TRAIN TIME: An Update To My Edge of Town Micro-Layout and This Year's Marx Christmas Train

The American Model Builders gas station is now on the Edge of Town micro-layout. It still needs weathering and the area around it needs scenicking but that's all for a future project or two. For this year, I'm running my Marx Christmas train on the EoT. Last year it was run on the larger layout. The engine I was using to pull the Marx Christmas consist gave up the ghost so I pulled this bright red train from my New Marx (aka Modern Marx) work train set. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

The train is a mix of Modern Marx and custom pieces

TRAIN TIME: Working on The Edge of Town Layout Again - American Model Builders All-American Gas Station

Edge of Town (EoT) layout update. FINALLY, after a long hiatus, I got around to doing some work on the EoT. I made this American Model Builders All-American Gas Station kit for this area of the layout. Not a professional-grade build but better than a poke in the eye! LOL I also had to clean the layout up in preparation for running some trains. Next, I'll have to weather it a bit, add ground cover and more details. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

TRAIN TIME: The Edge of Town (EoT) Dept. of Public Works Makes a New Grade Crossing

I think for the most part we all do it. Do what? Well, we build a train board, lay track, plop down buildings in the middle and call it a day. Somewhere along the way we may add a bit of scenery and a single grade crossing with a road going off the board to the fantasy world beyond. Seldom do I see a layout wherein there is more than one way onto or off the board. This bothered me a little bit as I would sit at the EoT and allow my mind to wander down those rural paths in mid-central Wisconsin. Somehow it didn't seem right that the whole look of my little enclave was a dead-end. I wanted a way for travelers to come into the area and head on out again without having to doo a U-turn. The solution turned out to be simple. Right next to the newly graveled-in parking lot the flagstop station rests on was a space perfectly suited for one of Lionel's single-lane plastic grade crossings. All I had to do was cut down the crossing so that it would fit the space, and slice out a section of the Marx roadbed track to accomodate the crossing. Now motorists can enter and leave the area relatively unimpeded (unless of course traffic at the farmer's market ties things up some). Enjoy! Opa Fritz

TRAIN TIME: My Edge of Town (EoT) Train Layout Made The Cover of Classic Toy Trains (CTT)

Welll, the big news of late is that my Edge of Town micro-layout made it into the pages of Classic Toy Trains! I have the cover photo as well as a feature article! Whoopee! LOL When I was a young 'un and into HO scale model railroading, I marveled over the layouts of people like John Allen, Jim Findley, Earl Smallshaw, John Olson, and Malcolm Furlow. Their layouts were stunning and I wanted a big layout like theirs and have it featured in Model Railroader magazine (a Kalmbach Publishing product). Alas, my HO scale mega-layout never came to be, Classic Toy Trains magazine didn't yet exist, and I wasn't into toy trains until much later in life.

Fast forward to 2016 when I dismantled my larger Marxville and Plateau layout and resurrected my small portable layout from its resting place out in The Cave turning it into a permanent display. But that was fine and I enjoyed running trains on a smaller board. By 2019 I had grown tired of its toylike appearance - perhaps my yearning to go back to my HO scale days when detail was king! I didn't want the layout to be micro-detailed like the HO-scalers do, but I wanted it to be more than it was and so I embarked on an evolutionary journey to transform the relatively plain, uninspring train board, into a semblance of a model railroad - albeit with toy trains running on it. The process started in late 2019 and after nearly a year of on-again, off-again work, the layout began to take on the appearance of nicely detailed model railroad. Towards the end of 2020, one of my Y'allTube subscribers (Cody Holmes) mentioned that I should submit some photos to Classic Toy trains - it couldn't hurt! I was expecting perhaps a photo or two to show up in their 'Photo Album' section but in Nov-Dec 2020 after a series of discussions with Roger Carp, Senior Editor at CTT, an extensive questionnaire, and a few extra photos it became apparent that we were aiming for a full fledged article. It was to my great surprise then that a couple of weeks ago I saw the pre-release announcement of the upcomning May 2021 edition featuring my layout AND cover photo. WOW! Was I stoked.

So as it turns out, I did make the pages of a Kalmbach magazine, it just wasn't Model Railroader. AND, not only was it not a mega-layout, but was among the smallest layouts they've ever featured for 3-rail O-gauge trains. Everything worked out in the end. A Big shout-out and Many Thanx to Cody for giving me that nudge to submit photos, and to Roger Carp for working with me to polish up a nicely done article on my tiny Edge of Town layout!

For anyone interested, digital copies can be purchased at Zinio:

https://www.zinio.com/z/z-i512590?fbclid=IwAR1QDomJ6KcFtsQGZ3ChuOxdEoH-VZrh-exxscASxRE9qF4iYzB-LMsd-zw&_branch_match_id=820093880766091522

Enjoy! Opa Fritz

TRAIN TIME: New Passenger Shelter/Flagstop Station on the Edge of Town Layout

My new shelter/ station is now complete. But first, hre's a recap of the most recent project on the Edge of Town layout. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

The EoT is a small layout and requires a small passenger station and to that end, the Plasticville Freight Station kit was used (why they chose to call this a 'Freight' station is a mystery because it simply looks more like a passenger shelter than anything else, but that's okay you can use it for whatever you want). The only modification I made was to replace the ubiquitous 'Plasticville' sign with my own 'Deer Crest Lake' sign.

But then I got to thinking that for this tiny enclave,even the P-Ville platform was too big. The one I had on the EoT was vintage '50s with the original box so I was NOT going to chop that up for my project. Instead I found a junker on eBay: the glue was all dried out and someone had given it a light spray of flat black all over

Let the chopping begin!

The now shortened platform had some Evergreen Styrene siding glued to the base as well as custom cut edging glued all around meant to mimic a heavy framework. That was given texture by drawing a zip saw blade over the surface and scoring it in a rough pattern - perfect for a weatherbeaten structure. The shelter started life a Plasticville 2-stall outhouse/privy. I cut the center wall out, sanded it smooth and glued it to the base.

I then brush painted the interior of the shelter white and used my india ink/Isopropyl alcohol mixture to make it look dingy.

Next came some signs and posters. My collection of signs and posters dates from as far back as the '70s when I was still into HO scale trains

It now has a rough, dirty look to it appropriate for the area it serves.

'Deer Crest Lake' is now only 'Deer Crest' because that's what this enclave is actually called. The sign was printed out on regular copy/printer paper and surrounded by scale 2x2's 'painted' with a black Sharpie pen. So much of the fresh marker ink had rubbed off on my fingers that what was left gave the frame a nice weathered look!

This gal has been sitting there for the past couple of weeks now - she should have heeded the sign behind her!

The completed scene - always subject to change of course. 

 I believe that the term 'passenger shelter', while appropriate for the larger structure that preceeded this, is no longer fitting. As this will double as both station and milk platform, it falls more in line with a 'flagstop station' designation and that's how I'll be referring to it from now on - that is, if I remember! LOL