Adding the Details to Model Railroads
Dick ElwellDescription
Dick Elwell’s childhood memories fuel his inspiration for scenes on the Hoosac Valley model railroad. Model railroad train inspiration can be extremely diverse. For example, some modelers find inspiration from traveling, others from dreams and some from other modelers. It’s clear that influence can come from an unlimited array of possibilities.
Adding the Details to Model Railroads
In part nine of the 10-part Hoosac Valley series, Allen Keller and Dick Elwell review and examine the scenery on the model railroad. Dick’s layout is packed full of miniature scenes. Allen asks Dick where he finds the time and inspiration to create all of the scenery on the Hoosac Valley Railroad. Even after all the hard work and dedication that has been put into the railroad, Dick is still not satisfied and continues to improve on his layout.
In this video, Dick mentions a friend who has helped add scenery to the Hoosac Valley Railroad. He visits once in awhile and goes through Dick’s figure box. Dick allows him to freely design and decorate with the figurines allowing for creativity and spontaneity. It brings a new aspect to the layout, since Dick tends to carefully take the time to create scenes.
There is just one more episode left of the Hoosac Valley series. Dick provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to create scratchbuilt utility poles for your model railroad in the final episode. Follow along for some helpful suggestions from Dick himself.
The layout is full of mini scenes. Pretty much that's what your specialty is, I think, it seems to me. How do you find time and inspiration for all those? Oh, that's interesting. You know, I would like to have a lot more time for mini scenes, and now that I'm pretty well done, I think I'll get into it even more than I have. I haven't really found, I guess what I'm saying is I haven't found the time to really do them the way I'd like to do them. Here again, I've got a friend who he just loves to do this. It's a fella, Ernie Hall, and I've just, he comes up every once in a while and he gets going through my figure backs and things, and I just turn him loose and say, Hey, Arnie, do what you want. And, and this is his thing. He just loves to go around and do that. He's got quite a few of them. You do it too. Oh yeah, then I'm speaking to the newer ones here again. And the new section and things. I just take the time, you know, I just, maybe with 31 years, I guess you can find some time to do them. Well where do you get the idea for a scene, say the scene at the, with the tugboat with the, with the gas pumps and the people? Well I used to fish Lake Champlain a lot with my dad. And I just kind of imagine that scene as we were out there fishing I would see the tug boats pushing the oil barges up up Lake Champlain. And I, I just thought, you know, I'd like the tug. I liked the tugboat and I'd like a little bit of water on the layout. So I would make a Bay at the supposedly that's a Bay that's in white hall. It's a Bay at the end of Lake Champlain where the tug is refueling in preparation to doing some work on Lake Champlain.
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