From Flimsies, an exhibit of models by the late Wilbur Frey. A friend of mine (we did maintenance on his engines at St. Albans), he began his RR career in the roundhouse at Island Pond, Vermont as a laborer, ending up as general foreman of locomotives for the Grand Trunk New England Lines in Portland, before retiring to Arizona.

His large, static models were built of scrap materials, mostly wood, metal and cardboard, and to an odd scale, but were quite well detailed. All parts were made individually by hand; he did no casting, and had only a small lathe, table saw and Dremel jig saw for equipment, with a lot of hand tools. He made close to 200 models this way. Inspired, I began a Rutland ten wheeler, which I got about half done in three years before giving up, so you see how dedicated he was..

Details of the exhibit (about 20 of his models) here:

http://www2.townonline.com/beverly/arts ... at=&page=1

More on the man and his models here (note some minor inaccuracies, CN 6153 that he built his first model of was not cut up):

http://64.242.254.49/Wilburfrey.asp