January 2007

VIGNETTES

…are all those little scenes that help us believe this is a real place with real people . During this visit we’re going to look beyond the track and the trains and spend some time thinking about the things that breathe life into our miniature worlds. After all, life isn’t all about trains as much as we may wish it so. It’s really about the people and events. Look for yourself.

PEOPLE AT WORK:

The warehouse in Winter Valley shares a siding with the grain elevator and a scrap metal dealer. Being in the middle can cause a problem for management. Things must be loaded and unloaded right now and during the harvest “right now” can be just about any time of day or night. If there seems to be a holdup on the ground the foreman has to get on top of it right away.

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The Winter Valley shops consist of a single one-stall engine house, a diesel oil facility, a sanding tower and a small station that’s now used as a warehouse. An over grown spur can still support the odd bad order car, or the snow plow out of season, but the days of maintaining a big 2-6-4 are long past.

But basic diesel maintenance is still done here buy a small, aging staff of master mechanics. The heavy work is farmed out the CN in Edmonton. A new interchange agreement with CN may mean the end to all maintenance work when this crew finally decides to retire.

Not all activity around the railroad needs to be railway related. In this case a team of workmen are replacing a culvert that runs under the track. Some very basic tools and a sample of their materials is all that’s needed here. The story gets told.

That crew may have been able to get away with this in 1977 but if you model the same scene today you’d be sure to provide hardhats and reflective vests. And your workers sure wouldn’t be operating that close to a potentially moving, or even explosive, rail car. Times change.

Some conclusions about the village of Winter Valley can be drawn by the fact that the junkyard across from the station is one of the ‘busier’ industries in town. Even on a slow train day there’s some kind of activity around there. In this case it’s just a couple of lay-about's, who sit in the sun, share a few cold ones and remind each other how much better things were in the old days. Patchy, over grown vegetation, some old tires and cable reels complete the scene.

Retirement comes all too soon for some of us and perhaps the old man should have just kept working. The young Dr Martin and his mom stop by to see that everything is already under way in the small cemetery on the hill east of town. Only a few of Winter Valley’s pioneers find an eternal home here. The relative newcomers opt for a less ancient ceremony in a less natural setting. A real close look around will tell you this is a multi faith cemetery. A long life of hard work and loving friends gets you in here and no one has much time to ask about your God.

Boot Hill may have became a legend but just as every town had streets and a row of shops it had a place for the dear departed. In this case I cut and painted some simple shapes for markers and spent a little extra time on a picket fence. The workers were right out of the box and that haunting tree at the back is a branch of Sage that adds just the right atmosphere to the scene.

PEOPLE AT PLAY:

Far too often we modellers cram just about as much ‘modelling’ into every given space we have the wallet for. Another building. Then another. Perhaps with a siding that will hold a special new car. But if you look around, especially in small communities, there are a lot of open spaces. There are formal parks for sure with swings and sandboxes but there are also simple grassy fields with a makeshift diamond and a home made backstop. That flat open space, for whatever use, will actually enhance your trains as they pass by.

The freight shed and the clutter on the loading platform may dominate the scene but that isn’t what catches the eye. In ever scene it’s the people who get noticed first and this is particularly so when they are alone or in very small groups. The mind asks, “What are they doing.” I made up a little story but the stories are as many as there are viewers. Create a simple scene and let people’s imagination take over.

As September comes to an end and Halloween seems near, Kathy has started to pay close attention to the pumpkin patch that reseeds itself every spring down at the corner of Browns feed lot. Kids have a great time selecting just the right one and nurturing it along for those last few weeks to create that all time best jack-o-lantern in the world. If the cows don’t eat them first.

There was an awkward corner on the layout. The main line curved away from the wide open viewing area and headed behind the furnace where it began a very steep, well-hidden change of elevation. Still, one small corner needed ‘something’ and there wasn’t room for even a small structure. A cow, a little girl and some pumpkins made out of Bev’s modelling clay fixed that.

Out this way, if your young and experiencing a lack of cash, then you’re probably not in real select company. Perhaps he’ll find that carburetor still has some life in it. Failing that, there may be something else of value in this rusting old wreck.

The snow fence has seen better days too. When grandfather was around it protected the siding that served the abattoir and packinghouse. Today, a single bad order car may test the limits of those rusting rails. By next year they may fail completely.

This is my favourate scene. It’s been published in a number of model magazines and if there’s a boxcar or something on that siding at the rear it qualifies as a railway photo as well. Perhaps I love it because I lived it. Dads ’39 Chevy wasn’t my idea of a chick magnet so I spent a lot of time rebuilding a 1960 Pontiac. I had it running then gave it all up to enlist in the airforce.

Somehow I find it easier to build ‘wrecks’ out of those plastic models than create those finished, beautifully detailed works of art.

Out back of Dave’s old trailer the girls are taking advantage of the last few rays of late summer sun. All too soon it will be necessary to do their cleaning back inside in that phone booth of a bathroom. But hey, the rent is cheap here and with two or three sharing the load, it’s even better. That way there’s a little money left over at the end of the month. Perhaps for some new clothes? Hmmmmm. Good idea.

If Canadians are more grown up about these things than the average American then the average European leaves us both in the dust. Scantly clad, and much worse, models are readily available overseas and are a fixture on many continental layouts. These ladies hide, for the most part, behind a fence in Pearson and their activities must be pointed out to selected guests.