amazed at the creativity and energy represented by all the
hundreds and hundreds of modelers behind these layouts.
This year’s layouts at the National NG Convention in Pasade-
na, CA continued to delight and amaze us. Having built some
amount of layout yourself helps give you a better appreciation
for the total effort involved. You quickly learn to appreciate the
hours of sweat equity put into even the simplest of layouts.
For example, we know building a curved trestle about 3 car
lengths long and 3 car lengths high can literally take months of
spare time to complete – and that’s just one medium-sized trestle,
that’s not a whole layout.
Everything takes time, especially if the layout’s done at all well.
There’s many hours in detailing the track and doing scenery or
structures on even a modest-sized layout.
If you’ve not yet built a layout of any sort, then let us reissue
our one module challenge from the May 2013 issue:
If you’ve never built a layout, then it’s time to get started by
building a single module. We guarantee you will learn a lot, and
by keeping things small, you stand a good chance of finishing it!
If that’s not enough, nothing says that one module can’t be the
beginning of an evolving sectional layout, with the ultimate in
flexibilty and scope. Literally, by using the modular approach
as we suggested in last May’s column, you can have an opera-
tional layout almost immediately and grow it at whatever pace
you’re comfortable with.
Which brings us to our recent MRH podcast conversation ...
Actor Michael Gross on MRH podcast
In July, MRH had actor Michael Gross (of “Family Ties” and
more) as a guest on our podcast. Michael has been interested
in trains, both prototype and model, since his youth. Currently,
he’s an avid FREMO modeler.
On our podcast, Michael advocates (among other things) the
importance of not over-committing in your modeling. Michael
feels, as we do, that modular benchwork instead of fill-the-
room-benchwork gives you the most flexibility and freedom in
your modeling.
For the full interview, make sure to check out podcast MRH13-
07_01. You can access it here:
MRH staff notes - 2
MRH-Sep 2013
