on the roofing. Preparing the roof parts for the kit structure is not without its pitfalls. I recommend doing a test fit of all parts to make sure you know which ones are which, and which side is the top of the roof part, because you will be adding “roof tabs” on the underside of each part, and none of them are interchangeable or usable if inverted. (Don’t ask how I know this.)
     One step I had to take was to notch the boiler house roof at the back, where the machine shop contacts the roundhouse. Here is a shot of that roof edge, test fitted, with an arrow indicated the notch. You can click on the image to enlarge it, if you wish. The two unfilled window openings will be covered by the machine shop.

     An additional point: the louver frames on each clerestory section should be notched at their lower outside corner, to accommodate the roofing sheets on the lower roof. I used a small square file to make these notches after the frames were glued in place. This view should show what I mean.

Next I finished adding the rest of the scale 2 x 8-inch roof trim to all roof edges, overlapping the plywood beneath.
     The kit directions recommend that roofing, which is silk-span tissue, be applied with spray adhesive. I don’t doubt that this is an effective method, but I decided to apply it in a way I have used before (usually with Kleenex tissue, which is coarser than the silk span). I mop on a wet coat of the roofing color I want, and quickly lay the tissue into it. Any place not thoroughly wet by the paint can be touched up once the tissue is in place. This process both colors the tissue, and glues it to the roof. The color I chose is SP Lark Light Gray, which is similar to a standard color of rolled roofing.
     Although the kit’s recommended method of applying strips of silk span about 4 scale feet wide should work fine, there is always the issue of raised seams (as the photos in the kit directions demonstrate). I took a simpler approach. I applied full sheets of silk span to cover the roof, then went back when it was dry, and used a sharp No. 2 pencil to draw lines, 4 feet apart, to indicate the rolled roofing. Here is how it looks.

The two panels at right, over the stalls, are removable. I simply made a small overlap in the silk span on the left panel, so when both are in place there is no gap.
     As the kit directions say at this point, we are in the home stretch. Final details, including the boiler stack and chimneys over the stalls, along with layout installation, are shown in a following post.
Tony Thompson

Constructing Santa Rosalia — the backdrop

In my previous post about the new section of my layout, to be called Santa Rosalia, I described the track support structure. That post is at this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/12/constructing-santa-rosalia-structure.html . With that structure in place, I was ready to put up the backdrop. This backdrop segment is the last surviving piece of my layout from Pittsburgh, and in the Pittsburgh layout, it was the transition backdrop between Ballard and the room wall, just as it is going to be here.
     As I got ready to put up the backdrop section, here is what that corner of the layout space looked like (what you see with the strip of blue at the top is the back of the backdrop on the Shumala extension, curving away from the camera). The section to be added will butt against the backdrop piece already in place at the left, and be screwed to the same post.

You can see where the previous backdrop paint surface broke away at the edge of the section that is in place. At front left is the track board for Ballard. At the lower level on the right, just beyond the Ballard board, is the mainline loop and at far right, the staging tracks to be located underneath Santa Rosalia. Track board supports for the upper Santa Rosalia level can also be seen.
     I lifted the backdrop section to be installed, into approximate position, butted against the piece already in place, and shimmed it to be level across the top. As soon as everything looked good, I placed a few screws at the left edge, into the post you see above, and into the wall at right. With a quick fill of gaps with “drywall compound, here is how it looked. The continuity of the painted ridgeline across the joint at left is obvious.

You can see that I spliced on an “extender” piece of Masonite to permit a smooth curve. The distance here from right edge to wall is greater than on my Pittsburgh layout, thus the need for the extension. There is an unfortunate vertical black mark toward the right, created when moving this backdrop piece, but that will be painted over.
     A more distant view to show the entire space from new backdrop at left, to wall at right (the scope of the future town of Santa Rosalia) looked like this:

     The pair of curved backdrop transitions from the main layout section, onto the two extensions, looks like this from above (standing on a ladder — not exactly a view any visitor will get).  Santa Rosalia is in the foreground.

     Once I had the initial gaps filled with drywall compound, I used the fiberglass net material, called “wall repair tape,” to embed within all three areas being smoothed with compound. I have found in the past that this is a very effective means of controlling cracking in backdrops.
     Like all such drywall blending, it takes several attempts, with sanding and critical examination of the surface between applications, to get to a good, smooth transition. I also coved the far corner of the room (at extreme right in the photo just above) up to the height of where the sky will reach — the same height as the backdrop. I did this by simply making a fill of about 1-inch radius in the corner, using drywall compound.
     The next step, once the contours were to my satisfaction, was to prime the surface, both for the fresh drywall and for the unpainted piece of Masonite. I have learned that lesson the hard way, that drywall compound takes paint better after sealing. Here is how the whole thing looked after priming. Note at far right, that the coved corner below the height of the backdrop is much less visible than the corner above it.

     The next step, of course, is the “art part,” painting the sky and hills on the backdrop, and I believe that should be described in a separate post.
Tony Thompson

Cocoa Beach 2014, Part 2

In my previous post, I talked about the overall meeting, especially the clinics which are an important part of any convention for me. (You can read it at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/01/cocoa-beach-2014.html .) The other vital part of such a meeting is the model displays, which are the subject of today’s post.
     Dave Hussey has posted a fairly complete set of photos (they are at: http://www.pbase.com/dh30973/cocoa2014&page=all ), covering much of the display, so I will only touch on a few high points for me personally. One was Chuck Davis’s Erie automobile car with the doors open and station wagons inside, a really nice presentation.

     Another model I liked was John Wilkes’ coal loader, a beautifully detailed and interesting model.

     The layouts this year were not particularly stunning, but I did like one N-scale module very much. It depicts the familiar spindly, tall pines of Florida, a superb example of accurately modeling real vegetation. In fact, the module is nicknamed “Old Piney.” The wrinkles in the glued-on sky are the only detraction from the fine scene. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

     My attention was also captured by Steve Hile’s Union Tank Line car, modified from a LaBelle wood kit, with decals from Silver Crash Car Works. This is indeed the color of UTL cars in the early 20th century. I was intrigued by this model since early SP tank cars were of similar design, and though they were long gone from revenue service by the 1950s I model, some did still survive in work service. I have the same LaBelle kit, and may want to do something similar to what Steve did, to create an SP MOW car.

     Lastly, I have to mention a stunning development at the meeting: the Rapido meat reefers showed up as door prizes, to the astonishment of many. Then when the prize drawing was held on Saturday night, there was serious excitement about the opportunity to possibly get one. Here is a shot of one of the cars (in its box) being brandished by ticket-caller Greg Martin (just visible with the Hawaiian shirt), flanked by meet organizers Mike Brock at left and Marty Magregian at right. That’s Jeff Aley in the bright red shirt, so the three principals of this meeting are all in one place. But I didn’t win one of the Rapido cars.

     As I said in the previous post, this is always an enjoyable meeting, and to my way of thinking, no longer takes a back seat to the Naperville meeting in October. Thanks again to Mike, Jeff and Marty for another excellent Prototype Rails.
Tony Thompson

Cocoa Beach 2014

As always, the modeling New Year was kicked off with the Prototype Rails meeting in Cocoa Beach, Florida, this year on January 9–11. And as always, it was an excellent meeting. In my view, this get-together has gradually gotten to where I now believe it is a better meeting than the “old standard,” Naperville in October. This is a great credit to Mike Brock, Marty Magregian, Jeff Aley, and the rest of Mike’s committee who do all the behind-the-scenes work to make this event run as smoothly as it does. Here’s a photo of Mike in a rare relaxing moment in what, for him, is a perpetually hectic several days. (It was taken in the temporary bar facility our Hilton hotel arranged because of a major renovation underway.)
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     As always, there were a whole bunch of fine talks, some by familiar hobby names, some by newcomers. Here is Bill Darnaby, who spoke about interchanges and their operational possibilities in layout operation, about to begin his talk.

Among the other fine talks I managed to attend were by Tom Madden on design for 3-D printing, Bill Welch on Fruit Growers produce shipping, Mont Switzer on modeling highway trucks, Fenton Wells on Southern Ry. freight cars, Bruce Smith on maintenance equipment, and especially the paired presentations by Andy Sperandeo on train orders, and Steve King on T&TO (timetable & train order) operation. The usual fine Shake ’n’ Take project was presented also, by John Greedy and Greg Martin, a USRA double-sheathed box car rebuilt with steel sides.
     I gave a talk too, about the Pacific Fruit Express company and its operations. (The handout for a similar but not identical talk can be found at this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/10/my-handout-on-pfe-operations.html ). Richard Hendrickson took this shot of me, about to start the talk. I am of course wearing a “Friends of the Freight Car” shirt.

      And of course we had the usual excellent turnout of model displays and vendors in the hotel ballroom. Here’s an overview from within the model tables.

      Many of those models were really excellent, and I will say more about them in a future post.
Tony Thompson

Repairing the Ballard Hill — Part 6

This post is a kind of reprise, with some shots from earlier in the process of repairing the hill. It could almost be seen as a follow-up to my Part 3, which is at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/12/repairing-ballard-hill-part-3.html . I post these additional photos in response to some e-mail questions about the adding of an old piece of scenery to the layout, and my technique with plaster cloth plus paper mache.
     The piece of old scenery was classic hardshell, made with plaster-soaked paper towels, over window screen. The plaster in many places was embedded into the screen, making the entirety pretty sturdy, despite being separated from the layout. You can see this in these shots of my son Sylvan (at left) and me, lifting the old piece into place. There were some blobs of fresh paper mache underneath this piece—shown in Part 3, cited above—which would serve to attach the addition. (My wife took most of these shots.)

Another view as we wiggled the piece to get the best fit onto the mountaintop.

This was really just a matter of finding the best orientation, then pressing down on the old scenery segment to make sure it was “glued” with the paper mache beneath.
     I have shown previously how I made the major contours in areas that required a new surface, using Woodland Scenics’ Plaster Cloth material. Here is a view of a freshly made surface of that kind, on the right half of the photo. At upper left, paper mache contouring has already been done. This stage is similar to that shown in Part 4 of this series, which if you’re interested can be found at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/12/repairing-ballard-hill-part-4.html .

     My approach to work with Sculptamold and Brandt’s Paper Mache (materials I’ve discussed in previous posts on this topic) to create all the new surfaces needed, is to place it with a putty knife, in most cases, then refine. Here I am working around some outcropping rocks (plaster castings already placed).

Once the fresh paper mache is in place, I use fingers, usually wetted so the paper mache only sticks minimally to the finger, to smooth and adjust the surface left by the knife.

And of course like all such scenery methods, I always say, “contour, let dry, and repeat” until it looks just like you want. You can always add a little more.
Tony Thompson

Finishing a resin kit

There is nothing remarkable about the construction process of resin kits in general, because for years now they have been well designed and well made, and have come with good directions. Moreover, the model magazines have published a number of good and thorough articles about how to build these kits. But I tried a new technique for one aspect of the construction of a resin car recently, and thought it might be of interest.
     The car is a Westerfield kit, a single-sheathed, door-and-a-half box car with reverse corrugated ends, a Missouri Pacific prototype, kit 1901. The one I have is molded in the old, metal-filled resin, justly notorious for rapidly dulling small drills. (it’s so old, its box has the Elk Grove Village, Illinois address.) You can see an earlier stage of this kit in my post about a working car cradle (at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-working-cradle-for-model-freight-cars.html ). And yes, this is the feared “dark gray resin” material.
     Having gotten to the point of having the body box together, brake gear basically complete, and the grab iron holes drilled, I could hardly face the task of drilling holes for the sill steps. Then enlightenment dawned. I didn’t have to drill holes!
     I remembered a stash of the old Tuttle Industries style “R” steps, and had the idea to try bending them so they could be glued with CA to the underbody, without any holes at all. This worked fine, and here is how it looked at this point. Kadee coupler boxes have been installed, along with as much brake rigging as I plan to add, preparatory to painting the underbody.

Note here that the upper door hangers have been fabricated from styrene strip. The car at this point lacked only ladders, vertical-staff brake wheel, and running boards, along with corner running boards.
     I airbrushed the entire underbody with Weathered Black, since I had it in the airbrush for another project. These cars, according to Westerfield’s instructions, were painted entirely boxcar red, so when the rest of the car is painted, I will make sure to get overspray of that color onto the underbody. But this dark gray undercoat ensures that everything is painted and that it will look dirty.
     At this point, I installed a pair of my “spraybooth trucks” (roller bearing, arch bar, or other expendable types) so the car could stand upright during painting.

     Then I added decal lettering and weathering, in the same way I would do for most any freight car. The decals were pretty old, and I will spare you the struggle to repair the decal sheet well enough to use (I prefer Microscale’s Liquid Decal Film for this job). I also added the usual reweigh and repack details. If you wish, you can click to enlarge the image.

Weathering was via my usual acrylic-wash method. You can read more about it at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/10/weathering-clinic-handout.html .
     Aside from the method of installing sill steps, this is a straightforward resin kit assembly. But it happens to be a welcome addition to the fleet, because it adds another single-sheathed box car, and one with a radial roof as well, both features which need more representation among my cars. So for me this car represents an improvement to the overall character of the freight cars on my layout.
Tony Thompson

Shumala roundhouse — Part 3, the machine shop

As I mentioned in my previous post about this roundhouse, I wanted to add a small machine shop in back (you can read that post, my Part 2, at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-roundhouse-for-shumala-part-2.html ). The main structure is a fine Banta Modelworks kit, which I have been greatly enjoying building.
     To add a small machine shop, I had several goals in mind. First, to make the addition look like it was intended to fit with the style of the main building. One way to do this is to match the pitch of the roof, which I set out to do. Second, I needed to include space for a loading dock, and thus wanted to offset the addition back from the track on that side of the building. And third, I wanted to cover up the large window opening in the wall section from the kit, which was intended to sheath that part of the building wall. Last, I wanted a reasonably symmetric building.
     To accomplish all this, I began by tracing the kit wall section. It’s shown below as the black outline, including the kit window openings. Then I experimented with roof heights for the addition, to cover the kit window opening and to accomplish an offset. The cross-section of the design I ended up with is the red outline below.

My plan was to use the two kit windows originally in this area, the black outlines above, but to relocate them appropriately in the shop structure.
     To make the walls for the shop, I chose Evergreen Novelty siding, material no. 4083, which has the same board width as the main Banta kit structure. I cut the three needed walls (the fourth abuts the roundhouse and can be plain), and another of which can be blank, since it will face the backdrop on my layout and will not be visible from anywhere in the adjoining aisle. I do need a small piece of that abutting wall, where the red outline, above, juts above the black outline at right, and I used some of the leftover Banta scribed plywood for this.
     I then laid out the door and window openings needed, as follows. I located the two windows originally meant for the roundhouse end, in the end of the machine shop, along with a man door. For that door, I chose a Tichy part, their no. 8032. I also chose to add one more window on the loading dock side, a Grandt Line no. 5030. Openings were then cut in the usual scribe and snap fashion.
     I assembled the three sides into a structure, using Evergreen strip no. 166 (roughly HO scale 8 x 12-inch section) in the corners. For stiffness, I made the fourth side from heavier material, using some Evergreen 0.060-inch sheet (this part will be invisible inside the structure).

When this assembly was done, I airbrushed the exterior boxcar red, to match the rest of the structure. I then added the door and windows, along with the same black trim strips as on the main structure, scale 1 x 6-inch wood. I also added a triangular support at the back, matching the front profile, to support the roof. At this point, the shop looked like this.

Now I completed the main structure by adding a styrene strip foundation, slightly raising the building so the line of the structure base would match that of the roundhouse.
     I decided to make a metal standing-seam roof for the machine shop, so that it would be different from the main structure. Evergreen makes a nice material for this kind of roofing, their part no. 4523, so I cut and assembled two roof sheets, duplicating the overhang of the main roundhouse in doing so (except over the area of the loading dock). You can see the foundation here also. Eaves still need to be given trim boards.

     The photo below shows that this shop fits against the rear of the roundhouse, as it was intended to do, and you can see the matching roof edges of the machine shop and boiler house, so that there will be a roof over the loading dock. The dock itself remains to be installed.

     I wanted to represent a little more of an engine facility than an engine house alone, which is the reason for adding the small machine shop. Many older SP roundhouses just dedicated a stall or two to machining needs, and this small shop is the same kind of idea.
Tony Thompson

Choosing vehicles in HO scale

Scale automobiles and trucks on a layout play a very important role, sometimes not fully appreciated by modelers. Of course they are needed to make roads, parking lots, and industrial shipping docks realistic, but I’m referring to their role in helping set the era you are depicting. As I have remarked before on this topic, visitors who know little about railroads will nevertheless be knowledgeable and critical observers of modeled highway vehicles, which after all they have known all their lives. That post was about way you can avoid having to “explain” your layout (here’s a link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/06/explaining-your-layout.html).
     The present post, however, is about the choice of vehicles that are needed for their various on-layout roles. I will only describe what I am doing for my own modeling year of 1953, but the my approach may suggest ways to deal with any era. First and foremost, in my opinion, are automobiles, as many visitors to the layout, whether model railroaders or not, do know auto model years. If, like me, you are trying to model any particular year, it is really “playing with fire” to include any model autos from model years later than your declared model year. For me, of course, “too late” would mean 1954 or later.
     What about cars which are much older than your modeled year? In many parts of the country, cars did not live to ripe old ages in those days, because harsh winters and highway salting took a heavy toll. But my layout, set in California, is far less subject to that limitation, and period photos bear out the idea that fairly old autos, from back into the 1930s, visibly did survive into the 1950s. So I need a mix. The same is even more true of highway trucks, since commercial needs often keep trucks in service for substantial numbers of years. But in this post, I focus on automobiles.
     Before I start on vehicles themselves, let me make what I think is an important point: license plates for those vehicles. First, all autos and trucks obviously had them, so if your models don’t display plates, something is missing. Second, your license plates could conceivably be little rectangles of indeterminate color, serving as place holders, but in most eras states issued distinctive plates. This is an opportunity to capture an accurate detail. I discussed this aspect in an earlier post, and mentioned a California example of the kind of internet resources out there which can make your research easy (see: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/04/choosing-and-modeling-era.html ).
     I have used a variety of on-line images to make correct plates for my 1953 era in California, as I have described previously (here’s a link to that post: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/11/vehicle-license-plates-in-ho-scale.html ).
     A car which would be brand new in my1953 era is, of course, the 1953 Chevrolet. I used a Magnuson Models version, molded in clear resin, and painted it in the two-tone green and yellow which was on my father’s 1953 Chevrolet four-door Bel Air. This was the first car I drove alone (beyond driver training). A personal connection like this makes extra fun. The car is shown on Chamisal Road in Shumala.

     The “Mini-Metals” (Classic Metal Works) vehicles have been a godsend for transition-era modelers. I especially like their 1941-46 Chevrolet trucks, but they have also done 1950 Dodge and Plymouth sedans and 1953 Ford models, among others. Below I show them both, first the 1953 Ford Country Squire wagon passing the Shumala depot.

A red 1950 Plymouth is shown at about the same location, stopping for an approaching train. (A photo like this unfortunately emphasizes the lack of a driver in these vehicles! Perhaps she has run into the depot to pick up a ticket.)

     These are only a few examples, but they do demonstrate what I mean about era consistency. Some modelers don’t worry about the vehicles on their layout, but I think it is an important part of the image that the layout projects.
Tony Thompson