I received my April 2011 issue of Model railroader today and was very pleased to see the articles on weathering. I was particularly impressed with the “Weather: the final frontier in modeling” article written by Don Ball (page 42).
His concept of the weather systems for all four seasons intrigued me to the point I decided to take it one stage further and simulate a summer time incident on my N scale layout. The idea was to simulate a really hot summers day with cinder dry conditions. So I started a forest fire at one end of the recently finished landscaped area and put a small variable fan on to simulate winds that increased in intensity as the fire moved rapidly across the layout. Most of the buildings are now blackened relics and all the trees are satisfyingly just stumps and stubble. The SD40-2’s are a little singed but might still operate. The aroma of burnt foam and plastic completes my long sought out attempts at ultimate realism.
Sorry there’s no photo the camera melted too.
Thanks for the inspiration Don, it was the April issue after all
cp7400 LOL! Well done! Everything thing else on a layout is prototypical, why not a fire? Hey, how about a flood! An earthquake! A hurricane with a fan! A cat posing as Godzilla! The possibilities are endless!
I guess after the events in Japan that even the concept of disaster, in humour, can have a sobering effect.
As I laid the last part of my layout track this afternoon I had time to reflect on the chaos that is happening in Japan. Here I was sanding, caulking, and soldering and at the same time the Japanese people are struggling to find the basics to survive.
I don’t regret responding to humour with humour, but reflection is awfully sobering.
Way back in the 70’s, E L Moore, (great scratch builder who used balsa, paper, and cardboard for all you young folks out there), built his “Cannonball Safety Power Works”, and then proceeded to blow it up with real black powder. He took photos of the explosion and fire for his article in MR.
Yes, the April (!!) 1977 issue of MR. The first explosion did not turn out all that well so he rebuilt the destoyed model and blew that one up again.
The article has a classic E.L. Moore line: “It is rumored that the structure is built from slightly prototypic plans. I hope it pleases you to believe me.”
