Merry Christmas!  I hope you all and your families had a wonderful Christmas celebration! My wife’s brother and sister and all their kids came to visit us in Germany for Christmas.  We took them to Ehrwald, Austria for a week of skiing.  It was a wonderful trip and we got back in time to celebrate Christmas at home.  Below is a photo of my son, Jacob, at the top of the mountain at the Ehrwald ski area.  The scenery here was spectacular in every direction and we practically had the entire ski area to ourselves. I wasn’t able to do … Continue reading No. 73: Informal Ops Session

Recently my friend Doug Harding traveled up to Ackley, Iowa to visit the Ackley Heritage Center, which is located in the former Illinois Central depot in the bustling metropolis of downtown Ackley.  The Center had several dozen photos of the Marshall Canning Co. and other industries in Ackley and they were happy to share with Doug.  Doug scanned them and sent them to me the next day.   The best photo I have of the Heritage Center is below, taken on my one-and-only visit to Ackley in 2015.  One of my daughters took this one.  I guess I forgot to … Continue reading No. 64: Modeling the Marshall Canning Company of Ackley, Iowa, Part 2

The last time I touched the Marshall Canning building on my M&StL Ackley, Iowa layout it looked like this. As of today the model is about 99% complete. Here’s what I was able to get done in the last couple of weeks. Adding Mortar With the model painted I wanted to try adding mortar between the bricks. I used the industry standard, Roberts Brick Formula, seen below, for the job. I never used this stuff before but it was quick and easy and I highly, highly recommend it. I followed the instructions exactly and brushed the stuff on with a … Continue reading No. 60: Modeling the Marshall Canning Company of Ackley, Iowa, Part 1

Last Friday my wife dragged me out to the “Technikmuseum Sinsheim” (in English, the Technical Museum at Sinsheim, Germany).  My wife was excited to take my son and me there but honestly I expected another slow day at another museum. It turned out I was very, very wrong.  It was like going to the German version of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.  It was fantastic. The museum was full of tanks and military vehicles of all types, along with an entire warehouse full of cars and motorcycles and F1 cars, plus a warehouse of tractors, airplanes, bikes, ship engines, … Continue reading No. 59: Ackley Depot Scenery, Part 0

Around the time I went to St. Louis last month for St. Louis RPM, I made a lot of progress on a bunch of small things.  On the south side module I painted track and ties, did some ballasting, put down some dirt to prep for scenery, and finished the fascia behind the workbench.  Here are a few progress photos. Painting Track I had a lot of unpainted track on the end of the south-side module and I painted all the track and got it ready for ballasting.  I used the same paint I always used for track–Testors Rubber.  The … Continue reading No. 58: South Side Scenery (Ackley Layout)

We drove to Strasbourg, France over the weekend and it was a really beautiful city.  It’s France, so there were plenty of peddlers, con-men and homeless people about, but in general the city was surprisingly nice and it has a large post-medieval-era center that is beautifully restored.  Outdoor restaurants were everywhere.  We enjoyed our day shopping and seeing the sights.  Here’s me and The Boss in “Petite France” on the island downtown in Strasbourg. The Catholic cathedral downtown is spectacular.  A sign outside said it took 400 years to complete.  Being a layout builder, naturally the first thing out of … Continue reading No. 57: Repairing Scenery on the Ackley Layout

The day before I left Germany for St. Louis RPM I drove south about 45 minutes and went to the West Wall Museum in Pirmasens, Germany.  The West Wall was Germany’s post-WWI reply to the Maginot Line, and it was vast and extensive.  The museum is essentially the only remaining tunnel system from the West Wall (most of it was demolished after the war) and it includes all kinds of memorabilia and equipment, and a large number of vehicles, and a lot of outstanding 1-to-35 scale models of the former facilities. Here are a couple of pictures if you’re interested.  This 1-35th model … Continue reading No. 55: Lighting the Ackley Layout