1943 model train layout

[Authority924]

Wondering how much time you've spent to build it all

[Lee Bishop]

Wondering how much time you've spent to build it all

Good question.
July of 2014: I started cutting wood
March 17, 2015: The track was all completed/wired and ready to run
May 2016: Basic scenery completed (it didn't look like it does now but at least it wasn't all plywood and foam foams for 'scenery' anymore)
Since that time, I've been improving everything

[Lee Bishop]

The story has long been told and is known by all the locals:
One fall morning, the revenuers and some deputies for the local Sherriff came to bust up the still for the Richardsons and Ensors. They pulled up in their cars at the Grindstaff store at the base of Hurley Hollow at Sadie, Tennessee. Knee-deep in the Great Depression, most of the locals were toiling in the fields and apparently paid them little mind.
The old men who always seemed to hang around the store watched in silence until their rifles and shotguns came out of the trunks of their cars. The old men started snickering and immediately knew what was going to happen.
"I wouldn't go up there looking for those boys," the men with badges were warned, "They's all gone across the water." The old men, of course, were referring to the Great War in France. They had all served in the trenches and the locals knew that those lessons had not gone unheeded.
The rifles and shotguns were loaded in silence, and off the men with the oversized badges went, up into the hills.
Over an hour passed and the old men suddenly heard the staccato echoes of rifle fire. Lot of it. As quickly as it started, it ceased.
An hour after that, the men with the badges came back, all limping and all injured in some way. The old men noticed that none had serious wounds, which they all immediately agreed was intentional. Those boys up in the hollow had learned where to shoot someone without killing them as they'd had plenty of experience against Germans in the trenches of France just over a dozen years before.
That was just over a decade ago. the moonshine stills are mostly quiet now. You can't get the 'fixings' for them now with wartime rationing on. All the young men are off across the water again, this time for a war across both oceans. Once that gets straightened out, the old men sitting in front of Grindstaff store declare, they'll be right back at it.

The law hasn't come up here looking for moonshine stills since that day they tangled with those Great War veterans. Sometimes the highway patrol comes up the valley, but nobody is worried to see men with badges. Everyone assumes they'll get right back at it once this current war is over.

[Lee Bishop]

I decided to put together a uniform for the "Commanding office, 796th ROB", using a reproduction cotton shirt, original Lt Col and Transportation Corps insignia, and a shoulder patch I'd made.



When I have layout tours for the National Narrow Gauge convention in September, I gotta wear this one of those days! Maybe I'll wear my pistol belt and a sidearm at the same time, as it'll keep visitors honest!

[Lee Bishop]

Recently, I scored a 1930 Model A made by Brooklyn. Normally they're expensive models (over $100 retail) but I snagged this one for around 40 bucks with postage. For what you pay in retail, they're not worth the extra money, IMHO. Other than no plastic parts other than the wheels, they're no better than less expensive diecasts. That said, it really looks great.
Yesterday, I weathered the thing.
I added a "B card" gas rationing sticker to the windshield, removed the side windows, and then added a Tennessee 1943 plate to the back end.

BEFORE:


AFTER:


And afterward, placed on the layout:

[Lee Bishop]

I have WW2 Jeeps on the layout, I think at least 4 of them on the layout normally at any one time:







One is hidden in the trees in a far background; no visitors have noticed it yet. It's a 1/48 scale Ford GPW (yes, I CAN tell the difference between a Ford and a Willys Jeep even at a distance so long as I can see the front end well) with a Solido 1/50 scale CCKW GMC 2 1/2 ton truck.

Yes, I have a REAL one; a 1944 Willys MB:

This is why the Jeeps on my layout have to be correct, with proper markings for a stateside unit.
On Saturday, I took the MB out for the first drive around town since right before the pandemic started:

Just as the pandemic started rolling (with the first lockdowns and outbreaks occurring in my state), the Jeep's fuel pump had leaks and the battery had issues once I did it's annual 'spring check' before the show season, and never got back to it as all the shows and events to which I'd drive it were cancelled for a very long time.
I'm a second generation WW2 Jeep owner, as my Dad's first car was a 1942 Ford GPW. I have two snapshots of it. Grandpa sold it out form under Dad when Dad went into the USAF in the late 50s. I'd love to know if it still exists somewhere but the serial number is lost to the family.
Now, the question might be asked; I've developed a very detailed history for the fictional 796th Railway Operating Battalion on the layout, so why not put those markings on my Jeep? That thought HAS crossed my mind but I have decided to get new markings for the public relations section of the 12th Army Group HQ, which was responsible for the transportation of civilian war correspondents (another interest of mine) from the Hotel Scribe in Paris to any place in the European Theater of Operations which had something of note going on.
I'm also going to replace the hood markings with the serial number for the Jeep personally issued by 5th Army to cartoonist Bill Mauldin. That should happen at some point this summer before the show season ends.

[Lee Bishop]

The National Narrow Gauge Convention officially ended Sunday, but there were tours scheduled for me and a few other layouts Monday morning. Once the last visitor left after 2PM yesterday, I was DONE and had a great time. The only thing I was slightly disappointed at was losing in the model photo competition to someone who submitted three so-so (at best) Colorado-themed (D&RGW) photos and took all three prizes, but I already knew that for many of the attendees of these conventions, it’s ALL about the Rio Grande stuff and nothing else.
As for my own tours, I set up a table at the front door, manned by a good friend who helped me with the track and wiring as it the layout was built. He's clearly the best qualified to talk about the layout aside from myself. I had a double-sided flyer about the layout for future reference:


Inside the room, I didn’t see one look of disappointment (I thought I would as I know many people want to just see the biggest layouts they can).


My tours were for Thursday and Monday (yes, Labor Day). The last day, I was asked to have tours the morning after the official event was over so that anyone driving south could swing by on the way home. Oddly, several of the visitors weren’t doing that and were instead heading back to Tacoma afterward.

Though I wasn’t available for tours on Saturday, I was asked by some VIPs to come by and check things out. I was more than happy to oblige, so Johnny Graybeal (ET&WNC historian and author), George Riley (White River Publications) and Chris Lane (editor of the On30 Annual) came by. As for Johnny and Chris, I consider them to be THE two people outside my own family who’d best understand what I was trying to accomplish with my layout. I couldn’t have been happier to have them look things over, so naturally I had to take a photo to confirm they’d been there!


Later at the end of the event, Chris gave me a suggestion for an article for the 2023 Annual, which I’m already working on!
More photos are here from the venue, including several of the contest entries here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/53587910@ ... 0301823993

[chibobber]

Lee,
Sounds like a good weekend.
Bob

[Lee Bishop]

Not long ago, a museum in NC completed restoration of one of the very few East Tennessee and Western North Carolina railroad boxcars, number 434: http://www.tarheelpress.com/etbox/
Today, one of guys who assisted just sent me a piece of siding from the boxcar. I can't get over that I now have a piece of a real ET&WNC freight car!

I am already in the process of scratch building a boxcar from a bag of older parts, so I'll be making it into 434 for this reason.
Now, I just need to figure out how I'm going to hang this piece on the wall.
Better still, I also have a piece of caboose 505 coming, from the external siding, from the guy who restored that for the Avery County museum at Newland, NC!

[Lee Bishop]

I just got this in the mail today, a piece of siding off ET&WNC caboose # 505. It was removed as part of the restoration effort at the Avery County museum in Newland, NC and sent to me by the gentleman who restored the caboose:


I swear I was cackling to myself with joy from the mailbox once I realized what was inside the envelope!

And here's my own model of this caboose, made from a Deerfield River Laser kit, sitting atop part of the real thing:

[chibobber]

Reminds me of my days working on the caboose track for the CMStP&PRR (Milwaukee Road). Loads of paint on your plank,as I would expect. When we painted the floors of the caboose, It was an exercise in expediency. Five gallons of gray deck paint and a corn broom. Pore it out and spread it around.
Great weathering job on the caboose.
(Did you repaint your jeep bumper?)
Bob

[Lee Bishop]

Bob, other than my brakes, I have done very little with the Jeep. I hope to redo the bumper and hood markings this fall.
FYI, I live within walking distance of the abandoned Milwaukee Road mainline to Aberdeen, WA.

[Ed Roberts]

Lee, very nice presentation. Can you tell me why the caboose had no guard/hand rails on the roof? I presume this was a typical configuration, but seems like a real hazard with a simple fix.
Thanks, Eddie

[Lee Bishop]

Can you tell me why the caboose had no guard/hand rails on the roof? I presume this was a typical configuration, but seems like a real hazard with a simple fix.

Beats me, Eddie. Narrow gauge railroads often lacked the safety stuff the larger railroads had.

[Niblet]

very nice layout!