Over the long Columbus Day weekend I took my wife and daughters to Mykonos, Greece for a long Columbus Day weekend. We went with another family–a friend of mine’s who’s an Army colonel and pathologist–and we had a wonderful weekend … Continue reading No. 146: Freight Car Builds, Oct 2020
In August 2019 I took my family away to the Solk Pass, Styria, Austria, for a quiet mountain getaway. We rented a little cabin literally in the middle of nowhere and hiked the weekend away. It was wonderfully relaxing. Right out of our cabin we hiked to several mountain lakes. This is the Kaltenbachsee, which my wife Kristina translated to “cold river”. The hiking was rugged, the lakes were beautiful, the water ice cold. The kids are taking it easy after a two-hour, uphill-all-the-way hike. On our last day we drove to the nearby village of St. Nikoli and hiked … Continue reading No. 145: Modeling Freight Houses
It’s been 75 days since my last post. That’s 2-1/2 months! In that time I got new job at the air base–and have been working well over 50 hours a week—and wrote two articles for another guy’s blog, and spent ten days away in Slovenia and another week hiking in Austria. And I have managed to dodge our friend COVID. It’s been a very busy 75 days. Back on Memorial Day, my wife led the family on an awesome hike along a cliff in the Moselle River Valley, about 30 miles south of Koblenz. It was the best hike I’ve … Continue reading No. 144: 75 Days
I hope you have all been able to keep safe through all the COVID mess. When it all kicked off, I said to my wife “There will be a lot of blessings in this.” For my family and I, the blessings have been 1) A LOT of close family time, and 2) Lots of work, and almost no opportunity to spend money–which has allowed us to pay off nearly our bills. I’ve also had an opportunity to get some modeling done. I set two priorities in March and April; first was finishing layout planning–which I’ll cover in another post–and second … Continue reading No. 143: Freight Car Modeling, May, 2020
Several months ago my friend from Florida, Tom Christianson, sent some freight car photos to me by way of Justin May. Tom does some really terrific modeling and I asked if I could use the photos in a blog post. I think you’ll agree that Tom’s work is really top-shelf. Tom wrote: There are a lot of influences on my modeling. I started prototype modeling about 25 years ago and now model the 1959-1963 years. I grew up in Largo, Florida. The ACL ran by my kindergarten, the SAL ran by my elementary school playground, and the ACL/SCL ran by … Continue reading No. 142: Models by Tom Christianson
Last week I received the sad news that our friend and modeler Greg Martin passed away due to a short illness. Apparently his passing was Covid-19 related. Greg was a giant in the prototype modeling field, and pioneered new standards in freight car modeling. His articles in Mainline Modeler in the 1970s were epic. Here is one of my snaps of Greg, above, photographing models at the 2009 Cocoa Beach RPM event. Here’s another from that series, below. TGreg, as I called him–a reference to his e-mail–is taking photos at my model display. Greg and I met at one of … Continue reading No. 141: Greg Martin
I spent all last week in Mezraya, Djerba Island, Tunisia, leading U.S. participation in a small international airshow. Djerba is a sleepy resort island in southwest Tunisia near the border with Libya. It was a great experience and as always the Tunisian people were friendly, happy and grateful. It was a long week—many 12+-hour work days. The photo above shows a few of the jets we brought down. In the foreground is Air Force KC-135, at center is an Air Force C-130J, and farthest away—with the number 426—is a new Navy P-8. The team and I flew down on the … Continue reading No. 140: New Turnouts for a New Layout
In December I sold a few models to raise money to buy things for a new layout. During that time I met online a fellow modeler named Eric Reinert. Eric asked me if I could finish a few models for him, and sent me a box models all the way from Illinois for some work and weathering. Here are three of the six cars Eric sent. First is a completed Tichy NYC rebuilt box car. Check out the real-life weathering! The build is good but the model needs a little help. I’m going to re-detail this car to a minor … Continue reading No. 139: Freight Car Modeling, Feb, 2020, Part 2
Over President’s Day weekend my wife and one of my daughters and I took a long day trip to the famous city of Colmar, in the Alsace region of France. Colmar is famous for a lot of reasons; among them, according to tourist sites, is picturesque half-timbered houses, romantic canals, flower-laden windowsills, a labyrinth of cobblestone lanes and delicious food. They weren’t kidding. Colmar is amazing. Scenes like this are around every corner. It’s also the capital of Alsatian Wine Country and we’ve resolved to go back this summer for a weekend of wine and cheese and touring. And … Continue reading No. 138: Freight Car Modeling, Feb 2020, Part 1
Over Christmas week I took the family skiing in Slovakia. It was a 13-hour drive from Germany to the Tatras National Park in Slovakia, so we stopped halfway–in Prague, Czech Republic–to enjoy a nice evening at the Prague Christmas markets. My son has been to Prague several times and told me all about the trolleys there. I’m not much of a trolley fan but I was pleasantly surprised. We stayed in a cool Air B&B on the east side of the river, overlooking the Charles Bridge, and on the morning of the 24th I got up early and walked to … Continue reading No. 137: Trolleys of Prague, Czech Repulic
Railroad Prototype Modeler 