Merry Christmas! And It Is!

As the song "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" says, "from now on we all will be together." I'm most grateful our family is all together, that we all live close by and are all healthy and happy. Just a few years ago, we would have been astounded to learn we'd all be living in Texas (especially since we're all from the Rocky Mountain/Pacific Northwest part of the country), but here we are, and glad of it, and not just because the winter here is so much milder! Susie and I are privileged to live near and see our daughters, sons-in-law and granddaughters frequently...some parents and grandparents are not so blessed. We are, and we appreciate it every day. God has been good to us indeed.

My model railroading thoughts, etc., will continue in the next post, but for now...Merry Christmas!

Could Be A While!

Well, our house has been on the market since July and we haven't had much action. It's not just us. Local realtors say things have pretty much come to a halt. The only comfort is that Texas is doing better than most of the country. However, we are blessed to have no timetable, no pressing need to move, unlike those with job transfers, etc.

So in the meantime, I will continue to work away at my Orient Express coach. It's not like working on or operating a layout, to be sure, but under the current circumstances it's about all the model railroading I'll be able to do for a while. Besides, it's fun!

Yesterday I finished cutting out the windows for the inner layer of one car side...the "corridor side" of the car. I than begin adding small styrene strips (really small, around 1/16 inch wide) around the inside of the window openings on the outside layer. These will give the openings a finished look, ever so slightly rounded at the corners.

Thinking ahead, I've been considering roof material. The coach roof is quite round and if styren won't curve that much, I may have to use balsa which, when soaked in a vinegar/water mix, is easily curved. That's a trick my son-in-law Craig, who has scratchbuilt model aircraft, taught me.

Orient Express Coach Progress

At last, as promised, here are photos of work to date on my Orient Express coach. It's a 1930s-era coach and is very similar to the one used in the Murder On The Orient Express (1974) movie starring Albert Finney and a superb cast. I'm building it in S Scale, of course, using passenger trucks I had available that are actually close in appearance to the prototype. While this model will never run on my (future reassembled) layout because the coach is European, I hope it will be a nice bookshelf display piece.

I was, as mentioned previously, very fortunate to find detailed plans of the interior and exterior, as well as color photos. This model coach is on display, I understand, at a railroad museum in Mulhouse, France.

Now, for the photos. In order from the top...

Photo 1: This is a little hard to see in the photo, but I drew out the sides in pencil on a sheet of styrene. Each side was drawn twice to provide an outer and inner layer; acetate "glass" will be sandwiched between.

Photo 2, 3: The interior partitions. Materials include basswood, balsa, and cardstock.

Photo 4: The work so far. One side's windows have been cut out and the second layer of that side is in progress.

I've Been Gone

Just realized I haven't posted here in over a month! Seriously, I had no idea how time had passed. We just returned from a trip to Branson, Missouri, where we enjoyed shows and sightseeing and visiting with Susie's sister and her husband, who had driven down from Des Moines.

It's good to be back in our (so far unsold) home after a 1,500-mile roundtrip drive. Now it's time to resume work on my Orient Express coach. Photos soon...I promise!

Orient Express

I've been working on my 1930's Orient Express coach and have the basic frame and interior partitions about finished. Next job will be interior door detail, painting the interior and then adding detail such as seating, tables, etc. Then it will be back to exterior work...sides, ends, etc. I've been thinking about how to model the European-style draft gear and I think I'll make the buffers out of either styrene or brass and the screw couplings using stiff wire. Photos soon!

Obviously, we're still waiting for our house to sell. We've had some showings, but no offers yet. It's more than an understatement to say the market is slow, though better here in Texas than most places.

I Found It

After searching several packed and well-sealed boxes in our garage, I found my Orient Express car model, paint, and plans, as well as my modeling tools and model wood supply. To prepare our home for sale, the "train room" had been packed up, of course, for real estate "staging" purposes.

Anyway, I resumed work on the model a couple of days ago...it's nice to be back into model building!

While I Am Waiting...

Our house has been on the market a month now and we've had a couple of showings. The real estate market here in Texas, while better than most of the country, is still slow. So it may be a while before we sell. In the meantime, I've been enjoying time with my wife Susie and other family members and am keeping busy with yard work, catching up on my reading, and miscellaneous projects. My model railroad is packed away, along with rolling stock and modeling tools.

However, I am thinking of opening up a box so I can resume work on a scratchbuilding project I started when we lived in Idaho. It's one of those long-term...very long-term...projects that I work on when I'm in the mood. I had one of those, a scratchbuilt wooden passenger coach, that took me years to complete. I enjoyed working on it, especially since I felt no urgency to finish. The work was relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable and while I was happy with the completed model, I did kind of miss having it to work on!

The project I'm thinking of reviving is a model of an Orient Express coach. Now, I have no interest in constructing anything other than an American layout. Except...the Orient Express, particularly as it was in the 1930's, has always intrigued me. And yes, I have read Murder On The Orient Express twice and have seen the 1974 movie several times. I have long thought it would be fun to construct a model of a 1930's Wagon-Lits coach to display on a bookshelf.

So a while back, while still living in Eagle, Idaho, I started doing some research. I was fortunate enough to find a plan that details the interior compartment arrangements, as well as the exterior. And it was easily convertible to S Scale! I also found useful color photos.

So far, I only have a skeleton of the car constructed from balsa and basswood. I've been concentrating on the interior partitions, but now it's time to work on the ends and sides, which I plan to make from sheet styrene. The trucks are extremely close in appearance to four wheel S Scale passenger trucks I'd purchased from American Models, so that's a real piece of luck.

This project will require great care and can't be rushed. And that's exactly what I'm looking for right now!