Up Dunes Junction: Distractions and Diversions

Monday, August 13, 2018

Distractions and Diversions

What's happening on the Old Line Corridor: Designdyne/
Shapeways Pennsy Catenary Towers with black primer
and mounted with magnets on roofing nails.

It's been over a year since a new Up Dunes Junction post, with distractions and diversions aplenty keeping me from both my Dunes Junction and Old Line Corridor layout projects. In addition to the usual array of grown-up cramps to my style, such as work, family, real estate, and the rest, old and new hobby activities have been vying my very scarce spare time.

First, new activities: A work friend and my younger son introduced me to the new generation of board and miniature gaming, which has become a surprise new interest. X-Wing, Catan, and Eclipse are my favorites, and I find the social scene and camaraderie to be an unexpected delight.

I've also been participating in Washington DC's storytelling scene. You've read here before about my interest, nay even love of the the spoken word, and the kind of storytelling I've been involved in so far has been akin to The Moth or This American Life on NPR (available as podcasts or broadcasts). It has been surprisingly fun and rewarding. Here's a link to a recent performance I gave at Washington DC's Story District.

Just not railroad modeling:
workbench with armored
vehicle kit construction
in progress

Modeling has been going on, just not railroad modeling. It all started with the miniature gaming, particularly the beautifully finished miniatures for Fantasy Flight Miniatures's X-Wing and Armada games, set in the Star Wars universe. I acquired a miniature of Tantive IV, the first spaceship visible in any of the Star Wars movies (Princess Leia's cruiser, boarded by Darth Vader and his stormtroopers in the first few minutes of the original Star Wars movies). produced by Fantasy Flight for X-Wing. I vaguely knew it was a gaming miniature--but I wanted it because it was a beautiful model. In my quest for more Star Wars models, I stumbled upon Zvezda's state-of-the-art kit for the Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars. It's close to 30" in length when finished, and required nary a sliver of filler putty to assemble.

Zvezda Star Destroyer dominating my
workbench

With my appetite for plastic model assembly thoroughly stimulated, other kits caught my eye and I went on a bender of armor modeling, mostly in 1/72 scale. The small-ish military models are appealing to me in much the same way as N scale train models. Along the way, have caught up on a variety of new finishing techniques that will be put to good use in my model railroading projects.

Model railroading continues, albeit at a slower pace. Have put my hands on a couple of new locos, notably a second Fleischmann Rc4 to be converted into an AEM-7. Catenary towers are now primed and installed all around the layout. And looking forward to sharing it here on the blog.