Just got the November MR and I am very pleased with its content. Sometimes we carp about the number pages, the amount of advertising, the features that aren't there anymore, but this issue really struck a cord with me.
First is the article about Keeping N Scale Track Clean. I am in HO but Jim Kelly's advice is true for anyone. Then there is the article about Making Tree Covered Hills. Sure, it might not cover much new ground, no pun intended, but the pictures are great and, for me, its very timely because its exactly where I am in building the addition to my layout. Then I found the piece on the Soo diesels because that is what I principally run on my layout. When I read the DCC Corner it was about Caboose Lighting and DCC. I may try that - funny thing, I remember years ago there was an article about detailing a caboose and one of the techniques was to install window glazing - how far we have come. I haven't made it much further than that but I am sure I will find more great information.
So, thanks MR - for me, this is a great issue!!
There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.....
I'll have to agree. I liked the article on scratchbuilding without plans. the article on a swinging gate will be helpful to those considering how to get into their layout easily. I personally think that the gate is overbuilt but it does present the points that are important in making a well functioning gate.
Joe
Like all issues I will need to look and judge if there's anything of value in it for me and quite frankly I don't need to read about cleaning track again since I use alcohol on a rag and bright boy as needed however,scratchbuilding without plans sounds interesting but,its nothing new under the sun since I have used that method years ago.I am interested in his method though.
I only bought 5 issues of MR so far this year because there was nothing of real interest to me.I buy Trains and Classic Trains without fail.I find this sad because not so long ago I looked forward to every issue of MR..
Maybe my interest would perk if I resubscribed instead of picking and choosing...
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I haven't purchased an issue since early in the summer, Harold, but based on your statement, and that both of us are about to embark on scenery on our projects, yours an extension and mine a new layout, I will look forward to getting this issue, particularly about coverage of hills.
Crandell
I agree that this was a particularly good issue.
Interestingly, having been a subscriber for most years since the mid 60's, I find that as my interest in MRR grows, articles that I previously passed over, are now just what I needed! Darn clever of the MR staff to anticipate that!
Jim
I have been subscribing for a number of years and have purchased tons of issues before I started subscribing. Usually once a year MR puts out one issue that I have almost no interest in. It's no big deal and they can not please everyone all the time. If I find even one small bit of information it is still worth the price for that issue. The last 3 or 4 issues to me have been ho hum but the 10 before that were incredible. I'm still no hoping for the dud. The opposite is also true. Every once in a while they just plain hit one out of the park. I will say this. The last couple years this has been the best MR time I have seen. There was a time when it seemed MR became very snooty and all you saw was mammoth layouts and pretty pictures. It was like a social clique. The recent MR issues have been educational to everyone no matter what scale and size in my opinion.
RMax
hardcoalcase I agree that this was a particularly good issue. Interestingly, having been a subscriber for most years since the mid 60's, I find that as my interest in MRR grows, articles that I previously passed over, are now just what I needed! Darn clever of the MR staff to anticipate that! Jim
You are correct. One doesn't don't know what their interests may be in the future and what may be useful.
With CD and DVD magazine collections it is easy to keep large numbers of back issues. I hope that Kalmbach will continue with their collections and that more of their competitors will offer collections too.
The on-line indexes on this and other sites are a great help im finding articles of interest. It is fustrating to not have access to a magazine that may have useful information.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
While I enjoyed the issue on the whole, I was disappointed with the tree making article. The puff ball trees didn't look realistic to me in the least, and the techniques displayed were nothing new. Tony Koester's article was also a disappointment. Usually I like to read his musings, but this time, not so much.
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
The puff ball trees didn't look realistic to me in the least, and the techniques displayed were nothing new.
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Those "Cotton ball" trees dates back to the 80s and IMHO they're one step above the old train set "lollipop trees" of the 50/60s.
Interesting how people form different parts of the country view things like puffball trees. In a couple of weeks, we should have some good fall color, and I cna take a ride up to the mountains, and until I actually get in the hills, ie, the whole while I am approaching the mountain, it loks EXACTLY like a bunch of multi-colored lichen spread across the hillside. There's not an individual trunk to be seen, just occasional breaks for pwoer lines, and stands of evergreens in amongst the deciduous trees. I fins the puffball style exactly replciates what I see with my own eyes in the Applachian around my area. Making hundres if not thousands of trees with individual trunks and branches borders on the impossible, and I don't see it yielding much better results once planted all together surrounded by others. Along the edges, and along any breaks in the forest cover - absolutely. Even driving right through the forest, you cna only see so far into it before the trunks all blur together.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I'd like to add to my previous remarks that the layout that featured the puffball trees was very nice. My disappointment is based on the billing that article got in the monthly preview, and by being the cover story. I was led to believe that the article would break some new ground, show some new techniques for making realistic trees.That wasn't the case. Perhaps puffball trees would look more realistic if they weren't so uniform. By varying the size and shapes as well as the colors, more realism might have been achieved.
Still waiting for that definitive tree making article. Especially one on making realistic conifer trees. There are many outstanding logging model railroads out there. I'd love to read how some of those modelers made their trees.
I'd say the definitieve tree articles were already published. back in the 50's and 60's, by such authors as Jack Work. Even back then there were already articles using ground foam instead of lichen or even dyed sawdust.
I feel the puff ball trees idea/method is sound providing people aren't looking for a forest of 'ball's. Trees just don't look like that, except to an extent from a great distance, and by then so much detail is lost.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no cheap/easy way to forest a hillside in our hobby. It will take time, materials, and patience to get the non-uniform look that comes from different trees of varying types at various ages, including many obviously dead or diseased ones. If you don't purchase the materials, and that can be for basics or completed trees, big bucks, you must gather them yourself.
This is never going to be achieved by throwing a cammo-type blanket over a framework, tucking in some corners and then enjoying a superb result. Or spraying some foam balls, dusting them with a couple of kinds of ground foam/flocking, and expecting it to pass the sniff test.
There is always something of interest in each issue,and I look forward to each. Some might be awesome,and some with little to offer,but it all evens out. As far as the puffball forest ,they just did puffballs in the Virginian series this spring,which I thought was better done than this last article.
Philip
Have you ever thought about the fact that if you got your start in the hobby before the internet, you likely paid for most of the information on how to do the hobby, that you got? You paid for it by subscribing to; or, purchasing the various hobby magazines. If you were lucky enough to belong to a club that had some experts; or, happened upon a mentor that was an expert themselves, you may have received large amounts of information from them "free gratis". For myself, living in a rural part of the state I live in, The information I learned was all gleaned from the magazines and books I purchased.
Now you can come here; or, the other hobby forums/websites and get most of the information that I had to pay for, for free!
Does it seem understandable to you that it is difficult to be in the printed information business now-a- days? Baseball players don't hit homers every at bat. Why would you believe a magazine should be able to hit a homer every time?
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
Jumijo While I enjoyed the issue on the whole, I was disappointed with the tree making article. The puff ball trees didn't look realistic to me in the least, and the techniques displayed were nothing new.
While I enjoyed the issue on the whole, I was disappointed with the tree making article. The puff ball trees didn't look realistic to me in the least, and the techniques displayed were nothing new.
I've seen hillsides from I-24 in Tennessee that looked remarkably similar to the modelwork. If I had deciduous forests I'd vary the tree shapes (they don't all have to look like tennis balls.) Unfortunately, the predominant tree in my prototype area is the cedar...
Tony Koester's article was also a disappointment. Usually I like to read his musings, but this time, not so much.
For me, Tony's article brought back memories of the long, layout-free tour to SEA during which I designed a 1/3 scale locomotive cab with which to operate a 1:80 scale steamer. Among the features were counters to track fuel and water status. When I returned to the US I found myself in on-base quarters that were a spandex fit for myself, my wife and two adolescents. I didn't have space enough to build that model cab, never mind a layout to run a locomotive on.
As for the November MR, the N scale contingent should be happy with it. How-to articles, plus a nice layout.
The Soo Line in Tokyo was (in track plan, at least) a typical Japanese track plan - two mainline loops (without a passing siding on either one) and big yards. Online switching, hidden staging representing the rest of North America, even minimal engine servicing facilities are all either given lip service or are totally absent. Speaking as a prototype modeler, it takes more than rolliing stock and building names to model a prototype. Where's the typical Midwestern town (feed mill, grain elevator, Co-Op store, etc)? On the end of a long switchback siding! Not to mention that the countryside is a lot more like N&W in West Virginia than like the Soo anywhere.
Of course I had the advantage of actually visiting Kiso country. I wonder if Misonou-san has ever seen the flatlands where the Soo held sway.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Some of you are saying, the large photo on page 37 of the article on How to make TREE COVERED HILLS, doesn't look realistic? Well, then you guys are just going to have to show us how it's done!
My vote is that it is very well done and I'm pretty sure I have a better than average eye for how well these types of scenes look. Of course if you've never seen rolling hills covered in deciduous forest, maybe you aught to keep your mouth shut!
..and you don't have to be so crabby about it.
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
NP2626 My vote is that it is very well done and I'm pretty sure I have a better than average eye for how well these types of scenes look. Of course if you've never seen rolling hills covered in deciduous forest, maybe you aught to keep your mouth shut!
I lived in the Southern Ohio and Northern Ky area for 10 years and not once did I seen a Forrest looking like a bunched up pile of green cotton balls..
Larry, put up or shut up, lets see photos of how wonderful your deciduous trees and rolling hills are!
Not crabby! Just tired of a bunch of "whinny" malcontents!
NP2626 Larry, put up or shut up, lets see photos of how wonderful your deciduous trees and rolling hills are! Not crabby! Just tired of a bunch of "whinny" malcontents!
This hobby is big enough to allow some to have more realistic trees and others not so real.
I did not read Larry's posts as particularly 'whiney'...
BTW...I did enjoy the tree article for what it was...if some think the trees looked a little puffball like ...big whoop.
sheeesh.
I believe those that know me on this and other forums know I prefer urban ISLs over any type of layout..I'm mildly surprise you don't know that.
Now,I am neither whinny nor a malcontent and I fully believe those that knows me on this and other forums knows I speak my thoughts pro or con on the matter and the majority as accepted that..
Sorry,those puff ball trees look just like green balls and lumps of cotton just like they did in the 80s..
Nothing you can say will change my views of puff ball trees..
What is an ISL?
Industrial Switching Layout.
BRAKIE NP2626 Larry, put up or shut up, lets see photos of how wonderful your deciduous trees and rolling hills are! Not crabby! Just tired of a bunch of "whinny" malcontents! I believe those that know me on this and other forums know I prefer urban ISLs over any type of layout..I'm mildly surprise you don't know that. Now,I am neither whinny nor a malcontent and I fully believe those that knows me on this and other forums knows I speak my thoughts pro or con on the matter and the majority as accepted that.. Sorry,those puff ball trees look just like green balls and lumps of cotton just like they did in the 80s.. Nothing you can say will change my views of puff ball trees..
Sorry, Larry, No, I don't follow you around and did not know you prefer layouts without trees, which of course would make you an expert on trees.
I would guess your seeing that I tend to tell it like it is, also.
Had any of you who find it so easy to be critical, ever written an article on anything what so ever, you might have a little more respect and admiration for all the hard work and effort that goes into doing so!
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Maybe just maybe living (10 years) and railroading(6 1/2 years) in the foot hills of the Appalachian Mountains (Southern Oh/Northern Ky area) disqualifies me from knowing what a forest should look like?
Surely you jest if you think that.
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No,I'm not a author nor do I wish to become one.
You seem to be mighty upset and making a big to do out of nothing...
Did you write that article?
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Again,nothing you say will convince me balls or lumps of green cotton looks like a forest.
I keep telling people...
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder..some like it, some do not.
This hobby is big enough for both sides of the strawman to exist....
tomikawaTT ... I wonder if Misonou-san has ever seen the flatlands where the Soo held sway.
... I wonder if Misonou-san has ever seen the flatlands where the Soo held sway.
I don't have the article with me, but I think he did mention visiting the U.S. area he had modeled.
The discussion is getting away from being of any help here. I see both points about the appearance of the "puff balls", Yes, if they are too uniform in shape, size and color it won't represent a true forest canopy. This is not to say that the area modeled wouldn"t look this way, but as to using the trees as more of a backdrop to blend for distance, it can work. I find that using various shapes, sizes and colors will tend to have the scene more believable.
This spot sat for some time deciding on just how to finish the type of forest. Many club members worked on all types of trees and doing up trays of puff balls, long before actual planting.
The hillside has many puffballs placed throughout, but wanted to show a "mixed" forest especially where this is up close and @ or above eye level. Trees of stretched polyfiber as well as some forgroung production ones were planted to gain the effect we wanted.
If you end up w/ too uniform a look to the overall canopy, doctoring up some of the tops w/ dusted on varying colored foliage, fine grasses etc, even dust the tops to highlight w/ yellow spray paint to simulate sunlight. This and adding some forground trees, twigs for dead trees all will work to break it up and give a far better realistic look.
Now let's be nice!
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
Odie,If you're happy with your cotton ball trees..
Personally I don't like balls or lumps of cotton painted green with green ground foam sprinkled on but,to each his own...
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Bob,I fully agree the forest trees need to vary in height..It probably wouldn't hurt to have some fire breaks in modeled forest as well.