Open Letter to Kelley in Germany

Hi Kelley, First let me say thank you very much for the kind words and observations on my work. It is much appreciated. I'm 64, I was 55 when I did my first model railroading. I didn't no 'dick' about this stuff. So like many things I've learned in my life I went out and bought all those Kalmback how to magazines. Luckly about that time Woodland Scenics was growing by leaps and bounds. They came out with their Scenery Manual and the Subterrain Manual. That was the key. I simply studied the Scenery Manual until I new it cover to cover. This was all new to me. I made my first layout, the original CCRR, in a 2'x3' box and it would be attached to the wall in my sailboat. By the time I was finished I was happy with the outcome, being first time an all. Somehow photos of my little box layout came to the attention of Rob at Ztrack. He said send him the pictures and he would put the CCRR in his mag. Well I was shocked to say the least. Proud a bit too. I told Rob that I sent photos to Model Railroader a year before and was given the brush off from them. Not very politely either. So here we are today and now my third layout has been featured in Ztrack. I have been told to submit stuff to the other magazines by others. I just don't have the energy anymore to submit and wait 6 months for some news from them. I feel a loyalty to Ztrack, since Rob took the chance on an absolute beginner. I know being published there is like preaching to the choir, but if you and my other peers like and enjoy my work then that's enough for me. We have so many gifted modelers in Z scale. I wish they would publish more. Believe me, if Model Railroader showed up at my door to take pictures of the Southern Division you bet I would let them in. But I don't see myself going through the hassles of dealing with that bunch again. Sorry.
Let me finish off with a comment about modeling railroads and more specifically scenery. To me scenery is why I'm in this hobby at all. I just like to make it as 'real' as I can. I learned it all from the Scenery Manual. So if I can do it, can't we all? Many people think not. What intangible do I have that some don't? I haven't a clue. However, I do have a not so secret secret. It is not secret because I reveal it about once a year, and that is: When I think I'm done with a scene, it just pick up more bushes and sticks and keep on glueing them down. I've said many a time to folks to not model their local park. That is not the great outdoors. Get out of town, take a hike in the woods. See what nature really is like. Take the memory home and put it down on your layouts or modules. It is not that hard. Look at it this way. When was the last time you saw an SD70 with the string of cars rolling through your local park? Never. Where locos go is though nature at it's most convoluted. Fallen trees, bushes, tall grass, rocks, boulders, puddles, lakes, forests, mountains, vast midwest prairies, the Eastern woodlands where you can't see 100 feet into the forest. So thank you for the kind words again. My goal with this note is that if any of you go into your train room and look at your work and say, "Gees, Jim is right. I'm not finished here'. Then I will sleep well tonight. Cheers, Jim CCRR:)

Jim!
Keep on doing what you are doing! All I got is a bunch of track on a flat piece of Styrofoam. They can snub Z if they want to and do all the On3 and what not they want..even TT.. I had 30 or more cars running the other day and I would never have been able to do that in HO.

Hi Kelley, Glad you found this. I don't hold a grudge against any of the publications. I must admit that I've only applied to MR. Like I mentioned in the letter, I just really don't give a ++++ anymore. I'm tired. I have the Northern Division to build and whatever layouts people want me to build. The Northern Division will be much larger than the Southern Division and will have at least 3000 trees, the average relief will be over 30 inches high. I'm taking my time this time around and probably won't post many 'sneak peek' photos until I'm done. I'm saving the best for last. Thanks again. Cheers, Jim CCRR:)

Jim, I love your work for the exact reasons, you mention about nature's details.

Jim, very nice and VERY helpful post. Now I want to follow up with a question for everybody, because Jim may not (or may!) be the expert on this one, and it's really a problem for me.

What is the equivalent of Jim's trick to add more sticks and bushes in an URBAN landscape? Is it cars, figurines, buildings? If I go home and see a "finished" city (or village or yard) and it just looks unsatisfying, like it isn't quite finished, like something needs to be added...what might I be missing?

Andy:

Please see this link for Z-ELF . This guy's models are responsible for me getting into Z. He does small 'travelling' layouts, i.e. suitcases. But he packs a wallop into each one. He also models European, so it might also be inspiration for you.

HTH,
Jeremy

wow, definitely! Very cool. Anyone else share hints for a "packed" city?

andyjbj, Yours is a great question. It got me thinking and no I don't have an answer for cities. This is probably a reason my modeling stops at 1940 and I do 'country' layouts. I just don't feel comfortable with concrete, curbs, signs and of course buildings in the city setting. I like small towns with my Gray Bros. funky structures, never more than two stories high. Modeling cities seems tougher given the lack of buildings to put in them in Z. I also don't like the concrete or asphalt jungle look of cities. If you stay true to modern city prototype street widths it just seems to me to be too much concrete. Even on my little towns I make the road about 8 feet narrower than real life. As usual it all comes down to perspective. There are 150 ft. trees in nature, but you wouldn't want one of them on your layout. That sort of thing. Also, many folks are comfortable with cities, me I'm a nature person so I guess that is why I can't quite bring myself to do buildings. Z-ELF gets away with his little city scenes because his layouts are so small. I would love him to come to my house and make a city out of a third of my layout. I'm sure I would learn something. Lastly, another thing that bugs me about modeling cities is that they always turn out too clean. Z-ELF's are perfect examples. So, to really answer your original question I think I would add weathering, trash and other assorted ugly details we find in cities. Too many signs, lights, cars, people....wow maybe I should go take a hike in the woods? Cheers, Jim CCRR:)

Cities can be clean. I was very surprised walking around Perth, Australia on New Years Day 1993 at how clean it was. No graffiti that I saw, very little trash. The next time I was there - 1995 the buses were covered in graffiti, and there was much more trash. Maybe it was just the day I hit it.

But I agree. To truly model a city, you need the grunge that comes from the compaction. And to truly capture it, especially to model a big city, you would need to capture the vibrancy of the city - which might take away from the railroad. But to model an industrial district of a city, you don't need the vibrance and you can really make it grungy and run down.

I'd like to see someone do a good city in Z. We have a lot of 'landscape' layouts and modules. A little variety might be nice.

Jeremy

Those cities are nice but European. Nice example of the use of the cobblestone streets. Germany there is not a lot of space and people build on top of one another, even in small towns.
It depends on era too. I think big cities would be kind of easy in a way. Have to think where the RR tracks are in a city..in a big rail yard, docks or industrial area? Skyscrapers would be farther in background. Unless you are building a commuter line or subway. I guess I am a country guy myself and cant really picture RR tracks in a big city. I keep thinking rr tracks would be in the "rougher" parts of town.

Many of the cobble stone streets in the New World- N.A. were made from ship's ballast. An old section of Baltimore that overlooks the Inner Harbor had the cobbles paved over. The neighborhood objected and the city had to restore the cobblestones.. Quaint..
A City is a challenge but I like the vertical developement and the deminuation of the trains. There is the oportunity of running a ground level, an elevated rail, and even a subway. Roads also can be on the 3 levels. There certainly is a lot more modeling to do in the city than just make landscape. Parks and tree lined streets can compliment all the cement buildings and a city can be pretty and clean- I prefer to model the city as I would like it rather than "the other side of the tracks". A city can incorporate 200 year old buildings with modern conservetive skyscrapers. It's part of model railroading that is seldome done. The city can have a museum that can feature your spcifics such as art, cars, industrial, an aquarium. Mine will have SHIPS, such as the Constitution, The WWII submaine Torsk (with sharks teeth)- she actually sank a train as it was going over a bridge, the lightship Chesapeake and several smaller watercraft including the Boston Swanboats.
I have yet to figure out a track plan but I have plenty of space to make this happen.
Part of the skyline will be a Z Titanic- though she never made it to this side of the pond. Several cities have used luxury liners as hotels. I understand Dubai just bought the QEII for this purpose-- sortta sad.
Isn't Brad working on a city?? If so- or anyone else-- show us your pictures so we all can learn from our experiences- good or bad.
NUFF FOR NOW,
Fred

This is the waterfront area.

Jim- 150' trees.. I'm making a 315' tree. Why-- because "I can". Don't know what I will do with it-- some uncomfortable suggestions have been made-- probably put it on a table as a Ponzie- I mean Bonzai Tree.. It might fit in with all her other vegetation.
Pictures to follow.
Fred

Hello Kelley,
Kelley wrote:

Have to think where the RR tracks are in a city... [...] I keep thinking rr tracks would be in the "rougher" parts of town.

Not necessarily...
As far as the US is concerned I don't know, since I only knew the AMTRAK station in Tacoma, Wa and Oakland, CA. At least the one in Tacoma was more in the "rougher" part of the city.

In Europe this is different. Stations are much closer to the city center. This also that even as the station was build in an area out of the city limits, this cities did grow and did surround the station. As an example you can take Lübeck . Here the station was build when the city barely reached beyond the old town walls. Today the station is almost in the middle of the city. And the station was moved out about 500 yards away from the city.

If you take a look via Google maps or Goolge Earth, you can see that in Europe this goes almost everywhere. An exception you can find either in Switzerland, where the position of a station mostly is determined by the possibilitys of the landscape, and also fx in rural Denmark where a village often is spread over a bigger area, and the station was build somewhere in a spot that fitted with the railline. This often can be seen in the town names. Then the town is named fx: Tommerup, and nearby you find Tommerup St. The St. is short for Stationsby, wich means station town.

Correct is that in bigger cities the area around the main station often is "rougher", but this because you then here find the "red light district" of the city. In some cities it often isn't good to leave the station into a certain direction...

Fred. Right about those trees! Actually, I should have stated around 200 foot trees. The 'tall tree' diorama showing off the Climax loco had 150 trees and it looked ok. On the other hand a 200 footer sticking out of a forest of more reasonble 120 footers would bother me. Cheers, Jim CCRR:)

andyjbj wrote:

wow, definitely! Very cool. Anyone else share hints for a "packed" city?

Hey Andy
Funny you bring this question up..... i'm currently working on a new brief case layout, and its a full down town scene. I too am looking for ways to give it the action and vidrance of a bustling town. For insperation, i pulled out last decembers issue of model railroader thats feature artical was on Rod Stewarts City layout. His pictures and city details are some of the best ive ever seen. I don't ever bother paying much attention to what scale the photos are, but more over, i'm interested in the details, and Rod definatly got his details right.

On the case project i'm working on, my detail plans include a statue in the town park, lots of cars and people, tetephone poles and wires, flowering bushs and shrubs in planters on the side walks, building lighting, with a few more figure in the building windows, a stop light in my main road intersection, fire hydrants, a public utility truck working on the power lines with orange cones out on the road, mechanics working on cars at the servcie garage, and what ever else looks good and i can come up with.

I guess my approch is to keep adding in details till the scene if full. I don't plan to over do it, but towns and citys are bustling places with lots of people doing all sorts of things, so pretty much anything goes in a town.

Tony B...
Wasatch Z ClubB)

PS: The case project is a "warmer upper" for me to play around with town details before i finish working on my town of Echo module..... so any of the real sucsesfull details in the case will get replicated again on my modules.

Tony, Any pictures??
Fred

hey Fred, not yet, i'm almost do with it, then i'll shot a buch of pictures and post them.

Tony B...

ULie wrote:

Hello Kelley,
Kelley wrote:

Have to think where the RR tracks are in a city... [...] I keep thinking rr tracks would be in the "rougher" parts of town.

Not necessarily...
As far as the US is concerned I don't know, since I only knew the AMTRAK station in Tacoma, Wa and Oakland, CA. At least the one in Tacoma was more in the "rougher" part of the city.

In Europe this is different. Stations are much closer to the city center.

In Koln the Hbf (central station) is just across a square from the mighty cathedral. Now there's a modelling challenge - both the Kolner Dom and Hbf! Both are very large structures.

The problem with US cities is that the majority of lines are underground, i.e. Phila, New York & Baltimore, granted there are some with downtownlines like D.C. and Chicago, but majority keep them away from the city due to the fact that the majority of the lines are freight lines. The Amtrak station here in Raleigh is downtown but, Raleigh is not a typical city, too spread out. If I had the time and the money, I would build the Richmond, VA station it has Interstate 95 running right next to it and the James River. Jim if I do win the lottery though, I would have a very large room for you to assist me in rebuilding my home area, the Wyoming Valley & Lackawanna Valleys in PA especially the Nicholson viaduct, largest reinforced concrete bridge in the world.