Cathead

Come over to the riverboat dark side! Model Shipway's Chaperon is an underrated kit at a large scale (1:48) that takes a reasonable level of modeling skill but has very little rigging. It's also a rare example of a riverboat kit that's actually accurate. There are some nice build logs here and @kurtvd19 has a really nice practicum that gives you a lot of extra guidance and background. https://modelexpo-online.com/Model-Shipways-CHAPERON-Mississipi-Sternwheel-Steamer-148-_p_1001.html?srsltid=AfmBOoo40Nap01jT6diUyGH-8mSG8ItDwGgU6VF1-Xh1FR2w21W9mXXo

Well sure, you'd think so, but the reason I got involved in this particular theme was that one of the earlier kit images you showed had what sure looked like the wrong Cyrillic letter, or at the very least a really poor rendition of one, so I was just celebrating that the part you showed this time was right.

Yep, THAT'S the correct Cyrillic!

Here's a bit of fun historical background. I was finally able to make a trip to the State Historical Society research center, where they have all sorts of cool stuff. The item I was after, which I'd perused before but not taken detailed notes from, was this: This is a thick volume, published by the railroad, that lists summaries of every town along its entire system covering Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. These summaries include population, primary industries, descriptions of the surrounding country and its agriculture, and so on. The volume then goes on to list, in exhaustive detail, every business or businessman having a relationship with the railroad in an extraordinary variety of classifications. For example: That last one cracks me up. Language is always changing. So I was able to slowly go through the entire volume and note down every business that dealt with the railroad in my focus towns like New Franklin and Rocheport. Here's a summary of the businesses operating in Rocheport in 1912 that the railroad felt were worth listing in its business directory as shippers or receivers, curated for the entries I felt were most relevant. Yes, I'm focusing on 1900 instead, but this is the only year the research library has and it's close enough for my purposes. Hotels Grossman Hotel Agricultural implement, vehicle and wagon manufacturers and dealers W.W. Scobbee Apple and potato dealers, buyers, shippers, and growers George Roberts, apple grower & shipper C.D. Hill, " C.C. Bell, " H.J. Fieschman, " Luther Grigsby, " Sid Challies, " L. Torbitt, " C.S. Jenkins, " Coal & wood dealers T.J. Canole Drug dealers B.F. Dimitt E.H. Chinn General merchandise dealers E. Inman J.B. Challis H.R. Harris Grain Elevators, flour, feed, corn, grist and rice mills Rocheport Roller Mills, flour, 125 bbls daily Rocheport Elevator, 10,000 bu Hardware and mill supplies F.E. Bysfield Hay and alfalfa dealers and shippers T.J. Canole Lumber F.E. Bysfield Stock yards and livestock dealers and shippers Basque & McMillan Rapp & Little D.C. Steckdaub Note some of the interesting overlaps: TJ Canole is both a wood/coal dealer AND a hay/alfalfa dealer. This is pretty fun, since when I was first trying to figure out what that giant hay barn was, I thought it might be a lumber yard. It may still double as a fuel dealer and that means I can spot cars of coal there (Missouri has several major coal mining regions that were quite active in this era, including a major field along the MK&T mainline in SW Missouri). Also noted that FE Bysfield is listed under both hardware and lumber; that's also a pretty sensible combination. The sheer amount of independent businesses in a town of 434 is fascinating. Not to mention the far more diverse agriculture. Nine independent growers and shippers of apples from a town that size! I knew this area was once vibrant with orchards but even so that's a vivid picture. I'm strongly resisting the urge to get political here with regards to the decline in small towns, manufacturing, and independent communities and the resulting socio-economic problems. So all this is very interesting if you're a complete local history nerd, but why is it relevant to this modeling project? Two primary reasons. (1) It lets me use real names for local businesses. I can now call it the Rocheport Elevator (creative name, I know) and put a sign for TJ Canole, hay dealer, on the larger barn wall. I can give the commercial buildings in town the names of real enterprises. It adds a layer of realism and context that I think is pretty neat. (2) It makes operating sessions more interesting. Having all these names for local shippers lets me set up specific orders for cars. For example, maybe one set of stock cars sent to the stockyard is for a consignment being shipped by Basque & McMillan to one destination, while another set of cars is for Rapp & Little being sent to a different destination (for example, Kansas City vs St Louis, both of which had major meatpacking establishments), instead of just "two stock cars". I can have different boxcars spotted to be loaded with apples from different farms being sent to different destinations. I can have shipments for a given merchandise or implement dealer set out, rather than just "spot boxcar 123 on track 1 loaded with general freight". Operators switching in Rocheport (or anywhere else) will have a much richer sense of what the railroad is doing there, and that's part of the joy of modeling railroading, the ability to really recreate the actions (not just the look) of a setting. Another aspect of (2) is the value of planning a model railroad based on real settings. I laid out my version of Rocheport based on the actual track arrangements and what I could see in contemporary photographs. For example, there's only one siding and only two physical destinations for freight cars on that siding (the stockyards and the hay/grain complex). Model railroaders building something more freelanced would want more physical industries in a scene this size, and would be adding factories and other sidings and so on. I stuck with what I could see. And the reward is the evidence that Rocheport DID have a lot of other industries going, it's just that most of them didn't have specific loading points. I left room in my track plan for two spots where freight cars can be spotted for general loading/unloading (called "team tracks", since traditionally a wagon drawn by a horse team would pull up there, and still called that today even when served by modern trucks). I didn't have a specific plan for what would ship to/from these points, I just felt certain they'd be needed. And now I have a massive list of specific businesses that would be using those team track points, from outbound apple shipments to inbound farm equipment. It just makes the whole setting so much more vibrant. In a future post I'll talk more about model railroad operations but this is enough writing for one post. I think it's some pretty cool context and maybe you will, too.

Love it! One question, which is purely speculative and not critical: doesn't it seems like those 8' handles would be too long to actually use in the confined space between the boiler and the front wall? Or is that an optical illusion?

Chris, here's another question about accuracy, as a former student of Russian. In the "what it's supposed to look like" photo, the stern has what's obviously supposed to be the ship's name in Russian, Phoenix (феникс). But that first letter looks totally off; it looks like a plain "o", not the Cyrillic "f", "ф", which can be scribed various ways but must have a vertical line through it. Sometimes it looks like a sideways 8, sometimes a circle, but always the vertical line. What they show would read as "oenix" in English. It really threw me until I realized it was an incomplete f. Unless I'm missing something about 18th century Russian script, which I admit to not being familiar with... What does the lettering look like in your kit?

I would have said the same as Other Keith; black makes a good undertone but the way to weather it is with shades of grey that tone down its ability to soak up light, and reveal some of the surface texture. Another reason I like pastels, because they inherently leave some texture on any surface that scatters light just a bit.

Me, too, though I kinda can't wait until the next revolution comes and locomotives become self-contained with battery power. I'd be thrilled to eliminate all track wiring. Sound does add an extraordinary level of immersive realism. Yeah, the car card boxes will be right at that shelf for easy use. This way this scene is designed, it's all but impossible (or at least highly inadvisable) for any paperwork to get put on the layout because the tracks are set back a bit with scenery in the foreground. There will also be a track diagram with spotting locations labeled, I'm working on developing that now. That'll be a future post.

I continued on track-laying and wiring for part of today. Here's what the wiring under the two west-end turnouts looks like. It's not as scary or chaotic as it seems, like wires are actually neatly bundled together and nothing's soldered, meaning it's easy to adjust if needed. Thick black and red wires are the bus wires that carry main track power, smaller wires branching off from them carry power to individual track feeders, and yellow/brown/orange wires are the control wires for the turnouts. This is by far the most complicated section because of the turnouts and the throttle panel. Here's a detail of track laying. I lay a thin smear of glue down on the roadbed, then use these nifty metal track spacers to set consistent curves or straight runs; these hold the flexible track in the right shape while I use a few small spikes to hold the track down until the glue dries. And the really cool news is that the track-laying and wiring are all done! After a small amount of trouble-shooting, everything appears to work smoothly and I can operate all across the layout. It's super-exciting. In celebration, here are some broader context shots with more trains staged for appearance. It's so cool to reach this stage. It'll be back to scenery for a while now, but I can actually run trains! I don't think we can upload video or audio clips directly to MSW, and I don't really want to start posting layout stuff to third-party sites like YouTube. So I'm not sure if I can do that. I do agree I'd love you all to see and hear the actual operation, it adds so much. I'll give this some thought, there may be a solution down the road. Thanks to all of you for helping me get to this point! EDIT: I forgot to add this image, which is a first rough take on recreating the historic photo that inspired this whole project. Pretty cool! The actual location of the real shot is actually west of the tunnel (layout left), so it'll appear if/when I extend this to the next module. The layout shot is actually along the bluffs in the background of the historic shot, just east (layout right) of Rocheport. But it's close enough!

Welcome back!

Yesterday featured a landmark occurrence: the first movement of a train on this project: OK, fine, it was just a quick electrical test of the first bits of track laid. But it was still a very exciting moment! This locomotive is sound-equipped, and the huffing of exhaust along with a triumphant whistle blast brought Mrs. Cathead in to see what was going on. Here's a broader view: I really hate doing electrical work, it's easily my least favorite thing about model railroading. But it needs to be done so I'm doing it. I already showed the turnout controls; another step was to install the panels where locomotive throttles plug in. These involve drilling out rough holes in the fascia to accomodate the circuitry behind these panels, them screwing them in place. You'll also notice that the left-hand track diagram is now painted instead of taped, as agreed on by the community. I then installed throttle holsters as well. So now the front-facing part of the electrical work is done, and it's time to start doing all the fiddly under-layout wiring along with additional tracklaying. I've already found something I need to troubleshoot and hope I can figure out. Did I mention that I hate electrical work? But the good news is that it directly leads to some really fun stuff (operating trains). A few more status shots. It really is starting to look "official" with the fascia infrastructure near completion. And one final shot down the tracks:

I'm out of my depth here, sadly.

My leaning was also the painted version, both for permanence and appearance (I think the thicker lines look a little child-like and overdone). As Rik said, harder to get right in the first place but worth it in the long run. And I could always paint wider stripes but I like the thin ones. I'm using the turnout control system made by Walthers. I've used the Caboose manual throws before but I'm not a big fan of their out-of-scale appearance and I just felt they weren't entirely reliable. Plus, the fascia controls give operators a better sense of how routes are lined, potentially avoiding mistakes. Especially on something with a through-running mainline as opposed to a switching layout where the manual controls make more sense. I should note that the backdrop still isn't done, I need to do some additional sky painting. But I do like how the background hills and bluffs came out.

I hadn't really thought about whether or not I was providing a sense of scale. Glad that happened by accident! The whole scene is 11 feet long if that helps people, with a depth of about 2 feet from fascia to backdrop.