Further Up Dunes Junction

My first semester of university teaching is done, and I’m able to return to the workbench in earnest.

What’s happening now: simplifying the lines of an ancient injection-molded HO structure kit, with the aim of making it more evocative of the Calumet Region of northwest Indiana. Erroneous folk knowledge from youth prompted my recent swap meet purchase of this vintage IHC interlocking tower kit.

Among the old heads of the hobby shops and model railroad clubs of northwest Indiana, the received wisdom was that this ancient “Western” German-made Pola kit—which has been released and boxed variously by IHC, AHM, and Tyco in North America—was a mostly accurate representation of Calumet Tower in East Chicago, Indiana.

Five minutes of Googling disproved this received Calumet Tower wisdom, and also provided plenty of inspiration for bashing this venerable kit. Turns out it’s not based on any one particular prototype interlocking tower in northwest Indiana or anywhere, but it is a close-ish composite of prototype features found mostly east of the Mississippi.

My strategy is to reduce the overall ornateness of model, which so far has involved a lot of sanding, filling, and changing a few window details.

More plain-ifying construction to come, and of course, finishing will be doing a lot of the work to make this model look “right” for 80s-90s Calumet Region railroading.