Monet's Gare St Lazare

Monet produced more than one version of this famous painting of the steam belching out of locomotives sitting under a station canopy.

Obviously, the era is many decades before that of my layout, but that atmosphere (literally) even I remember as a child growing up in the 50s and 60s.

The era I'm desirous of creating is late 50s early 60s when steam still mixed with diesel and electric power in France. My station will have a pitched canopy a la Monet - could it also have that steam filled atmosphere?

Well, apparently it could. Hornby have produced a "live steam" model.

And here is a video of a version by the Austrian maker, Roco.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2wohA3FTtI&feature=related

*************************************************************************************
Beck

Whatever happened to that eccentric, Beck?

I'm not familiar with more than just a few of his songs. But, those I really like.

Rather, worryingly, after most games of squash I find myself  whistling the tune to this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSPaXgAdzE

More on ballast

A disappointing title for today's blog unless one is particularly interested in ballast.

Took some photographs of the tracks at a local suburban station (Partick, Glasgow). They illustrate the gross difference in conception between commercial model rail track and the real thing. Apparently some enthusiasts actually manufacture their own track to achieve verisimilitude.

What these photos confirm is that most track is rust coloured (except for the top surface), that the ballast overlaps the sleepers and that there are all sorts of other things to be found between or near the rails. For example, in the final picture below, what looks like a third rail as in a three-rail system is in fact a spare rail that has been just left on the track.

These pictures raise again the issue of the nature of this layout. Am I going to go for an obsessive imitation of reality OR for something that looks impressive on it own terms. After all, there is something quite beautiful about a length of HO scale flexitrack.

***********************************************************************************
Stevie Wonder:

Talking Book

This comes under the heading, "Albums I never get sick of."

Ceramics

Second ceramics class last night and painted (or under-glazed) the tile I'd made last week. Very efficiently, somebody at the college had in the intervening week both supervised the drying of the clay and its first firing in a kiln.

Everyone is so helpful in the class. One woman said that she would bring in some small painted cards she had of French houses for me to look at. Apparently, she painted them.

Everyone in the class is vastly more artistic than I am. However, I'm confident that I will successfully  manufacture items for my model railway.

However, I'm not sure that in future I can use the same technique I did for this piece. The problem is that this little building is far too big for HO scale probably by 150%.

The features on the tile - window sills etc are made by sticking on small pieces of clay. Obviously, a smaller scale building will require the cutting and shaping of even smaller pieces. I dabbled in this last night with some spare clay and found it a) very fiddly and b) that the clay dried out very quickly.

But there are other techniques available.

*****************************************************************************************************
Whatever happened to Soy Bomb?

A very melancholic (and, in my opinion, beautiful) song on the Eels album: "Blinking Lights and Other Revelations"

Quite an interesting tale behind the lyrics of the song which can be looked up on the internet.

Here is a link to a youTube video that somebody has made up to accompany the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziDZLZQdBx8

Gare du Nord - a comparison

Consider this very impressive model of the Gare du Nord.

Yet, I prefer my own embryonic version in cardboard.

Tonight is the second of my ceramics classes - expecting great things.
*************************************************************************************

Prince:

Without any question my favourite Prince song: "If I was Your Girlfriend" - unique lyrics, peerless vocal delivery and atmospheric music.

Some YouTube videos.

Have just watched an excellent 20 minute video/tutorial by Everard Junction on installing point motors and polarity switches.

The chap reckons it takes about 1 hour per set of points to do it. He was using a different motor from the PECO motor I have. I think it was by Gaugemaster. Appeared more robust.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq0N6j3ESys&feature=related


**********************************************************************************

Galina Ustvolskaya:

Here is a very funny video on youTube of somebody pretending to play a piece by Ustvolskaya.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npLJh1AZ1tE

Here, on the other hand, is a short 8 minute documentary with some beautiful playing of Sonata No 5. Flick towards the end if you want  a musical sample.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CUCvCyxzw0&feature=related

I like this commentary:

"The music of Galina Ustvolskaya is not 'avantgarde' in the commonly accepted sense of the word and for this reason was not openly censured in the USSR. However, she was accused of being unwilling to communicate and of ‘narrowness’ and ‘obstinacy’. It is only in the recent past that her critics have begun to realize that these supposed deficiencies are in fact the distinguishing qualities of her music. The composer Boris Tishchenko has aptly compared the ‘narrowness’ of her style with the concentrated light of a laser beam that is able to pierce through metal."

Galina Ustvolskaya

One of the difficulties with electo-frog points is that the polarity switching device mentioned in yesterday's blog has to be fitted in conjunction with a motor that actually operates the points ie changes the direction that the train will take when crossing over them.

The motor has to be housed underneath the baseboard. A long pin protrudes from the motor through a slot in the baseboard. When activated, the motor moves the pin either to left or right. The  pin then passes through a tiny hole in a cross-member which when moved to the left or the right changes the points.

Obviously one has to cut the pin so that it doesn't foul any undercarriages. That will be a challenge.

But, the bigger challenge will be cutting the slot in the base board so that it is right underneath the relevant part of the points for the pin to pass through the aforementioned tiny hole.

At some point I will have to face up to laying the track in its definitive location so that these slots can be cut.

************************************************************************************
Galina Ustvolskaya:

If you like your piano sonatas on the violent and terrifying side, then this is the girl for you.

A Russian, composing in the first half of the 20th Century, her sonatas are described by Alex Ross writing in the sleeve notes as follows:

"What is most astonishing about these works is how brute dissonance becomes nobly and intensely expressive, like rough-cut stone metamorphosed into shining marble pillars."

Beethoven and electrofrogs

The need to electrically isolate a section of an electrofrog point from the rest of the layout and then wire it up from a separate power source was mentioned in yesterday's blog.

At least one part of that tedious process is easy to achieve, namely the isolation.

As one knows, rails are connected to each other using metal fishplates/connectors. Well, plastic insulating fishplates are available.

So, at the lhs of the points in the diagram below, one uses metal fishplates at F so that power passes to the rails of the points from the main rails which adjoin them.

Then at E one uses plastic fishplates so that the adjoining rails are physically joined but not electrically joined. One then solders wires to that blue and red isolated V section A-D-B, controlled by the switching device (mentioned yesterday), so that it gets power that way.

Perhaps it is difficult to see here, but the far left and far right fishplates are made of metal and the middle pair are made of plastic.

************************************************************************************

Beethoven:

Heard a fascinating interview on Radio 3 this morning with the young American pianist, Jonathan Biss.

He articulated my views about Beethoven's greatness. I tried to jot down his comments verbatim.

Basically, he was addressing the question of who is the greatest composer: Mozart, Schubert or Beethoven. Bach wasn't mentioned.

He said that he didn't like the question but what he did find was that more than any other composer, Beethoven had "a greater force of personality" and that when you listened to a piece by Beethoven "it knocks everything else out of your memory." That one was "completely overtaken by it".

He believed that more than any other composer Beethoven felt "the need to compose, the need to express himself" and that this need was communicated "viscerally" in his music.

And crucially, (for me anyway), Biss made this comment re Mozart and Schubert. Beethoven's music "doesn't move me more than the music of Mozart or Schubert" but with Beethoven, alone, he was aware of the "physical presence of Beethoven".

I think that is a brilliant analysis by Biss of the way Beethoven affects me. Yes, Schubert's piano sonatas, duos, impromptus and moments musicaux never fail to move me, but Beethoven's piano sonatas seem to wrestle with me physically - or perhaps, me with them.