Special Day Modeling

M

Meiriongwril

Member
Mar 1, 2006
183
0
16
Lafayette, Lousiana
I remember reading about this topic years ago in one of the railway magazines, and wonder if any gauge members have tried to do it.
The premise is that one takes a special year and day (e.g your birthday, or wedding day etc) and a special place (where you got married, your favorite railfanning location) and try to model the specific day (or morning/afternoon and so on).
You don't have to make the place especially accurate: in other words you could try and scratch build all the prototype buldings, but off the peg kits would do just as well. The main point is to replicate the actual trains and train movements.
So, one needs to have the same type and number of locos, with the accurate running numbers and liveries used in that yard/station/junction on that specific day. Also, the correct type and number of rolling stock. Getting the correct running numbers on freight and passanger cars is of course more difficult, but research might turn up that information.
I guess this could be satisfying to research and set up, but might be somewhat limiting once you've done it!:D
 
My father-in-law was born in the RR station of Därligen, at the shore of Lake Thun in the Bernese Oberland. where his father was the station master. When he was a kid, their dog died exactly at his 10 th birthday. This very aqfternoon he and his brother buried the dog in a small meadow between the lakefront and the railroad tracks. Instead of a headstone they stuck a short fir branch into the ground. The twig grew new roots, and today it is a mighty fir, about 60 ft high.

For the 70th birthday of my father-in-law I built a diorama with the Därligen station (from a Vollmer kit), the three tracks and the platform, then the meadow and the lake shore. Near the shore I placed two kneeling Preiser kid figures near a tiny burial mound and a freshly planted fir twig. So I had an dated diorama - exactly October 9th, 1927.

It was fun to build, and it was even more fun to do some research (in old family photo albums, historic books etc.) for the exact placement of the station, the tracks, the small team track crane and the comfort station (a simple outhouse with two rooms for men/women).

Although my father-in-law wasn't a model railroader (but he worked for the real railroad) he was deeply touched by this very personal present. Unfortunately I didn't shoot a picture of it. About ten years later a visiting neighbor brought his grandkids with him. One of them - a real brat - went for this diorama, tore off all the figures and the buildings and so pretty destroyed it. :curse::curse::curse: So there's no way to still make some pictures now. :(

Ron
 
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