I would like to bring to the attention of the members of RYPN a pair of articles in the October 2010 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine (beginning on page 48) that feature a superb locomotive servicing shop diorama and the construction of a model GP7 with open hood doors and internal machinery.

It has been abundantly evident from the responses to past discussions that many of the participants on RYPN do not seem to have a very high regard for the use of commercial model railroad equipment and structures in museum displays. Scott Lupia’s techniques and workmanship in the adaptation of commercially available materials in the construction of the models featured in the October issue of RMC are absolutely outstanding and well worth some study. The results he achieved are very convincing and fully the equal of the very fine cutaway locomotive shop models that EMD had built to demonstrate their shop designs to their customers in the 1940s. Scott's work would be worthy of display in any museum.

I encourage you to take a look at the superb diorama he produced, keeping in mind that it is in HO scale and consequently the width of the interior of the building is probably about the same as your computer monitor. It is hard to believe it is not a larger scale like "O" or "G". And it makes you think about the potential that building a diorama of this type in a larger scale might provide.

PC