Gallery of Modeling Images that Take Me Away
I've drawn inspiration from many other modelers over the years, and some images still stand out as the most influential. They are from my earliest days in the hobby, that magical time when anything was possible; if I was to include later images, this page would be excessively long.
Appearing in the August 1965 Model Railroader, the first modeling magazine I ever bought (I recall the day vividly: it was a Franklin Five & Dime in Meredith, New Hampshire), this image of Ken Davis' layout stopped me in my tracks and made me buy the issue.
The December 1966 issue of Model Railroader presented this bird's eye view of Gordon Odegard's seminal N Scale Enfield layout, showing me just what was possible in the scale. I was agog.
This illustration of Bill Barron's Buckley and Onarca—which appeared in the same issue as the Enfield shot—was most influential, in spite of the plan's many flaws. It also didn't bother me that it was drawn as if it was built in N Scale instead of HO (turns out he wasn't a modeler—he was an artist).
I became a "slobbering John Allen fan" the moment I first laid eyes on his Gorre and Daphetid in Model Railroader. Of the many hundreds of photos of the G&D, this one remains my favorite. In fact, I hung it on my bedroom wall (admittedly pretty geeky).
What finally got me building was a copy of N Scale Model Railroad Track Plans, which featured this layout on the inside front cover. My very first N Scale layout, the Newport & Rock Falls, was based on this photo—which, strangely, was not in any of the plans.
When Rick Spano, my friend of over 50 years, appeared on the cover of Model Railroader in September 1974, I knew for certain that I'd me a modeler for life.