June 2021

New beginnings

Stop Press

The C&S has been sorely neglected for some 18 months until now (May 2021) thanks to surgery, recovery, Covid lockdown and general apathy. Added to that I lost around £500 on expensive and useless backscenes from an American supplier, which did nothing to help. I'm back with a vengeance and am starting this blog afresh from where we are now. New structures and characters are being introduced and the trains will soon run again. Watch this space.

History Archive of all previous posts from the beginning of time!

Reality

I try to include family and friends in the life of Cuspidor and you’ll find references to them below. I endeavour to fit them tongue-in-cheek into the most suitable positions, such as our dear friends Malcolm and Cathy who once treated us to a disastrous grand weekend tour in Derbyshire. In the spirit of never letting a good turn go unpunished I conceived of them running the world’s worst bus tour company. I enjoy creating little vignettes that bring the viewer into my strange little world. Building Cuspidor is a long term retirement project and I will try to keep adding to the story.

My World

The little known Rocky Mountain town of Cuspidor lies at an elevation of 8,639 feet somewhere between the Uncomphagre and San Juan ranges. It sits in the Rio Bozo valley amidst hard granite cliffs. It’s pretty hard to find nowadays as the valuable metals ran out in the fifties and people mostly just drifted away leaving what was a once prosperous town to just fade into obscurity. Diehard exploring types have been known to stumble across it when following the old abandoned narrow gauge railroad line through the brush or hiking along the Rio Bozo up to the fabled Plughole Falls.

Here we view it in 1932 at the end of the glory days but while the railroad still ran serving the almost played out gold, silver and lead mines.

The upper town of Cuspidor sits on a series of steep, narrow switchback roads reminiscent of Jerome AZ. A fairly recent addition is the magnificent stone City Hall and Courthouse built in 1918, at great public expense, by over ambitious and short sighted city fathers.

Notable buildings include the Golden Cuspidor saloon and hotel up on the bluff, the aforementioned City Hall, Miss Anna’s Pleasure Palace, the Miner’s and Cattlemen’s Association Hall and a magnificent F W Woolworth store. Dan Webb’s auto repairs does a good trade thanks to the awful roads and Miss Sarah’s little car is seen there rather frequently causing tongues to wag. The Lady’s Temperance Group, if not protesting about miner’s and stockhands carousing and frequenting the saloon and Miss Anna’s on a Saturday night, often speculate that it’s about time young Dan did the right thing and popped the question. There are still some tiny miner’s shacks in and around the town along with a few old shops that struggle to compete with a Woolworth’s that won’t stay long once they check the turnover at head office. Below the town you can just see a corner of Wiggin Field where Captain JJ Wiggin valiantly tries to keep his old biplane flying with air circus shows and crop dusting duties.

Overlooking the picturesque Plughole Falls is Desport’s tiny diner where the occasional, intrepid tourist takes ham and eggs along with miners from the Rio Bozo Mine. The poor chaps up at the Devil’s Drop goldmine don’t get down there too often. Now and then you can see the Pritchard’s Intrepid Scenic Tours (PIST) charabanc approaching the view point, usually with their last passenger hurling herself out of the open window in a desperate attempt to escape.

The Cuspidor and Southern Railroad depot and yard bake in the summer sun and freeze in the winter along with everyone else (work in progress). many mines and related mining industries keep the old line rattling on. Enjoy.

My Musical Adventures

My other hobby - only for the brave: https://barrykingsbeer.bandcamp.com/releases

Tuesday 29 June 2021

Trogolodyte house settled in.

The little trog house made from plaster wall scraps has now been embedded into the cliffside near the Plughole Falls.

It looks like young George Willikers has taken over the old abandoned place to make his own. He's built a shed/outhouse from half of an old caravan. It seems he's in the process of rigging up a supply of running water to his sink using an old barrel and pipework that looks like he scrounged it from the now derelict Lady Wendy mine. Lucky there was a small spring in the mountainside near enough to tap into. Mind you he might want to put an overflow pipe into that barrel or he may get more water than he bargained for....

I need to put a shine on the spring outflow and a support timber under the barrel, plus I have a small woodpile to go next to his front door. The lad has been busy.

The scene is pretty well finished

I see that George must have heard me, he found a length of galvanised pipe and put in that overflow. Phew! The spring has garnered some ferns and moss and the water coming down the cliff and along the ditch by the track looks suspiciously like superglue. A bit of fence for privacy and a handy old mine ladder to access the cliff, standing on the rickety roof of the woodpile, complete the scene. Oh, he put in that timber support under the tank too. I think I'll leave him to his plumbing labours now.

A few more details and the road across the track to the packway added.

Still have to add some crusty boards to the track for the crossing

Sunday 27 June 2021

Two small structures from photos

I found some photos on the web when looking to expand residential accommodation in Cuspidor. Two evenings were spent building them. The tract house is made from Evergreen styrene and windows and doors from my scrapbox. The little trglodyte dwelling is made from bits of plaster walls I made some time back.

The original model I found on the net

My version

This will be fitted into a rockface on the layout

Found on Shorpy

My version

Friday 18 June 2021

A small project for my granddaughters to help on

Jasmine (9) was interested in how I made my models so I decided to do a small build with her and Darcie's (5) help along the way. Here is a potted account.