Not a railroad picture but a ‘road’ picture in the true sense, was Stagecoach, the 1939 John Ford western with John Wayne and Andy Devine… I think it nay merit a place in that lineup…
Don’t worry it’s on the list !
Moving day has finally arrived.
Well I think that I will go back to my original idea of an abandoned movie set.The poster idea was OK but when I put an example up I found that it was a little visually overwhelming with all those posters.
The grey fence around the property is however underwheming and boring and needs a little work too.I tried putting posters up on the outside of the fence too but it also looks like too much of a good thing.
So,I am thinking of expanding the movie set idea to include things like abandoned actors dressing rooms,equipment storage rooms etc…all weathered and a little rusty looking and only the odd old poster here and there for visual effect.
Well now its back to the drawing board…
This is the movies storyline.
The film portrays two conflicts that take place around Flagstone, a fictional town in the American Old West: a land battle related to construction of a railroad, and a mission of vengeance against a cold-blooded killer. The main storyline revolves around a struggle for Sweetwater, a piece of land near Flagstone containing the region’s only water source. The land was bought by Brett McBain, who foresaw that the railroad would have to pass through that area to provide water for the steam locomotives. When railroad tycoon Morton learns of this, he sends his hired gun Frank to simply intimidate McBain to move off the land, but Frank instead kills McBain and his three children, planting evidence on the scene to frame the bandit Cheyenne and his gang. By the time McBain’s new bride, Jill, arrives from New Orleans, the family is dead and she is the owner of the land.
Henry Fonda as Frank
Meanwhile, a mysterious harmonica-playing gunman, whom Cheyenne later dubs “Harmonica”, pursues Frank. In the film’s opening scene, Harmonica kills three men sent by Frank to kill him, and, in a roadhouse on the way to Sweetwater, he informs Cheyenne that the three gunfighters he killed appeared to be posing as Cheyenne’s men. Sometime later, Harmonica kills two men sent by Frank to kill Jill.
Back at Sweetwater, construction materials are delivered to build a railroad station and a small town. Harmonica explains to Cheyenne that Jill will lose Sweetwater unless the station is built by the time the track’s construction crews reach that point, and Cheyenne puts his men to work building it.
Claudia Cardinale as Jill McBain
Meanwhile, Frank turns against Morton, who wanted to make a deal with Jill. Frank’s betrayal is made easy by the fact that Morton is crippled. After having his way with her, Frank forces Jill to sell the property in an auction. He tries to buy the farm cheaply by intimidating the other bidders, but Harmonica arrives, holding Cheyenne at gunpoint, and makes a much higher bid based on his reward money for delivering Cheyenne to the authorities. After rebuffing another intimidation attempt by Frank, Harmonica sells the farm back to Jill. At this point, some of Frank’s men try to kill Frank, having been paid by Morton to turn against him, but Harmonica helps Frank kill them in order to save that privilege for himself.
After Morton and the rest of Frank’s men are killed in a battle with Cheyenne’s gang, Frank goes to Sweetwater to confront Harmonica. On two occasions, Frank has asked Harmonica who he is, but both times Harmonica refused to answer him. Instead, he mysteriously quoted names of men Frank has murdered. The two men position themselves for a duel, at which point Harmonica’s motive for revenge is revealed in one last, clear flashback: When Harmonica was a boy, Frank forced the boy to kill his own brother by tying a noose to the top of an arch, placing it around the brother’s neck, and forcing the struggling Harmonica to support his brother on his shoulders with a harmonica in his mouth while playing the song that’s heard throughout the film.
Harmonica draws first and shoots Frank, and when Frank again asks who he is, he puts the harmonica in Frank’s mouth. Frank nods weakly in recognition and dies. With Frank dead, Harmonica and Cheyenne say goodbye to Jill, who is supervising construction of the train station as the track-laying crews reach Sweetwater. Cheyenne collapses almost immediately, revealing that he was shot by Morton while he and his men were fighting Frank’s gang. The work train arrives, signaling the arrival of ‘civilization’ and the end of the Epic age of cowboys and gunfighters; thus the film ends with Jill carrying water to the rail workers and Harmonica riding off with Cheyenne’s body towards the horizon. A creature of the frontier, Harmonica can’t “settle down” and decides to ride in search of a place where a man like him can still have a role and a reason to exist.
John Reid said:it is some years, since i saw that movie last time, but didn't Fonda play the role of Cheyenne?
Henry Fonda as Frank
No he was the evil old Frank and Sergio planned it that way as a surprise for the audience.He really was a genius at this type of thing .
I finally gave old Morton his dream of a Atlantic to Pacific RR.
People often ask me why do you love Sergio’s work so much ? Here is just one of thousands of reasons why. Sometimes I ask myself a simple question “How can a man take a child’s life for no reason ?” Even a good looking man with beautiful blue eyes? But these are the eyes of a killer as depicted by Henry Fonda.Who would have believed it Henry Fonda a killer of children ? Who would believe that men such as this could be responsible for mass murder.Sergio wanted his audience to be shocked as the camera panned his face,(as Fonda himself said) "Jesus Christ its Henry Fonda !!!)
I am currently researching old west facades to add to the diorama.
You can make that tender lettering white or gold on on black if you want to. Here’s how: Print it in reverse on white bond paper or white bond paper that you have painted with gold acrylic paint. This will give you the lettering with a black background. Cut out the lettering including the black to cover the entire tender side. Coat the side of the tender with acrylic matte medium. Position your new paper tender side and press it into position pushing down over the rivets. DO NOT RUB over the rivets as this may stretch and tear the paper. Work fairly quickly as you press the paper down over each rivet with a medium density eraser. You will need to work with moderate speed, but don’t panic. If you find the Matte medium has dried too quickly fo you to finish, you can gently pull the paper back a bit and brush more medium onto the tender side.
Protecting your lettering: The usual instructions are “Spray with dullkcote”. and that’s fine. If you used a laser printer you can simply brush matte medium (or gloss or semi-gloss if you prefer) over the side. If you used an inkjet then brushing once you can get away with. A second stroke over the now-wet ink will cause it to smear. If you are experienced with water colours you will already be aware of this.
I draw an exact outline of my tender sides, accurate to the nearest pixel, in pink, in MS Paint, then place my lettering made in another colour, on that drawing, in opaque mode. When you first start this file in paint, convert your BMP immediately into a GIF. That is, save your file before you even begin as a black and white GIF. This is because newer versions of MS Paint (since about 2005 anyway,) dither your typing in BMPs. You want to be able to move clean undithered lettering onto the black, and a Paint/GIF is undithered.
I prefer bold lettering for this kind of project, and in general I prefer lettering on my modeld not to be pure white as it seems too harsh to me. I realize most bought models do have pure white lettering. On a project such as this I might tone it down a bit by tinting it grey, but I guess that’s a matter of taste! Cheers.
Wow ! that is a lot to digest John.Thank you for this.
it would be interesting to see a pic of something, that was lettered by that method.
Here is a great old saloon with swinging doors and all !
Korm Kormsen said:
it would be interesting to see a pic of something, that was lettered by that method.
(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/choochoo_chaboogie/_forumfiles/tendercrop.jpg)
Now, I admit this isn’t the greatest, Korm. it was my first attempt, printed in inkjet on gold-painted paper, so the water-based ink left something to be desired. It actually looks much more acceptable in reality, and people have commented very favourably, believe it or not. I believe that a laser printer would do a better job of covering the gold with black, but I haven’t tried it yet. There are no rivets on this one, I only did the shape inside the gold frame on the Kalamazoo tender’s side. But I have done others, white on black. Here are some switcher tender sides, some 2-8-0 cabside panels in C&S style, and some passenger car fascias.
(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/choochoo_chaboogie/_forumfiles/whitelettering.jpg)
The first two are done in inkjet on white bond paper. Last winter I glued identical tender sides to these onto the actual Heartland switcher tender, but I tried an experiment, using white glue instead of matte medium to learn what would happen. The rivets worked out just as beautifully as with matte medium by my eraser-pushing method, but the white glue loosened in the humidity, so sadly I peeled off my sides, which had looked fabulous, rivets and all, I promise you! I am looking forward to doing them again with matte madium this winter. I do outdoor railroading in the all-too short summer, you see… The passenger car fascias are printed on white coverstock, which is a thin cardboard and will be applied to a train that is due for repainting this winter if I have time… As I see it, the acrs will be varnished wood with black fascias. You can see that I draw the correct shape and size of the tender side or cabside panel or fascias, then I position the lettering, which I have created separately. It is a good idea to have separate files for each element - the shape and the lettering, so you can reuse them for other purposes later. For example if you change your railroad’s name (!) or buy a second similar model… Believe it or not I like this method and the results very much. Even the rather imperfect result on this gold-lettered tender is very satisfactory, and has been admired, so who am I to complain? I can tell you that it was my happiest day in model railroading, the day that loco rolled past with its lettering for my own railroad for the first time! Recalling my happiness on that occasion still makes me grin. I must be a very simple fellow indeed… However next time I would try laser printing these things, because I am always curious about how the yet-untried might work, and always seeking to improve on my methods…! I just don’t own a laser printer, so the inkjet was closest and easiest! By the way, John: I found your online source for that A&P lettering. Very nice! Did you actually buy the map, or how did you clean off the seller’s watermark? Your lettering could be cleaned up and converted into a hi-contrast GIF to use my method on it, and that would be fine, but it would be quite a long job.
Typical Hollywood back lot.
John F, thanks!
Thanks for posting the pic, John R.
That’s very interesting; I hadn’t a clue about any of that stuff…
They’re beginning to make quite a lot of movies in Toronto these days. In the biz they now are calling it “Hollywood North” I believe, (or was that Vancouver? - I don’t know… anyway, several large new studio buildings have been erected along the Eastern waterfront.
It is no longer unusual to see whole streets taken over by filmmakers and their many parked vehicles round this city…
I haven’t seen any western-type buildings though. Perhaps they would film such things at the Pioneer villages 'round about…
As you may have guessed, the film business is not exactly my field, but I’m glad to see a thriving film and arts industry up here!
I seldom go to the flicks these days. Toronto also plays host annually to an International Film Festival, which I am ashamed to admit I have never attended. As you know, though, I am a great fan of the Clint/Leone westerns. I would watch them again and again, anytime…
To my credit, however, I am very active in or supportive of Railroad preservation, Model Railroad promotion, and RR Club activities all around the district. I guess all that counts… :rolleyes: (I see there doesn’t seem to be a smileyface with a halo!) 
I have just learned today that Jonny Depp is here for the filming of the “The Lone Ranger”, and there are many train scenes in it !!! He plays Tonto, an Indian Shaman. I suspect there will be elements of steampunk in this film, (I rather hope so, actually!) but we’ll see.
I am planning the back lot to be from the late 60’s era when movies were still made the old fashioned way.Today it is all animation, which is ok by me but you can’t tell if it is real or not.