Shoutout Sunday 2
There are a lot of great modelers out there that inspire me to be better and do better. Today I want to share two instances that reminded me how much fun this hobby can be.
The first is from the Port Rowan in 1:64 blog by the ever inspiring Trevor Marshall. Trevor inspired me for years when he co-hosted The Model Railway Show, a podcast about the hobby. Recently his Keeping the Minions under control blog post featured some hilarious photos of some (not-so) prototypical railroad employees. Thank you Trevor for the inspiration and the laugh. Sometimes this hobby gets so overwhelming intense that it’s great to remember to how much fun it really is…. or should be!
And on the topic of fun… The second shoutout goes to GERN Industries, which has been a longtime favourite of mine.
I found doctorwayne’s GERN Industries Gibson Works when I was on a mrr.trains.com forum searching for ideas of prototypical industries that I could model. I hadn’t thought to model whimsical (oddball) industries until I saw GERN and immediately loved the idea of a unique (and fun) industry that only existed in my 1:87 world.
GERN was the inspiration for Poutine Quebec (PQ)* – a fictional industry that I plan to model on my layout. Inbound will be cheese curds in reefers, potatoes in boxcars and light brown gravy powder in hopper cars along with packaging and other assorted supplies. Once a week there would be a tank car shipment called the ‘gravy train’ that would bring in a heavier grade of gravy for storage in onsite tanks. Outbound would be the finished Poutine Quebec product to market.
I think that I read somewhere that GERN produces an industrial FLUX food additive. I wonder if GERN is still in existence producing FLUX nowadays and if the Quebec Poutine Works could be a customer?
* For those who may be from other parts… this is poutine.
Hi Bernard:
Thanks for the shout-out – much appreciated!
I consider myself a “serious” prototype modeller, but every so often I do something silly with my model railway to remind myself that this is, when all is said and done, a hobby. We’re allowed to laugh about it – and at ourselves.
Cheers!
– Trevor (Port Rowan in 1:64)