Thursday, December 07, 2006

Mouse Whistle Traction Company




Delving into the acrhives of old projects ( new projects are few and far between), I came across the MWT special. Powered by a gutted 4 wheel drive toy truck, it's entirely scratch built from 1/8" plywood and coffee stir sticks stolen from Starbucks. The Wallace and Grommit figures complement it nicely.
The idea's not original - it came from Bruce Bate's Birdwater and Raspberry railroad.
Bruce did very clever illustrations of strange, logistically challenged locomotives for the now defunct AWNUTS magazine (Always Whimsical, Not Usually To Scale).
This is the kind of modeling that appeals to me - ratcher than trying to emulate a specific period in time or particular locomotive - I want to capture a kind of distorted resonance . More of a comic book version of reality. I'd rather be making a five year old laugh than a forty year old appreciate the fact that I put the correct defibrillated waffle blower for the 1949 Bloagtaffle 8-8-8 on the left side where it should be (except for the 1949 Q series where it was 14" more forward).

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