No balloons in here for John today. lol
https://www.facebook.com/Great-Divide-Lines-423511918192732/?modal=admin_todo_tour
For anyone who has ever boasted about how excellent John Allen's modeling was and how much it influenced them, this project is not anwhere near done yet, but there is enough evidence now that I hope the fans of John Allen will one day soon do more than just point at old photo of John's masterpiece as an example of what they feel was a masterpiece of craftsmanship. I am trying to provide a destinaton to come and prove these claims without any doubts to any of the skeptics that my be out there and a fun trip for those of us who were inspired by and waited for the next articles on his awe inspiring miniature world, forever lost to fire in 1973.
I have a webpage now www.greatdivideline.com but it is not filled yet with all the photographs I have of this work. So here's one from today. I won't be here again (or only very rarely) as I just have no time anymore. I will be sending email notifications out from the webpage on current work and closing out of other forums as well, to concentrate on getting this gigantic project done.
I will eventually be sending things into the Trains.com pages and to my own website. And starting after the January planning issue, there will be a series of MR magazine articles covering this very different, fun, and historic, museum quality, build project. So please follow along and enjoy. It is fun to compare my work and see how I am doing. How often do you get to do that?
John Allen deserves to have an alternmate ending to his incredible story of awe insipring achievment and complete disaster. I am paying tribute to him and trying to achive this goal by using the talents he inspired me to hone into a profession as a model maker, and a wonderful carreer. I credit John for such a rewarding job. He did not know it, but his work was so good, he was creating generations of craftsmen and women. Many of us still build his structures and scenes and mimic his work. I am just the perfect storm of circumstances and have taken on this ambitious project. I am now having the time of my model building life.
Does this mean that you will stop posting on MRH? I saw a bunch of photos posted today.
The layout is looking fantastic. Good to see someone taking this on.
Chuck - Modeling in HO scale and anything narrow gauge
Chuck, with a web page now, it more or less obviates the need for people in any forum to wait for updates. I am seriously terrible at keeping up with this stuff. However, I do respect Joe Fugate a great deal and his Model Railroad Magazine is just tremendous. So I won't leave the site or anything but the posts will dwindle as they must. His site would be the only other forum I'd respond to, but there might be lags in responses. I am serously flat out.
I have a large and intricate layout I am trying to rebuild to museum quality standards. This famous masterpece was created by one of the best modelers in the world and it took him 20 years to NOT finish. So I really just need to keep my head down and go. I lost a whole year already to health issues that had me at deaths door, twice, in 2020. I am so lucky that the events have worked out that I feel better now than I have in years. but I am behind.... what you see now is just 1 year and 7 months of work. I am pushing to see this done in 5 years or less total.
I was offered help by a man who saw what I was doing and remembered reading about John Allen and his model railroad many years ago and he was blown away by the effort being made and offered to help make me a website at his own expense and time. WOW....
So now it's easy for anyone to simply click on the webpage and there is even an email update option there where I can send a note the whole group. There are 670+ people on the list already. Please sign up. So at some point it makes sense that a project like this becomes far enough along that it is important to do this and make it easier for anyone to follow what I am doing in a way that is easier for me.
So far, the numbers are proving the logic is correct. I am encouraged and will assume that after I get more, current, work photos loaded into the site that even more people will sign up as more and more iconic scenes begin to appear.
John Allen's story is simply one of the most unique stories in the hobby. Always will be. Linn Westcott's book is the best book out there as it has an extremely interesting and readable story. It is a reference library for me along with the GDLines.org pages. I am just part of an alternate ending people can choose to watch. And my story of rebuilding his layout is just fun, you just do not ever see anything like this. John Allen deserves to have his work displayed like so many of the giants in this hobby who have some of their work in that wonderful new museum in CA. One of the greatest modelers who had so much influence on a vast number of us, has only a few engines and burned objects in a case as his display. I want to give his work a destination, in a close copy of his miniature world that so many of us dreamed of seeing ourselves. Now that is something worth watching as its construction is being offered up for all to see as it unfolds.
I am honored that Model Railroader has taken up this journey. It is an undeniable story of historic interest to the entire hobby. And it is a craftsman's dream of a layout that achieved the greatest fame. It was also one of the most abrupt and tragic endings of any famous modeler anyone can name. I just can't even imagine the kind of craftsman who would say.
Eghhh yeah I don't want to see that. lol....
Randy
I read the editorial column in Model Railroader about your project.
It is very exciting, and I am looking forward to seeing the series of articles about the build.
Take care.
-Kevin
Living the dream.