Ian Holmes

Great stuff! Speaking as someone who built a HO scale layout in 5 days. I know first hand the fun you must have had working on the layout. Ian

A week without RMWeb is a long time, we've all come to realise. What has gone on in the Ian Holmes Model Railway world in that time? Firstly on Friday there was the sad news of the demise of the Athearn Blue Box kit of Rolling stock. I started in HO Scale with them. in fact my fiorst ever layout 72nd Street yard was filled with athearn blue box kits. the term kit was a misnomer really as they were nothing but disassembled RTR models that you put together yourself. Didn't Corgi do something similar with their range of die cast cars many years ago? Times move on and the quality of kits has improved. Still it was a sad day to think they won't be on the shelves in the future. Layout wise I started on spray painting the Walthers dumpsters for the 7 day layout. Better to have them all the same colour I thought. So I found an old can of dark blue in my paint box and gave them a coat of paint next up I'll weather them and put them on the layout. Finally I added yet another blog, this one www.awe-docker.blogspot.com is not directly concerned with railroad modelling though there's no tellings where it might end up. Its more a personal discovery of Great Lakes Ore docks and wether it is possible to convincingly model one in a small space. Pop over there and discover Ore docks why don't you?

No I'm not talking about the new look RMWeb but something I bought the other day for the 7 day layout that I am very impressed with. The Shredded Scrap metal pile #2103 from Monroe Models. They produce a range of scrap metal piles for different uses. It comes as a ready painted resin casting. I was really impressed with the look of the pile and the quality of the detailing in the casting. I had some fun scrutinizing the pile seeing what I could recognize. Some nice lattice work, oil drums, ladders, corrugated iron and girders for example. A persons opinion of the "ready painted rust" can vary. But the pile has shadows and highlights worked in there. So overall it's a very reasonable representation of a pile of rusty metal. The detailers amongst us would likely work a few more colours in there and I think a coat "dullcote" to take the slight sheen off would be advantageous. But I really do like it and I would definitely consider Monroe Models again if they produced something that I was looking for on my next modelling project. Do we have a products review section? Because this should probably go there as well...

Good Grief! Not another blog from the deranged mind of Ian Holmes I hear you think. There's about 6 of the darned things out there already covering T scale, 009 Narrow gauge, P4, HO layouts built in a week, Great Lakes shipping and Taconite train modelling... What's that you don't know about those last two? Well I didn't think that anyone would be interested in Great Lakes shipping and as for the Taconite Train modelling. Well you're just going to have to wait on that one... So what do I do here? Build 5 blogs here that link to external blogs outside RMWeb or build 5 new blogs here? Decisions decisions... At the moment I'll just use this as a "catch all" to let you all know what fun and exciting things are going on in my part of the blogosphere. Then as I get more comforatable with this new RMWeb layout, which is still pretty scary. I'll probably do more over here. You have to admit you're now more than a bit curious about what this Taconite Train modelling blog is aren't you? Ian