Featured
Series
modeling
Bottineau, North Dakota in the summer of 1991
Web
Articles
*new* the
weathering page *new*
Old
Web Stuff
the
old RC's Custom Diesels page
the
old Bottineau page
Background
At
one time I tried to model everything I saw. I failed to achieve
anything but a hodgepodge of half-executed
ideas, models painted but without
decals, boxes and boxes of unbuilt kits, and a few finished models with broken and missing pieces. A
bachelor doesn't mind this mess. Instead, he calls this disorganized mess "eclectic" with a certain amount of
pride in his voice.
Then I got married and had two daughters.
Fortunately,
I also discovered ebay about this time. Ebay has made it possible
for me to sort out the mess and sell my junk to
treasure seekers around the
globe. Ebay also made it possible for me to sell some of my favorite models that I
didn't want to sell at all,
but had to because "push had come to shove," as they say.
Anyway, with
my new "spartan" collection of only those
models that made the cut, I decided to stop modeling everything I saw and pick
one or two trains from each
place I've lived or visited to model. Fortunately, I've lived in some great places for
railroads!
I grew up in
the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas and
that's where my family and I live now. Several of my favorite railroads operated in
Fort Worth, so consequently most
of my modeling efforts center on those railroads.
Like many
other model railroaders, I enjoy the trains
of my teens the most. That's when I could finally go on my own the two miles west to
the tracks to watch
trains and make sketches and get the occasional cab invitation.
That puts
my modeling focus squarely on 1986 until
1994.
During that period I lived in Fort Worth, Texas; Niceville, Florida; Newnan, Georgia and I
stayed a summer with my
grandparents in Bottineau, North Dakota.
From each time
and place, there stands out a definitive
train or two, something I saw regularly or only once. Knowing and remembering those
trains is easy. Narrowing
it down to only a handful of trains is the hard part. But, the
narrow focus
keeps the
whole project in motion.
I build my own
souvenirs of these times and places in
an attempt to recreate them. Even if it's just enough to visit them from new angles and
recall the experiences that
made these memories unforgettable, that's enough. Each souvenir has its place in the
1/87th scale world that surrounds
it and it's satisfying to see that frozen glimpse of imagination come back to life in this
world. The raw, disarmed
appreciation for the wholeness of the beauty of the world in those
moments is
my inspiration to build these little worlds.
It's those wide-eyed moments of awe that my wife and I love to see
flash across
our little girls' faces, that's what I'm after.
So, anyway, I
intend to add content to this site as
time permits as well as migrate and improve the content on the old Bottineau and RC's
Custom Diesels websites.
However, time spent on editing this corner of the internet is time I could be
spending modeling.
Or better yet,
riding the Forest Park train with the girls.
This page was
modified on July 31, 2005
