2007 SCOTTYMASON.COM
Tour Plays Host to 75

The weather gods relented, and granted us two days of very cold weather but no snow. We gathered early Thursday morning at the Best Western Hotel in West Springfield for the 2007 SCOTTYMASON.COM Springfield Show Tour. Tour members came from as far away as the United Kingdom, Washington state, California, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Northern Quebec, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and of course, Massachusetts.

     We spent almost two hours at Dick Elwell's Hoosac Valley Lines before heading over to the Hoosac Tunnel Museum in North Adams. We hung around a while because the Park Ranger was at lunch, but finally got in and saw a 30-minute PBS documentary on the construction of the Tunnel.
     Then we headed to the Tunnel itself. We didn't linger too long there as the temperature was plummeting, the wind was blowing, and the Guilford Police don't like visitors. We drove to South River Modelworks, and spent an hour or so viewing Bob van Gelder's layout, and his shop facilities. He also dusted off several dioramas displaying kits from years gone by.
     Friday morning was sunny and ccccooolllddd as we arrived at Fine Scale Miniatures in Peabody. We spent the morning there. Several members of the Tour were making their first visit to the Franklin & South Manchester. George signed several copies of his book, and answered hundreds of questions.

     We gathered in Franklin for a barbeque lunch prepared by “Smokin' & Jokin'” a competition barbeque team. I guess the food was good. There wasn't any left! Dave Frary, Jim Deignan, and my right hand man, Jim Corcoran joined us for lunch.
     We spent some time at my house before heading over to Jim Deignan's to see the restored Pennsy Middle Division.
     Right now there are no plans for a Tour next year, but stay tuned. You'll be the first to know.

Building the Rutland Railroad FEBRUARY 2007

As hard as I tried, I just couldn't finish the tunnel scene at Proctor for the SCOTTYMASON.COM Tour. Maybe it had something to do with having to make 500 or so trees! In any event, I'm close to where I wanted to be, and Tour attendees hopefully got a good idea of what I'm trying to accomplish in my basement.
     After the tunnel and surrounding hillside had been built, I covered everything with finely sifted sand held in place with full strength Elmer's Glue. Next, I took a trash bag, and went out side, and picked up a bag full of dead leaves on the side of the road. Using a blender I had bought specifically for this purpose, I filled the container with two cups of water, and tossed in the leaves.
     I turned the blender on high, and let the whole mess grind away for a few minutes. When I thought it had gone on long enough, I poured off the excess water, and drained the leaves through an old t-shirt. Then I rolled up the shirt and squeezed out any water that remained. I laid the ground up leaves on a piece of aluminum foil that I placed on a cookie sheet. I repeated the process several times until I thought I had enough ground leaves to cover the hillside.
     I turned on the oven to 200 degrees, and placed the sheet inside. I left the oven door open a crack so moisture could escape, and let the whole mess bake for about an hour, checking often to make sure the leaves weren't burning.
     I got out a colander used for draining spaghetti, and sifted the leaves through. What remained in the colander got tossed in the trash. Next I used a finer strainer and sifted again. When I was finished, I separated the two into different plastic containers. Lastly, I used a fine-meshed tea strainer and sifted one more time. What went through the strainer was what I was looking for.
     I spread these “leaves” on the hillside, and sprayed them with wet water, then matte medium. I let everything dry for a day or so.
     The trees on the hill are a mixture of homemade trees from wild oregano, and peppergrass, as well as commercial pine trees made by Heiki. I prepared the trees by removing any unwanted leaves or branches, then grouped them together in quantities of four or five sprigs. I wrapped the bottoms with floral tape, and set them aside to be painted.
     Because I model the fall, I used four colors of ordinary spray paint; yellow, green, orange and red. I separated the trees into equal numbers and painted them with all four colors. The trees required about 2 hours to dry before they could be handled.
     I used a medium length Phillip's Head screwdriver to punch holes in the hill to plant the trees. No glue was required to hold the trees as they are so close together, they support themselves. I mixed the four colored hardwood trees together with a few pines and worked my way up the hillside.
     To date, I have about 250 tree planted and about that many more to make and plant. I can see how a railroad of this size will take a considerable amount of time to foliage. Oh well, Rome wasn't built in a day.