Our Member's Backshops  

On a prototype railroad, the Backshop is where all the hard work gets done. Depending upon the function performed, the buildings in the Backshop area were called by different names — flue shop, car repair shed, wheel balancing shed, erecting house, paint shop, etc. In short, the Backshop is were the railroad (except for the track) was built.

Our Backshop area is the place where our members share how they do things to build their railroad. The projects may be as small as how to add realistic loads to gondolas and flatcars, or as large as how to scratchbuild an operating scale model steam locomotive, and lots and lots of things in between. Listed here are pages and links to pages by our members that talk about how they built things for their model empires.

Some Places to Visit

Items on our website

Jim Allen covers NSC OCS Train Modeling with prototype photos on this page.
Easy Detailed Pulpwood Car Loads by Gil Brauch, MMR
Live Steam Locomotives by Will Jordan

Items on external websites

Fred Miller exhibits his skills as one of the division's active Master Model Railroader on his website.

Here are some N Scale intermodal equipment projects by another of our Master Model Railroaders, Gil Brauch:
   Classy Chassis - Building Alan Curtis Models intermodal chassis kits.
   Containerizing Those Classy Chassis - Installing various manufacturers' containers on Alan Curtis chassis kits.
   Building a Land Train - Putting together various kits to build a double trailer highway rig.

Rusty Doss (aka IAMFASHA) has a YouTube series of videos on various aspects of model railroading. A listing of some of his videos is at this link.

Note for CSD Members

How Can I Get My Projects Here?

Your modeling projects can go here, but they won't appear by magic! It takes some active participation on your part, but it's super-easy.
If you have your own website for your pike and have already posted some projects on it, just send the Webmaster an email with the your URL on it and he will add it to the external site listing.
If you don't have your own website, just send the Webmaster an electronic document (MS Word preferred) that describes your project. Include photos (JPEG format preferred) if you wish to illustrate what you did or what the end result was, and the Webmaster will 'fix it up' and post it to our web pages.
You don't have to be a Hemmingway to write it up, either. Just pretend you are explaining it to your best friend and write down what you would say as you go along. The Webmaster will check out the spelling and grammar and share suggested changes, if any, with you before posting. He will also clean up and resize photos for web presentation.
So, here's your chance to show off your stuff... and get Achievement Program points in the process. Give it a try. We'll give you all the help you can stand.