Small Projects to Improve My Modeling Skills

For some time I have been doing things other than railroad modeling, It's not that I dont have the time - I do. It's not that I don't have the resources - I do. What I don't have is the mental discipline to take the next step in the railroad modeling activity - improving my skill set.

Now on one hand I find that pretty funny. I've built things all the time. I built 9 or 10 model railroads over the years in the David Barrow's minimalist tradition (its a good thing) based on what I was interested in at the moment. I've been involved in the restoration of real railroad locomotives, rolling stock and done maintenance of way activities on track.

What I haven't done is gone all the way with railroad modeling. I've done the stuff I have listed in the Pages Sections: History - yes. Operations - most of the time. Construction - yep! Right of way - only in the basic (minimalist) terms.

What I haven't done is the other 270 degrees of railroad modeling. I haven't modeled right of way, haven't dug ditches, installed culverts, or built bridges. I haven't created landforms, built mountains, hills, valleys and ridgelines. Nope to the scenery techniques of creeks streams, rivers. I haven't gone beyond the ready to run locomotives or the kit rolling stock. Structures have been note cards with industry names or cardboard cut outs mocking up the industry at best. It wasn't important enough at the time, modeling wise.

So I stalled - subconsciously. And procrastinated. The action wasn't happening. 

Then I got a kick in the pants. A friend of mine that I hadn't seen in years dropped in. He knew I was a modeler and wanted to know how things were going, what progress I'd made in 5 years with the layout. I was embarassed. 'Don't be', he said. 'You can only eat an elephant one bite at a time.' 

He was right of course. And I kind of knew it because  - as I was developing the blog -  I have a number of pages in each one of the Reference Page sections, that were going to explain what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. I just didn't recognize that what I thought was explaination was actually THE CONCEPT at the time. 

The light finally came on when I was browsing the web and found the Proto48 Modeler site and specifically author Shawn Branstetter's Small Projects to Improve Your Track Modeling Skills. He got it  - and finally I got it! The WWSL ver. 3.0 isnt a multi-deck 200 foot main line, it's 400 (square foot) of small projects to improve my modeling skills. 

And I'm taking the leap!