Model Showcase

Chuck Diljak, MMR

HO scale

Magnuson Models Victoria Falls Firehouse

Chuck is a long-time fan of Magnuson Models kits. They are resin kits that he discovered as a teenager and he enjoyed the architectural detail and designs. Most city structure kits at the time did not have the same look and feel as the Magnuson Models kits.

He modified this kit by making a mold of one wall and casting it multiple times to make the hose tower located in the back.

Chuck added many details to the interior and exterior. The truck bay interior has firemen's gear, hoses, and lockers. The exterior is detailed with a memorial bell, siren, flag, roof access, and a metal seamed hip roof. There are also lots of other small details to complete the model.

LED lighting for the interior and exterior was also added to the model.

HO scale

Magnuson Models Colfax Street Station

This Magnuson Models kit is unique in its design. Unlike all other Magnuson kits that feature flat walls and a roof, this kit is designed in four layers: Mansard roof, roof canopy, first floor brick walls, and a brick platform. Each layer is a complete casting in resin.

Chuck is using his model to represent the Wilkes-Barre station on his Wyoming Valley Railroad. However, it does not look like any of the three stations that existed in downtown Wilkes-Barre. Instead, it resembles the Central Railroad of New Jersey's station in Bethlehem, PA, which still survives.

Chuck painted and constructed the model as per the instructions. However, he replaced the brick platform with a concrete one, which allowed the brick walls of the model to stand out. Chuck also installed 10 LEDs to light the platform.

No details were provided with the kit, other than the roof brackets and chimneys. Chuck found and added all the other station details and figures you see on the platform.

Gordon and Jeanne Spalty

Completed rolling stock from the continuing "Build it" series with Jim DeMarco MMR of the LSD as our mentor. Photos by Dave Durr, LSD Superintendent.

The black PX boxcar is by Jeanne Spalty... her very first scratch built car. Underbody photo is from the same car with complete brake rigging except for airlines.

The green M&W boxcar is scratchbuilt by Gordon Spalty. Both cars are weathered and "in service" on our Maine and Western Railroad. In the LSD Jeanne and Gordon are know as Team Spalty... a fun pseudonym.

HO scale

Tichy Coal Bins

A small three evening project. Tichy coal bins. Gordon added a divider between the two doors for more support for them and to push the front of the bin out a bit as it tended to bow in.

Gordon cobbled up the push broom on the coal bin at Quebec Jct depot. The agent there likes to keep the platform free of coal dust and chunks.

Mark Moritz

Mark Moritz is modeling the Lackawanna railroad in the 1920s. While there are a number of models available for rolling stock and engines, there are very few if any ready to run models for Lackawanna wooden cabooses in this period, except for brass models. One option is to build them from scratch, but Shortline Model Products (Sparrow Point) makes a kit, and he is building a few from the kits.

These are craftsman level kits, and are challenging to build. They are laser-cut wood. The photos show two of these in process, and one ( #813) finished. Prior to 1928, they were built with passenger trucks, thereafter with Bettendorf T-section caboose trucks. These are available from Bethlehem Car Works and Kadee respectively.

Scott Lupia published a book on How to Paint and Detail Railroad Models, and one of the articles in the book is specifically on the Lackawanna wooden caboose. Mark found this to be of significant help in building his models.

Dave Durr

RDG FT #250 AB are factory-painted and lightly-weathered Stewart models that were detailed according to the RDG prototype. That included adding the air compressor aftercoolers on the skirting. A DCC sound decoder was installed.

V&O #3472 was picked up sometime in the 1990s. It was a used Athearn 50' boxcar. Dave replaced the roofwalk with an etched metal version and added underframe detail, new stirrups, coupler cutbars and additional light weathering. There's a further story to this car. A couple years ago when NMRA Magazine was running member photos of their Heritage cars, Dave submitted an image, then realized this car was not part of the series. Through Cintha Priest, the photo made its way to Frank Koch, NMRA CFO and expert on the Heritage cars; he in turn contacted Allen McClelland who identified the car as once rolling on his famed layout. Dave said, "Lucky me!...and thanks to busy NMRA members who went out of their way to get the information.""

Russ Norris, MMR

The 3-foot narrow gauge EBT reached the Pennsylvania coal mines on the eastern slope of Broad Top Mountain around 1875. A small cluster of structures were erected in and around the town of Robertsdale including a station, company store, water tank and a two stall engine house. All that remains of that structure today are crumbling foundations. But plans for the building were available through the Friends of the East Broad Top Company Store. Russ's HO scale model was constructed from board and batten wood siding with Tichy shop windows and shake roof panels from B.E.S.T Trains. The rear extension over one track allowed him to add a small machine shop for light repairs.

Attached are some photos of a scene I constructed to fill an empty corner of the layout. Russ used a modified Grey Street House by Conawingo, a J. Keen store kit from Railroad Kits, and a Conoco 1920's gas station by Banta Modelworks to create a small rural cluster of buildings on a dirt road paralleling the railroad tracks. Using a decal created by an Australian modeler, the J. Keen store became Shorty's Anything Store. The fun part was finding all sorts of junk to put on and around Shorty's: Old machinery, a rusty tractor, some second hand chairs, a old bathtub and some second hand toilets, whatever! And what had been an empty space became a country scene right out of rural Pennsylvania.

Ed O'Rourke, MMR

Ed does not remember where he picked up this trolley car, but it has been on the shelf for many years waiting for inspiration to strike.

Then he came across this Ed Wadhams photo of Connecticut Company Norwich line car 0302 in Connecticut company Streetcars. Obviously an old closed car repurposed. This is at the end of streetcar service in Norwich.

Here is the resulting model, which achieved a merit award.

This is the Batchelder and Sons Furniture Factory in Potsdam, NY on Jim Heidt’s Ogdensburg and Norwood.

Ed scratch-built this from a drawing by the late Don Andrews, former CNY Division Superintendent and one of the original Tuesday night crew that works on Jim’s layout. Those are Tichy windows and doors, and the rusty metal roofing is by Paper Creek. This is July 1948, and Batchelder’s son is down in North Carolina looking for a place to move the factory, so it won’t be seeing fresh paint or repairs.

This workbench photo shows the other end. It sits against the backdrop, hence the shortened side. It will be camouflaged with foliage and other structures to hide the foreshortening.

Mike Tylick, MMR

Little Mikey's Garage

This is a Bar Mills O scale Downtown Garage kit with enhanced paint and signage. The oil drums are 3-D printed, a gift from Michael Mackey. It does not show in the photos but the model has some interior detail and LED lighting.

Doug Dederick

N Scale

Layout Great Northern Kalispell Devision
Project Name Finishing the scene at East Glacier Park
In this small project I needed to finish a double tunnel portal to complete the area near East Glacier Park

Bruce Shepard

HO Scale

Safe Step Ladder Co. is a 17" X 25" HO scale diorama of an abandoned factory. The scene shows the police scrutinizing a group of youths who have gathered there. The structure is scratch built from styrene and matboard.

John Becker

N Scale

Maintenance of Way Diorama

Two (2) ‘base’ kits: The Atlas Laser Design N-Scale Section House and a Micro Engineering Company N-Scale Section House (Kit 60-149).

Overall dimensions: 6-¼ by 4-¾ inches.

Add-on enhancements include: two Motorcars/speeders, rail cart with lumber load, junk piles, fuel storage tank, lumber stacks, MOW figures, foliage-shrubs, bushes and ground covering.

N-Scale Structure: Carrigain Dwelling

Building kit by: Creative Laser Design Inc.

Display dimensions: 3-½ by 3 inches

Add-on enhancements include: porch figures, out buildings, rock ‘boulder’, ground foam, stone-like walkway, foliage - shrubs, bushes and trees.