Building an HO scale Locomotive from Wood

Building an HO scale Locomotive from Wood and Card

(Model Railroader, May 1972)

Back in the days before CAD/CAM and cheap injection molding, model locomotives of specific prototypes were rare. The makers in Japan and Korea supplied limited numbers made with brass. The first examples in the late 1940s and early 1950s were cheap, but by 1972 quality had improved and prices had risen to two to four weeks average pay. Most modellers made do with repainted cheaper mass-market models that were “close enough”. These cost a couple of days pay. Adding details representing a particular railway’s house style helped the illusion. But if you wanted something as close as possible to your favourite road’s engines, you had to scratchbuild.

Culling masses of obsolete paper recently, I came across an article by A. E. Sima Jr (aka Bud Sima). He described how his poor soldering skills prompted him to try his hand using wood and card for building a locomotive. He wanted a model of the Maryland & Pennsylvania’s heavy Consolidation (2-8-0) steam engine. He bought a Varney 2-8-0 to adapt, but when he took it apart in preparation for repainting, the boiler casting encountered the basement floor at a high speed and broke. Bud was left with a mechanism. He decided to make a locomotive body to fit.

The article describes how he did it. He drilled out a suitable piece of wood dowel (to make space for the weight), and cut out a space at one end so it would fit over the motor. He cut cab sides from sheetwood, but did use sheet brass for the cab roof. He made some details with wood, card, wire, and sheet brass, and bought others. In those days, several manufacturers offered dozens of details such as bells, smokestacks, feedwater heaters, steps, brake cylinders, and so on. The tender body was cut from a block of wood and wrapped in card. A dress snap made the electrical connection between tender and locomotive. So “for a surprisingly small outlay of cash”, Bud got what he wanted. I’m sure he inspired others to try their hand at scratchbuilding too. Model Railroader helpfully reprinted its plans and photos of the Ma & Pa locomotive.

Bud writes in a friendly conversational style. The photos and diagrams are adequate for the purpose. Nowadays, we would see a bulleted step by step description, with more photos. Anyone who’s put together a handful of kits would have little trouble emulating Bud’s project. The modern builder would use plastic tube and sheet material instead of wood. There are far fewer details parts available, so fabricating them might be a major challenge. Even so, Bud’s article could be just the inspiration needed. It’s available online for any subscriber to Model Railroader’s online services.

I enjoyed re-reading Bud’s story. ***

Murder at Winter Solstice, on the High Seas, and in the Theatre: Three by Marsh

 

Ngaio Marsh. Off With His Head (1958) A Mrs Bünz, fan of English folklore, arrives at Mardian village in order to observe the Seven Swords Dance, a mummery exhibited every Winter Solstice further back then human memory can reach. The granddaughter of William Andersen, ignorantly cruel patriarch of the family that performs the ritual, also arrives. Her goal is some kind of reconciliation on behalf of her mother, who ran off with a Catholic count, thus offending both William’s class-snobbery and Chapel religionism.
     The murder is apparently impossible, but Alleyn and his team winkle out the truth in this neatly plotted and sometimes insightful novel. There’s a good deal of by-the-way information about mummery, Morris dancing, the Green man, etc, and bucolic mores (some of it rather stereotypical). Marsh provides a nice mix of romance and psychology, but she doesn’t give herself room for the nuanced character building that makes most of her work such a pleasant read, so I give this merely a **½

Ngaio Marsh. Singing in the Shrouds (1958) A serial killer has murdered three times. He leaves flower petals and a broken string of pearls on the victims, and has been heard singing nearby. When his most recent victim is found clutching part of an embarkation notice for the Cape Farewell, Alleyn must join the cruise as a supposed VIP connection to the ship’s owners. A murder does ensue, but the killer’s vanity undoes him. Since he was an obnoxious ass, poetic justice feels right.
     The puzzle is, as usual, fairly presented and solved. Since Brer Fox is unavailable, Alleyn must rely on the mulish Captain and the ship’s doctor for help. He writes letters to Troy to give him space for rumination. The passengers are a nice collection of sly riffs on stereotypes. Romance blossoms (Marsh has a soft spot for young lovers). Freudian theories of childhood trauma’s effects on adult neuroses explain the murderer’s motives, but that doesn’t reduce the pleasure of re-reading this book. Marsh is a novelist who uses the crime genre to muse on the comedie humaine. Thus one’s average for her, which makes it a *** .

 

Ngaio Marsh. False Scent (1960) Another of Marsh’s theatrical excursions. Mary Bellamy, a narcissistic actress, who occupies the centre of her world and hence, she believes, of the Universe, is the victim. She’s of course made more than enough enemies, so Alleyn and Fox’s task is that of removing the innocents cluttering the path to the solution.
     A beautifully complex network of family, personal, business and professional relationships, and the usual withholding of essential information delay the investigation, and also mislead the reader (me). As so often in Marsh’s work, an obsession provides the motive. A satisfying read. ***

Leacock's Best (mostly)

J.B. Priestley, ed. The Best of Leacock (1958) Just what the title says. I would have included about 2/3rds if the pieces that Priestley chose. He kindly provides an Introduction explaining his choices, which shows that his taste does not include parody, his sense of the absurd is definitely English and not Canadian, and he doesn’t get the rage in Leacock’s satire of the Idle Rich. I think that may be because it’s the one book in which Leacock’s economic insights shape the satire. In some of his shorter pieces, Leacock hints that economics is a social science, and that human motives matter more than the numbers.
     Priestley wants to think of Leacock as the humourous uncle who tells his funny stories with a twinkle in his eye, and doesn’t really mean to be mean to the targets of his satire. This is, I think , a common misreading of Leacock. Under the veneer of absurdity, Acadian Adventures Among the Idle Rich is an angry and precise skewering of the selfishness and greed of what Veblen called the Leisure Class. Leacock goes a step further than Veblen’s careful dissection of the social meaning of conspicuous consumption: He demonstrates that too much money empties the brains of whatever sense and ethics their owners had, leaving behind a vapid desire for social status and the low cunning required to maintain the income-producing enterprises that pay for the pastimes of the idlers. The chapter on the merger of St Asaph and St Osoph is one of the most skillful illuminations of self-delusion and manipulation of ethics in the service of greed that I’ve read. The more serious and verbose attempts of, say, Sinclair Lewis don’t, I think, achieve the same suavely savage effect, certainly not as economically as in Leacock’s satire.
     I enjoyed rereading my favourites, but I skipped a few of the selections. This anthology serves well as an introduction to Leacock, whose work, sadly, has become an acquired taste. I suppose that’s the inevitable fate of humourous and satiric writing, which depends on allusions to a shared popular culture. But if you can find a copy in some second-hand bookshop, it’s worth buying. ***

Black Adder: All the scripts

Richard Curtis, Rowan Atkinson, Ben Elton. Black Adder: The Whole Damn Dynasty (1998) We watched the series when it first aired. A wonderfully absurd and intelligent send-up of our notions of the past. History ain’t what we think it is, especially when the Adder clan is part of it.
     Here are all the scripts, with some added material that makes better sense on the page than on the screen. As with all scripts, it helps to have seen the performances. Atkinson, Fry, Robinson et al are superb comic actors with impeccable timing and a large range of tone and sneer. The four Black Adder series are worth watching again and again; many episodes are available on YouTube. The series became increasingly dark, and the last one ends in the fog of war. As with all good satire, the targets are the ones labelled the Seven Deadly Sins in another context. It’s really the weaknesses and flaws of human nature that exercise the spleen of the writers. But I suspect that the weaknesses and flaws are the price we pay for the glory.
     Recommended for addicts; I doubt that the casual reader will find much to amuse them, but I have a faint hope I’m mistaken. ****

Public performance and Murder (Marsh's Opening Night & Swing Brother Swing)

 

Ngaio Marsh. Opening Night (1951). Martyn Tarne has come to England to attempt a career in the theatre. She washes up at the Vulcan Theatre, as Dresser to leading lady Helen Hamilton, whose husband Clark Bennington is rapidly declining into a mean drunk. Tensions among the cast and with the author of the play, and Tarne’s uncanny resemblance to leading man and actor-manager Adam Poole stir up a witch’s broth of resentments and suspicions.
     The inevitable murder appears to repeat an earlier one the same premises. Alleyn solved that one and of course solves this one, too. But the investigation, though competently handled, isn’t the focus of the story. This is really a novel about the theatre, and actors, and the ambiance of rehearsal and performance. Worth reading for that alone. For me, it was a reread, and I enjoyed it more than the first read. Recommended. ***

 

Ngaio Marsh. Swing, Brother, Swing (1949) An eccentric and self-centred lord with an overweening notion of his musical talents, his almost equally eccentric family, a band-leader trying to preserve his status as first among equals, a vainglorious but talented accordionist, an unsuitable attachment, drugs, and the desire to maintain family status make for a well-stirred pot of resentments and anxieties. Murder is inevitable. Alleyn and Troy happen to be present when it happens, enjoying a night out. The puzzle is solved fairly, with plausibly distracting facts that have to be cleared away. Marsh has a lot of fun satirising human foibles and vanities. An enjoyable re-read for me. **½

The Empire Builders (Stead): data towards insight into ancestral foibles

R. J. C. Stead. The Empire Builders (1908) Stead’s verses remind me of Kipling in their jingoism and Service in their rhymes and rhythm. They range from sentimentally heroic tales of pioneering homesteaders to abstract paeans on Man, Mother, Empire etc. Stead liked adjectives and Latinate diction, which I suppose he believed made his commonplace prejudices sound not only poetic but thoughtful and weighty. They must have seemed so to his readers in 1908, when he published this book, and which reached its fourth edition (this copy) by 1910.
     An online search reveals many editions in many different formats and price levels. Stead’s verses appealed to a large audience. They don’t appeal to me, except as awful examples of empire-worship in the Edwardian era. And of the wrong-headed belief that anything that rhymes must be poetry.
     A curiosity, data towards a better insight into the foibles of our ancestors, and thereby also a warning that much of what we consider to be proper sentiments will certainly appear wrongheaded to our descendants. *

Footnote: Stead wrote jingoistic novels as well. He worked for the CPR's immigration department, producing "reams of rose-hued prose extolling the clean, healthy vigour of life in the open spaces—spaces opened courtesy of the CPR and available at good prices. On his own time, he writes in the same vein...". The posters were also "rose-hued".  

Grand Old Man of the Theatre painted and murdered (Final Curtain, 1947)

Ngaio Marsh. Final Curtain (1947) Waiting for Roderick to return, Troy is persuaded to paint the portrait of Sir Henry Ancred, Grand Old Man of the Theatre. He’s infatuated with a chorus girl, which the Family of course does not like at all. Troy enjoys painting the old man. But several practical jokes, ascribed to Panty, Sir Henry’s youngest grandchild and favourite person, roil the household, and eventually there’s murder.

    Alleyn has just returned from duty in New Zealand, but he must investigate the crime. Troy being one of his witnesses, complicates their reunion. Marsh plays fair enough with the clues and rosy piscids, but the main interest is the Family. They’re a wonderfully awful collection of eccentrics, all but one carrying the theatrical genes that made Sir Henry an expert ham who could carry any role at whatever pitch of realism or fantasy the director wanted. Or so I infer. The solution involves distorted affection and money, as it often does in Marsh’s tales. Merely average for her, which means it’s very good. ***