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

So my wife called me at work this morning and announced “We are now on the Information B Highway!”  We finally had our horrible satellite internet replaced this morning with a hybrid DSL-LTE thing that delivers faster internet service.  It’s not the 100 megabytes/sec I had in Illinois–this is probably more like 20, which is why she said we’re on the B Highway (a reference to German B highways, that are not-quite-the-Autobahn). Despite what you know about Germany, it is one of the lowest-rated countries in Europe when it comes to internet connectivity.  In some places the internet is good; in … Continue reading No. 52: Ackley Layout Details

In an effort to keep vandals out of the Standard Oil yard on my HO scale layout, I went shopping for chain link fence.  There’s no evidence there was ever a fence around the real site,  but chain link fence has been around for over 100 years—and it became common in the U.S. in the years following World War II—so I felt a chain link fence would be appropriate for my layout which is fixed in the summer of 1950. Here’s the real place around 1968–this is about the best photo I’ve got: A friend on the Proto-Layouts list recommended a product made by Alkem … Continue reading No. 51: Fencing for Standard Oil (Ackley Layout)

Over the last ten days I completed the tedious task of completing assembly of the large Marshall Canning structure. When we last saw the cannery, it looked like this: A little background might explain the madness below.  My model of the Marshall Canning Co. on my previous layout, shown below, was built cheaply without much supporting structure behind the building façade. It was flimsy and I couldn’t move it without breaking a seam or two.  The roof had no support and had numerous “waves”. On the new model I wanted to built interior support using a product called GatorFoam to make the whole building … Continue reading No. 50: Modeling the Marshall Canning Company of Ackley, Iowa

While I was waiting for a shipment of parts to show up from the US, I decided to get started on what I call “the farmer’s field” which is a foreground scene on my layout. The farmer’s field area is about nine inches deep by 30 inches long.  The real field has probably been a corn field since the 1930s but I am not going to put down a couple of square feet of HO scale corn, thank you. Below.  The farmer’s field, ready for planting.  That’s Marshall Canning in the back. Instead of corn I chose to plant beans … Continue reading No. 48: The Farmer’s Field at Ackley, Iowa

In Part 1 I discussed the old Ackley layout and how the Marshall Canning Company plant was planned and operated. Here in Part 2 I’ll cover progress on the canning plant for the new layout, along with operational considerations. Meanwhile…Doug Harding sent along a wonderful photo of the plant from the mid-1930s (see below). There are a lot of interesting revelations in the photo. First, this is a pre-WWII photo and despite my research it is obvious that a large addition has been added between the plant and the long husking shed behind the building. Second, there is a sign on the … Continue reading No. 47: The Marshall Canning Company of Ackley, Iowa, Part 2

I was fortunate to visit London recently with the family.  We did a lot of tourist things, and walked around downtown a lot.  I made a deal with the family and said “Everybody pick two things you really want to do, and we’ll do those things!”  My two picks were to see a football match and visit the RAF Museum in north London.  Of course we rode trains everywhere so I got an extra treat.  Anyway my son Jacob and I broke away and went up to Highbury one evening to see Arsenal play West Ham in a league match.  … Continue reading No. 46: The Marshall Canning Company of Ackley, Iowa, Part 1

A lot of work on the Ackley depot has been accomplished in the last 10 days.  Part of the success is due to getting my workbench partially rebuilt, so now I have a well-lit, organized place to get some heavy work done.  Another reason is the guys on the Proto-Layouts list, who have motivated me to get back to work on my depot.  More on that in a minute. Above, here’s where we left off last time we were working on the depot.  Below, here is where the depot is today.  I have painted the depot and the brick platform, added trim, painted and … Continue reading No. 44: Ackley Depot Construction, Part 3

Camden, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, was a major industrial, ship-building, manufacturing and transportation center into the mid-1960s. The best known manufacturers in Camden were Campbell’s Soup and RCA Victrola, both of which had large factories downtown served by PRR. When I lived in southern New Jersey in the late 1990s I often drove by an abandoned factory near Camden that was just north of US 30, near the corner of 16th Street, 17th Street and Mickle Ave. US 30 is now known as Admiral Wilson Boulevard. I finally stopped and photographed it in 2016 and thought you might … Continue reading No. 42: Industry Series – The Keystone Leather Company