Model Railroading on the Cheap

   I thought I would try making a scene that will speak to the camera and tell a story without using any words.  Let the observer use his imagination.  Here is an example:

On second thought, maybe I should fill in the details.

   This car of gravel had been at the unloading conveyor on the dual purpose track earlier today. Now we find it here at the car repair track. I suppose we could surmise that the half unloaded car has a jammed latch on one of the bay doors. It was moved here by the local switcher for repair.  It looks like the shop men are working to get the latch freed up. I hope they don’t get the door opened here on the rip track. That would be a bad place for too big a pile of gravel.

A more believable story would be to have a man with a shovel climb into the car and empty it by hand through the other bay – then have the switcher move the car to the rip track to fix the latch.

   The car is unusual. It is by Revell-1956.  It has more rivets inside than the popular hoppers of this day and age (See photo on next page). The load was made by shaping a block of Styrofoam and gluing it to a piece of card that had been fitted to the hopper bottom contour, then painting both with white glue and dipping it into a container of ‘N’ scale ballast.

   I felt that the car was an interesting find at a flea market. It originally had poor quality trucks and talgo mounted horn hook couplers. That was easily fixed with quality metal wheels and axels. I think it will be fun to resurrect this antique for operation on the Yardley and Hillton.