1943 model train layout

[Mark Tombleson]

I agree, great skills and the photos are awesome!

I looked at the video and had to read the whole thread... almost 5 years of work and rare finds.

Over the years I known a number of guys into model railroads but yours, Lee, is GREAT!

[Lee Bishop]

Lee, thank you very much for this video. I cannot decide if your modeling skills or photographic ability outweigh one another. Then throw in your choice of music. I rise from my chair and salute you. You have captured sadness, gladness and in my opinion hope for better days. Excellent work.

I agree, great skills and the photos are awesome!
I looked at the video and had to read the whole thread... almost 5 years of work and rare finds.
Over the years I known a number of guys into model railroads but yours, Lee, is GREAT!

Eddie, Mark, thanks very much for your kind words!
When I look at the layout, all I see is what didn't turn out exactly how I'd pictured in my mind, but we all know how that works.
I was surprised at the reaction my layout has gotten within the hobby itself. I've pitched articles to several magazines and only one turned me down (Model Railroader, which doesn't run much stuff in the gauge I model so I wasn't surprised at their reaction).
As a kid, I always wondered what it'd be like to have a layout that people would like to see. I never thought I'd actually have that!

[Lee Bishop]

I've been very stressed from work and a lot of home improvement we've done lately (had most of the interior repainted and the house re-roofed this past week), so I haven't gotten to the layout much.
Still, last night, my wife and I added new lighting to the layout room, with a large LED and 4 'cans', 2 each on a rail sticking out from each side, pointed at various places. Though it's not as good as a full LED track over the entire layout, it's still a big improvement over the original single room light from when we had the house built!




This shows the different lighting when a can is pointed toward a scene:

[Lee Bishop]

I was playing around with my cell phone camera last night, looking at the new lighting in the room...

[Lee Bishop]

At the end of the day in the Stoney Creek valley area, on a lazy summer's evening in 1943:

[Lee Bishop]

I was in CO state until yesterday, riding every train I could, including the Royal Gorge, the Cumbres & Toltec, the Silverton and even getting a 'cab' ride on a galloping goose at the CO RR museum!



As for the layout, I fired it up an hour ago and ran a train down to Buladeen, TN and back.
I also had to get a good mood shot:

[YLG80]

That's an awsome work.
I would like to be reduced to the size of your model and walk into the scenery
Yves

[Fushigi Ojisan]

That blue star flag in the house window...that got to me

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[Lee Bishop]

That's an awsome work.
I would like to be reduced to the size of your model and walk into the scenery

Thanks! I tried to do as good a representation of East Tennessee as I could. It's far from perfect, but I like how it turned out. That twilight shot, though, was taken from in front of window across the staging yard. Anything beyond the far rail is real-life.

That blue star flag in the house window...that got to me

I figured someone here would notice that. I seriously considered putting a god star flag there, but that would be a little too harsh for me. I already have a sailor at the depot with a "USS Indianapolis" marking on his sea bag. But in my version of 1943 Tennessee, all the servicemembers came home after the war.

[Lee Bishop]

On a lazy summer's evening along Stoney Creek, the air raid warden ambles up, about to tell Mister Grindstaff to black out those lights, as you just never know when German bombers might show up to rearrange the farm land of Northeast Tennessee...

Over at the Unaka Company barrel factory, the swing shift has just arrived and the later shift has left for the evening. Only a little pup is left to wait for his 'people' to come back out so they can head home:

[Tim Shanteler]

Lee, you're a great story teller through your layout. I wish younger kids were into this more, with trains, plastic models, etc. Video games are and can be fun and entertaining, but the story is already built for you. I guess it's a form of puzzling, just a more virtual one. Creating your own story and building it seems to be more rewarding than achieving a "high score" or moving to the next level, but I'm kinda old school in that regard. Anyway, I enjoy your layout and it makes me want to unpack my trains.

[Lee Bishop]

Thanks for the kind words, Tim. It means a lot.
Many people just build a layout and run trains with no thought as to what it's doing or what it's there for.
I came into this with a very specific historical aspect to represent, and I've stuck with it. After the layout stopped looking like trains running on plywood (a phase that many layouts never get past), I really spent a lot of time looking at things and thinking, "does this make sense?" in the context of historical accuracy, but also the landscape , figures, structures as well as trains. It has to look plausible for the history as well as overall reality.
For example, I ripped out a pathway as it didn't look right, and I re-placed it all in that area to following a natural flow of pedestrian traffic to go with the terrain.
Anyway, now I think of it in the context of what those O scale people would be doing at that time.

[Lee Bishop]

More random shots at a few places on the layout.
Night time at the Unaka factory, making barrels into the wee hours of the morning:


Twilight down at Grindstaff’s store at Sadie, Tennessee. The old folks are going to have to break up their armchair general discussions of the war, “across the water” and head home if they want any supper tonight!

[volunteercheng]

Hey I am from Johnson city and Elizabethton (graduated from Happy Valley) and my Great Grandfather actually drove semis for ET&WNC trucking back in the day. Nice layout, though Stoney Creek looks a lot nicer in this light hahah! Have to throw down some carter county rivalry when I can. Where in Carter County are you?
Dan

[Lee Bishop]

Where in Carter County are you?

Dan,
Glad to hear from someone actually living in the county, I hope you think it at least sort of looks like the area.
Both my parents grew up on Stoney Creek, near Sadie.
As for me, I grew up in Florida and now live in the Pacific Northwest.
I visited the area many, many times growing up but sadly, I never lived there. I really wish I could hace grown up there...