Childhood Models: Discovered prints…

Recent talk of the birth of my Canadian Modelling and a timely discovery of some more photos of ‘the last great project’ I built with Dad 30 odd years ago…

This model railway was built around the walls (and with a fold down portable centre peninsular) in our double garage. Never finished, the long back wall was deeper and had the Harris, Saskatchewan prairie scene. Looking at this from the door, on the left was an almost complete mountain scene, about 12” deep and 8’ long, the high level connected with Harris whilst the low level ducked under and went around a reverse loop.

Unfinished, the other side of the room was to have been the wharves in Vancouver and the peninsula was something I was building to represent ‘shield’ country. I don’t believe any photos exist of either of these elements, sadly.

What I was excited about, was the apparent quality of the these photos - taken on my Canon SLR, or perhaps Dad’s old OM10 by me, as they are on film. I vaguely recall a thought about having them published in Model Railroader! They were taken with a tripod and timer but the lighting setup, whilst dedicated, didn’t offer much side illumination and they’re not very well resolved in that way, especially the Harris ones…

That being said they did make me smile. The mountain scene has been seen before but not in this state, and the second photo I believe to be the only one that shows the left hand side of the scene with avalanche shelter and the tunnel mouth I built for the mainline. The rock faces were scribed polyfilla that Dad spent hours on in the evenings. The cribbing I think was just cereal packet card and track pins! The backscene was painted by me in acrylics, and blended and adjusted by Dad.

I have made that last shot black and white even though the original is colour as the shadow is so dark. These elevators were vastly under scale yet still towered over the models. They weighed a ton too because they had been made from MDF overlaid with styrene. Mum still has the Pioneer one on display in her new home.

We are somewhat spoilt in this digital age, we take so many photographs of our models and share them widely. In the past we’re lucky to find a badly exploded blurry photo of our treasured model railways. I love looking back at these, and remembering not only the layout but the shared experience in making it. That perhaps, isn’t captured as such in the photo and comes from within - and is something I’m yet to recreate in my adult life. However, there is time left, so until then, more soon…

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