Re: Influences
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John Barry
I'll be thunderstruck if any of you know my first influence, H.B. Campbell. A neighbor down the street, he had built a plywood pacific spaghetti bowl layout in their laundry room. Prototype? RR Cab Forward, Pere Marquete Hudson, etc. a runner's layout, but it set the hook and the 11 year old was fascinated enough to ask for an HO train set. That Tyco set arrived for Christmas in 68 with a red & silver Santa Fe warbonnet Alco Century. Warbonnet C-liners, E units, and others followed. Little did I know . . . In 86, I discovered the SFMO and attended my first convention in 87. I learned a lot about what they did and didn't have and discovered the meaning of "FOOBIE". The next 20
years were learning a little about a lot of the ATSF without paying too much attention to their competitors. Gordon Basset, Stan Kistler, Ralph Marcus, and Richard Hendrickson all shaped how I looked at things Santa Fe. All without thinking about all the interchange traffic. Duh! Somehow the light came on, and I discovered this group and the wealth of detail of the mosaic that makes up our rail system. Tony Thompson and his Blog have been another influence, tying prototype accuracy of individual models to similar accuracy of fleet composition and operation. That brings me back to an earlier pair of influences, Ken Allen, whom I helped build his proto-freelanced layout, and Bob Fink, on whose Northern Pacific I got my first taste of operations in the late 80s. After a long spell of armchair modelling, in 2006, Eric Berman, whom I'd corresponded with but never met in person, introduced me to Paul Catapano and his Atlantic Inland. DCC, TT&TO, and in Paul's words that "Four dimensional chess game." So it has come full circle to produce realistic game pieces for that chess game that I enjoy. And some day, one scenic detail will be a small wrought iron fence enclosing a locomotive with a 48 star flag flying from the gaff on the mast in HB Campbell park. Some might find it strange to see a
warbonnet diesel preserved at such an early date as Christmas of 44. But I cann't think of a more appropriate place for that Tyco Century as it sure doesn't fit the rest of the scheme. . . John Barry ATSF North Bay Lines Golden Gates & Fast Freights 707-490-9696 3450 Palmer Drive, Suite
4224 Cameron Park, CA 95682
From: "'Eric Neubauer' eaneubauer@... [STMFC]" To: STMFC@... Sent: Monday, June 9, 2014 9:23 AM Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: Influences
As a humorous aside, my first scratch built car as
a teenager was a hopper car made entirely out of balsa wood. It was so
light, it wouldn't roll any distance at all on its Lindberg trucks, but it
did better with a full load. I doubt if it lasted for long and probably
looked hideous. Those were the days of blissful ignorance, but at least it was a
step down the path.
Eric N.
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