Rapid Canyon Models

Tunnel #3 on the Highline of South Dakota Looks like I forgot again this week to post a photo until Tuesday night, oh well.  Anyways, this week it's a pretty simply photo, but one which is special to me.  The photo above is Tunnel #3 on the Edgemont-Deadwood CBQ branch known as the "Highline".  The tracks were tore up in the 1980's, but the route remains as one of the most impressive "rails to trails" projects in the nation.  114 Miles of black hills wilderness, 4 tunnels, 120+ bridges, and small communities along the former route are what visitors are greeted to when taking this route. Tunnel #3 is the most impressive because it has a bridge outside each entrance as the creek wraps around the large shale outcropping to the left of the photo out of frame.  The trains, of course, didn't have the luxury of making extremely sharp turns and the rock outcropping was too deep to safely make a cut, so a tunnel was installed.  Three other tunnels are found...

A railroad worker gives a friendly wave to the camera as the morning passenger train crawls to a stop at a flag stop station. This diorama won a blue ribbon at the county fair in August.  It was built (and modified) from an old kit I found in the dungeon of the local hobby shop.  It depicts a scene that could be found in rural areas all over the country, people waiting for a passenger train to pick them up at a flag stop.  The handcar is from Woodland Scenics, the figures I believe are Model Power.  The locomotive is a Bachmann modern Baldwin 4-4-0 American with DCC and Sound. The scene was setup in my new photography box for models.  It was built from a cheap 15x15x15" flatpack box from Lowe's.  Lighting is courtesy of LED flashlights with tissue paper wrapped around the lens to provide diffused, even light.  This little studio box is perfect for small scenes like this or for photographing models. The camera settings are 50mm, f/11, ISO 100, 0...

RCPE #3430, an SD40-2, heads up a string of empty hoppers and mixed freight as it enters Rapid City from Wall. Copyright James Willmus, 2018. If I had to pick a modern railroad to model, it would be the Rapid City Pierre and Eastern.  Genessee and Wyoming bought CP rail owned DM&E trackage west of Tracy Minnesota in 2014 as well as much of the equipment.  This Class II railroad is now the backbone of South Dakota's rail system, serving communities from one end of the state to the other and connecting with BNSF, UP, and CP Rail. All but 6 engines on the line are SD40 models from EMD.  They were, and still are, quite popular with railroads because they can ride on light trackage on their six axles while still delivering impressive horsepower.  Though not used by Class I railroads on unit trains anymore, SD40's still enjoy plenty of use for local frieghts, switching, and running on Class II and III railroads.  This unit is decked out in classic G&W...

Fall in Montana often looks like this around railroad tracks. A BNSF tank car unit train coasts downgrade in the evening light westward to Alberton, Montana. While summer is by far the most popular time of year modeled on train layouts across North America, Autumn/Fall is the second most popular.  When done correctly, a train layout modeling this time of year is incredible.  Because Autumn has so many varieties of colors, and the colors change quickly, it's very important to gain an understanding of color for this season. Photograph 1. Copyright James Willmus 2018 Autumn lasts from September 21st-23rd until December 21st-23rd every year in the Northern Hemisphere.  The most popular part of Autumn, where leaves turn color and show off brilliant yellows and reds, only occurs for 2-3 weeks in any given region.  Generally, this color change occurs first in the North and in high altitudes with the color changes migrating further South as Autumn continues....

BNSF Units #7318 (ES44DC), #6863 (ES44C4), and #6829 (ES44C4) fuel up before heading out of Missoula Yard with a coal load on October 7th, 2018.  Copyright James Willmus 2018. I'll be the first to admit, BNSF can sometimes bore me.  I love to see switching action, branchline services, and smaller railroads but these big class I railroads mostly just run unit trains from one end of the line to the other.  Of course, if you like to operate long trains that run for hours at a time, this is certainly an excellent prototype.  The exception to my preference is when trains are running in unique settings, just like what we see in the photo above. BNSF units 7318, 6862, and 6829 are fueling up in Missoula Yard on an Eastbound siding.  This train is still connected and I imagine the engine at the other end of the train (which there usually is on BNSF unit trains) is being fueled by a separate station or by a truck.  Night photographs give off a completely diffe...

Lubrecht Forest, Montana, September 2018 One area that I've always needed to work on, and never paid enough attention to, is color.  Specifically, the colors of scenery when building a model railroad.  So in order to help myself understand colors of scenery, I'm going to be doing a 5 part series called "Colors of the Seasons".  This series will focus on colors of fall, winter, spring, and summer in Montana. My local area is an excellent subject for people modeling a prototype west of the Mississippi because the colors are more or less uniform on this half of the country. That being said, it should be noted that colors vary dramatically from region to region. The Western US has one color palate, others will have different colors seen in one season, or seen all year.  Perhaps in the future I will expand on this series to include different regions at select times of the year.  In general though, the colors revolve around the following base colors: Spring: ...

MRL GP35 #401 fuels after dark in the Missoula Yard on September 21st, 2018.  Copyright James Willmus 2018    This photograph was taken well after dark, about 11:00pm I think, at the East end of the Montana Rail Link yard in Missoula, Montana 3 weeks ago.  I went looking for this particular exposure after my work for the night had ended.  There was only one problem though, when I arrived I realised I forgot my tripod!!! So how do you take an image like this one without a tripod?  Well, I looked around for something sturdy that would give me the angle I needed.  After debating a couple of options, I decided to use the handrail of a stairwell coming down from a nearby building.  It was right next to the street too so I wasn't trespassing or getting in anyone's way. Even with the aid of the handrail, it took a couple of tries.  Finally I managed to get the shot at ISO100, f/2.8, and a shutter of 0.6 of a second.  That's as fast as...

There are few hobbies in the world as interesting and broad as model railroading.  Model trains have been around for over a century and have undergone an evolution from wind-up toys to sophisticated machines powered by electricity and controlled by solid-state electronics.  Computers, phone apps, digital command control, remote control systems, open source software, 3D printers, digital CAD software, and many more electronic tools are now available to hobbyists and are pushing the hobby toward new horizons for the future. I want to be at the leading edge of the hobby, finding out new things and pushing the boundaries toward easier to use, more realistic models that meet the ever-increasing requirements hobbyists expect from their products.  In this blog you will find articles about the newest technology in the hobby, videos on a large array of topics, interesting prototypes, in-depth historical essays, opinion pieces, news in the hobby, and my personal products for s...