Folks:
He comes up maybe a little short this time. I haven't bought the August MR yet, but might after a while. I did flip through it at the grocery store, and read Mr. Thompson's editorial.
Well, I think his point was that we should not blithely follow current trends, or maybe it was that we shouldn't blithely follow old,reliable trends. It was one or the other. I'm sure about the trends. Let me forget the big picture and address his points singly.
Speaking as one who has occasionally used dyed sawdust, it does have its uses. It may look poor in photos but makes fair leaves and branch-bulk for homemade bottle-brush trees. It's also super-cheap if you make your own. Asbestos-fibered plaster was probably good stuff in its day too...fireproof, resilient, and able to sit on screen wire without excessive leakage...too bad about that whole mesothelioma thing. :-(
Steel or plywood benchwork - is fine, in theory. His remark about the difficulty of finding straight wood is odd; I usually use the 'least warped' stuff, but if you spend a bit more you can get straight lumber in almost any lumberyard around here. The very odd remark was about L-girders. To my mind, these actually minimize the problem with warped or bent wood, since your joists are not constrained at their ends, and you have more opportunities to compensate for crookedness. It's also easier to find 2 straight members for your girders than all straight pieces for your grid. I still prefer the grid because it is more compact, and use straight pieces where I need to, and let the warped pieces be warped. It all comes out in the adjusting.
The advantages of using dimensional lumber outweigh those of steel or plywood, I find. Wood can be worked easily with simple tools, and fasteners can be put in practically anywhere in any direction. It is also fairly rigid and smells great when you saw it.
Of course, my brother Joe once built himself a small (4x6) train layout with plywood framework. He ripsawed the 3" strips from 1/2" plywood...by hand... with a hand ripsaw...a Stanley 'Hard Tooth' model, with a plastic handle... and it was dull...I couldn't believe it when he showed me his handiwork.
Next is a point where I agree with Mr. Thompson. He mentions that extruded foam scenery is really popular now, but has its disadvantages, and he's right. I think the major reason for its popularity is that it takes less planning and fiddly labor than screen-wire or plaster-towel scenery does, with its elaborate supports. Foam does indeed take large quantities of material to achieve reasonable contours. I have in the past had some luck bringing the quantity down by carving a series of concentric, irregular rings with sharply beveled edges, then stacking the rings into a hollow foam mountain. It can also be difficult to get foam to stop looking like a stack of slabs, though in sedimentary rock country this is rather a good thing. Foam does have the advantage of lightness to offset its cost, and it's certainly fun to whittle away at it.
Now, Mr. Thompson's habit is to make some valid points, and some questionable points, and then to go completely off the rails, or my memory serves me badly. Remember the 'scale Bi-Polar with micro-axle-wound motor' idea? Ick. Today he addresses the non-issue of track power in such a way that I wonder if he expects the power to be actually sent through the air. Miniature microwave dishes, perhaps? I could be wrong; perhaps he is suggesting onboard batteries and radio control. In that case, the idea's not bad; however, the power pickup problem is eminently solvable, and the models it affects the worst are least able to contain batteries. It's hard enough to find room for decent weight in a small N scale steam loco.
But the guy does try, anyhow, and some of his points are valid. At least he doesn't present his personal views as the only way to go for many years and then completely fail to notice that the tearing down of the grand layout he built according to these views rather invalidates some of his claims...not that any regular feature writer would do something like this, since model railroading is fun...anyway, if Terry T. would just build a little 2 x 4 foot N scale pike and
*tinker* with it a bit I'd bet his editorials would be much better for it. He seriously needs some perspective.Cordially yours: Gerard P.