Greetings All
This weekend the New Mexico Garden Railroaders are engaged in our fall show at the Albuquerque Botanical Garden. Several old favorites are on the rails but there are a few new trains making their debut. Here is the “Day of the Dead” train by Ray Mosley, who is one of our members. He is a big Disney fan and has built his entire home layout based on various Disney movies and park rides. His Layout was featured in Disney magazine last year.
Staying with that idea his newest addition is inspired by the movie “Coco” and incorporates some vinyl figures of the movie’s main characters. Ray has also included several traditional skeletal figures that he sculpted and cast in aluminum using the lost wax method. He is a custom jewelry maker by trade and has access to all sorts of forge and metal casting equipment.
The goal was to capture the look and feel of the movie which is animated in the modern CGI style. The cars are a mixture of types and eras pulled by a REA Rogers 2-4-2. The weathering effect is done with colored shoe polish artist wax to represent the surreal and colorful land of the dead.
The engine: This is the two motor version of the Rogers. It is DC powered. The tender was salvaged from a Costco RC Cola set.
Behind the engine is a 2 axle boxcar by Aristocraft. This is part of a rolling stock series that included a flatcar, gondola and tanker. The Hershey’s and Teddy bear trains both featured them.
These ghostly figures are dancing on top of a two axle short flatcar by LGB. Currently they are held in place with clay until a permanent fastener can be made.
Next is a pair of Delton coaches in 1/24th scale. They contain most of the vinyl movie figures and are still works in progress.
At the end is the caboose. It began life as a 2 axle bobber by LGB.
Finally it was time to put the train on the tracks… If you look at the top of the frame you will see that a ghost family stopped by to enjoy the site.
You can tell by the angle of the sun this was taken facing east in the early morning with the sun to their backs. It is before the garden was open to the public. I assure you there was no one there when I took the photo…
Make of it what you will and have a happy Halloween or Dia De Los Muertos!!!
