You’re the Inspiration – Amherst Show Aftermath (Part I)

Last weekend (as I write this) I attended the annual train show hosted by the Amherst Railway Society in West Springfield, MA. We decided to shut down The Pixel Depot last year (again: anyone want to buy a turnkey business?), so I was able to experience the show as a spectator for the first time in many years—even if work (my job, not layout “work”) meant I wasn’t able to enjoy it to its fullest.

I had forgotten just how inspiring the show is in terms of getting the creative juices going, from two standpoints:

1. The modular layouts on display in many different scales
2. The sheer amount of product available for starting, continuing, or finishing projects (or even just putting on the shelf for “someday”)

You can see things you never knew you needed, wanted or perhaps even existed, as well as examples of cool projects you didn’t know (or remember) you needed to do.

Case in point: As we toured the layouts, one of the modules we came across included a large industry. To be honest, I have no recollection of what industry was being modeled because I was immediately engrossed by the handsome HVAC units on the roof.

I don’t know if these are from kits, scratchbuilt, 3D-printed, or some combination thereof, but it doesn’t really matter.

I’ve always known I was going to need to model some HVAC units—and rather large ones at that—on my General Motors plant, (see here, here, and here). It was a project I knew needed to be done at some point, but I’d thought about it in only in the most basic of terms. I’m sure you can relate. But what the module builder (I wish I’d paid more attention to who it was) had done is a good reflection of what I would be going for.

I took the photos both because I was impressed, but also for reference. I’ve come to realize as I get older that without pictures I’m not going to remember details about anything after about two and a half weeks days minutes, so it’s in my best interest to document the things I see that interest me. They would help guide me when the time comes to build my own. In this case, I assumed that when time came to build them, I would need to scratchbuild; thus the multiple angles.

Much later in the day, in a completely different building, as we perused a delaer’s tables, Greg came across kits manufactured by Dimensional Modeling Products for three different types of HVAC units. I didn’t know these kits existed nor had I ever even heard of the company, but the parts looked decent.

As an aside, here’s a commentary on the sensory overload that is the show: we had done a once-over of that table previously and didn’t even notice these kits. Which makes me wonder how much other stuff we missed at other locations. But I spent enough money as it was, I guess.

There were no pictures of the final product on the package (a big mistake in my opinion), but a quick search of the Interwebs provided some, and I was suitably impressed. I bought 2 kits of Type 3, and Greg picked up examples of the other two types. It remains to be seen whether the kits will look as good as the ones on the module, or be beefy enough to look at home on the vast roof of the GM plant, but they’ll be a good start at the very least.

So, yay modules and yay availability of just-oh-so-many different products.

Now to get back to building…

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(Post Header photo credit: Greg LeBlanc)