1943 model train layout

Question and opinion regarding modeling
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Lee Bishop
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Thu Jun 18, 2020 9:23 am

Here we go, my newest project. A while back, someone uploaded color movie film from Hampton, Tennessee during what it labelled as taken during the fall of 1940. Sadly, I looked up the Vimeo video and can’t find it there now. I’m glad I screen saved a few shots from it. In this film, they showed a few Carter County school busses heading back to Elizabethton from a football game. They were 1939 Dodge truck fronts with what have to be custom bus bodies.
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Sadly, nobody makes a ’39 Dodge truck in O scale, so I had to find something that could be used as a representation. My scratch-building skills to create the bus body (with all its compound curves) are nowhere up to the task. So, I had to compromise there, too. I’m going to use a Russian GAZ bus body, grafted onto the front of another maker’s truck front end.
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I’m going to grind off the nose of the truck from the firewall, do the same to the bus body and graft them together.
After that, I’ll shorten the truck frame to match the wheelbase for the finished body and mount it onto the shortened truck frame. It’ll then be painted in yellow, and I’ll make my own decals as I have a typeface very close to the original busses already prepared for the decals.
The irony here is that I model the summer of 1943, so a school bus doing anything doesn’t make a great deal of sense, though I assume they did get used in the summer for moving people around as needed?
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former US Army Captain and REMF :mrgreen:


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Lee Bishop
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Fri Jun 19, 2020 12:05 pm

Lee Bishop wrote:
Tue Jun 16, 2020 8:15 pm
Just saw this on eBay, 15 bucks and postage. I'm not sure if these trucks would have been common Stateside, but I just got to get this as I've never seen one for sale anywhere else. I didn't even know this model existed!
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The great thing is, all I need to do is remove the red ball Express markings off of the trailer, then add railroad unit markings to the front bumper, then weather the thing. I have plenty of stuff to throw into the back of it, lots of oil drums and things like that.
I thought this was an Autocar truck/trailer, but after spending more time looking it over, I now realize it's a M426. That wasn't even a prototype until 1944, almost a year after the layout takes place and not fielded until after that.
Dang.
:x
Oh well, I got a very good deal on it and similar models out of Europe are going for way more than I paid for it, so I'll probably re-list it.
The funny thing, they marketed it as a "Red Ball Express" rig, but they wouldn't have gotten across the pond until after the deep water port at Antwerp became the main supply route and the Red Ball officially ceased to exist...
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Former US Army Captain and REMF :mrgreen:

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Lee Bishop
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Thu Jun 25, 2020 8:21 am

I’ve been experimenting with some photos after changing the structure I use to represent smoke from locomotives in photos. It had been covered in cotton balls, but now I stretched foam pillow stuffing over it and painted it black. I’m just playing around trying to determine the best way to represent smoke with it, as it looks great in person.
In this shot, ET&WNC # 12 brings water car WC2 (formerly the tender of now-scrapped Stoney Creek Southern RR locomotive #2) slowly past the Unaka Company barrel plant at Winner, TN
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And here, #9 brings passenger coach 23 around the curve at Sadie, TN. Photographer Clarence Ilyankoff watches through the lens of his Speed Graphic camera:
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I will be doing more experiments to best show the smoke.
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Lee Bishop
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:15 pm

A couple more recent shots:

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Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former US Army Captain and REMF :mrgreen:

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Tue Jul 14, 2020 7:53 am

I got a new cell phone over the weekend (my old one was ready to give up) and I'm playing around with it's camera. Frankly, I think the camera in my previous one was better, but we'll see...
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Fri Aug 07, 2020 3:05 pm

I haven't done much with my layout as I've been working on 1:1 scale trains for each weekend (as a brakeman on a nearby tourist RR) since June. I'm taking a break until the end of this month, so hopefully I can get back to the layout.
Meanwhile, the Sergeant who normally drives the CO's command car for 'B' Company, 796th ROB has some washing to do!

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Thu Aug 20, 2020 8:50 am

Someone managed to snap off a shot with their Speed Graphic camera on a August afternoon at Sadie, TN. The shadow from the Texaco "Sheppard's crook" sign post shows up on the TN State Patrol car, though.
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Mr. Grindstaff must be discussing "that war across the water" with one of the older men who hang around his store these days...
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former US Army Captain and REMF :mrgreen:

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by chibobber » Thu Aug 20, 2020 6:56 pm

Lee,
Always great to see your photographic experiments.It's funny how most of our memories seem to be in B&W. :)
Bob

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Wed Oct 21, 2020 3:22 pm

I haven't done much other than experimenting with photography and recently had Trainmasters TV (an online pay site) ask for video for one of their segments to air sometime this winter.
After shooting all the running and background scenes, I then shot a few extra scenes of my own and I like how they turned out:
https://youtu.be/_qR5oo2NC4c
https://youtu.be/hZTURk9sO-o
My article on Railroad Model Craftsman should run sometime at the start of 2021...
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Former US Army Captain and REMF :mrgreen:

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Tim Shanteler » Wed Oct 21, 2020 5:39 pm

Nice!
Tim

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by armyairforce » Thu Oct 29, 2020 10:46 am

I've had an enjoyable read of this thread today. It looks great.

I've built many layouts over the years, almost all being portable exhibition layouts, but only one narrow gauge layout. That was around 1981, built to the UK OO9 scale and set in World War 1. Narrow gauge railways were used extensively in WW1 to supply ammunition to the front and bring wounded back.

Apart from a couple of very early layouts in OO gauge, almost everything else was built to N scale, both British and American. All had a military theme or had an aircraft on the layout somewhere. It's been 13 years since I built a layout for myself, though only 4 years since since I built a layout for a customer.
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Lee Bishop
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Tue Nov 03, 2020 9:12 am

At the Hunter, TN depot, and a lovely local gal is waiting for her sweetheart to arrive with a 72-hour pass at Camp Forrest:

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The old men are inside arguing about checkers and the war "across the water" at the Grindstaff store near Hurley Hollow, at Sadie, TN

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The commuters wait for the 12:15 to Johnson City at the Buladeen depot:

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Another duty day is halfway done at 'Baker' Company, 796th ROB:

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And near the Ensor farm, the gap is set correct to keep the cows in their pen. New-fangled flatlander swing gates are unheard of here:

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Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former US Army Captain and REMF :mrgreen:

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:44 am

I added a new gas pump at the Grindstaff store. It's a very small detail but I found a very good looking model of the right Texaco brand pump for normal leaded gas that would have bene in use in rural areas in the 40s.
It's 1/43 scale so it's a little bigger than it should be, but these pumps were very tall in real life, so I think it works well.
It only took about 20 minute of weathering (dry brushing and washes) to get it to look right for the location.
I got a second one, but ethyl gas pumps were yellow and I can't think of a way to paint the other to a authentic looking yellow without ripping off the excellent decals already on this pump...

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Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former US Army Captain and REMF :mrgreen:

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:31 am

It's November 11, but on my layout, veterans are never forgotten:

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Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former US Army Captain and REMF :mrgreen:

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Mon Nov 16, 2020 2:27 pm

A few random close-in shots around the Buladeen depot over the weekend...
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Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former US Army Captain and REMF :mrgreen:


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