I admit it: I'm in a "fan club"

[FJ and G]

Besides being a fan of the Beattles and some Led Zeppelin, I'm a fan of model railroader Malcolm Furlow.

I tend to dislike "free-lanced" stuff; but I admit to being smitten by some of the whacky stuff he creates. I know that most of you don't get MR mag, but his work was displayed in the Sept 03 MR; and, it brought howls of disgust from many "scale" guys for being too toylike and whimsical.

His most recent layout features a G scale layout in a 12X15 room that contains so many twists and turns and goes vertical that it appears to be many times bigger than it really is. Theme is a Mex-US mining railway, called the Mexican Hat Canyon line; with dogs walking on the trains and gunslinging engineers and conductors riding unsafe trains across rickety bridges to dirty, seedy towns.

Kinda hard to explain unless you've seen the pictures.

If it were a toy train layout; you could pack even more action into the same space.

dave vergun

[cnw1995]

Dave, I've just seen his recent work in MR - but I understand he is/was pretty controversial. People either love or hate him, I like his sense of whimsy and his heavy weathering.