Beyond Prince Street…

This shouldn’t have happened. However through a conversation with my good friend Chris, reflecting on the success of Defiance, a photo in an old magazine he had shared with me and a few other coincidences and the concept of modelling a tiny slice of his beloved Charlottetown felt inevitable…

Beyond the shops in Charlottetown, across Prince Street were I’m told a myriad of lines to industrial concerns littered along the water front. Chris remembers these at the end of the railway - yet even then a number customers still received carload service. 

The photo is centre right above - I’m sure many of you will have the same thoughts about how modellable, how intimate this scene feels. It reminded me of other photos I had seen if the place… through our conversation I find there is a business called Clarke’s, in the photo is number 35, the example I modelled in HO… coincidences, but overlaps and the energy of that conversation carried me high for a week at least, and to the purchase of a Bachmann N 70 tonner and an Atlas 40’ PS1 boxcar…

I should reflect that this is Chris’s place. His heart - and I hope to channel a little of my good friends passion through my hands to create a recognisable caricature in just 55cm… For this, I’m pleased to share, will be this years ‘Christmas Project’. I have a spare Mosslanda and I’m excited by the composition, the textures - and the possibilities. Where Defiance could be anywhere it feels more modern… I suspect this little scene could stand in for Vancouver Island and see my Atlas S2 trundling around… I’m already anticipating the feel of working with paper to create the distinctive textures on these structures - and the 70 tonner shared yesterday is in bits and my HO scale custom parts have been rescaled and ordered from Shapeways… for these days I go where the energy takes me. Until next time, more soon…

Chris has sketched a scheme based more on reality, here. It is interesting to reflect how close our thoughts were on the same subject years apart.

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