Lance Mindheim's Miami's Swamp Rat
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 31 мар 2024
- Lance and I had a nice chat which quickly derailed off topic. Here are the parts that mostly relate to his new book, "Miami’s Swamp Rat". I had a great time, thanks Lance!
Link to Lance's book: lancemindheim.com/2024/01/my-... 
Хобби
Who is this "Lance" guy, and what happened to the bigger is better approach of the John Armstrong school? 🤔
Seriously, I have most of Lance's books (the stucco is the only one I'm missing, I think), and they aren't half bad, per se, but they make me feel like an old curmudgeon who is being dragged, kicking and cussing, out from under his spaghetti bowl rock into the light & breezy shelf layout era.
I grew up on Armstrong & Westcott, dreamed of a basement empire like the Delta Lines of Frank Ellison, with the details of the Franklin & South Manchester. All the while, my reality was a 4x8 of 3/4" plywood (perched on wonky legs) that had to be lugged up 15 flights of stairs because it was too big to fit in the elevator!
Now, age 52 (yes, I liked the older Delta Lines over the more recent Gorre & Daphited, et al), I have the basement, but lack the youthful physique I wish I had so as to do the stuff I dreamed of way back when.
Lance's approach to the hobby makes logical sense to the logical adult in me. But the kid in me is still having a hissy fit over not getting to build that multi-deck basement empire with dozens of train loops, each on its own cab (I dreamed in the DC era, after all), and operated from a central pit. Pacifying the kid and convincing him that a smaller layout will be more fun is a challenge. 🤔
Thank you for your very funny response. I'm new to model railroading, so names like Armstrong, Westcott, Ellison, and even Allen are echos of past ghosts I am not familiar with but occasionally stumble upon. I follow the philosophy of Mindheim as it embraces "less is more" and focuses on building something achievable in a realistic frame of time. Add to that the simplicity of DCC--yet with its realistic slow-speed operations rather than the jackrabbit starts and stops associated with straight DC--and you have something affordable, reasonable, enjoyable and that you will complete now.
As @tom9543 commented in the past, "I'd look at layouts like the V&O and think 'was this guy a slave to the layout and neglected his family responsibilities in the name of building that ultra realistic railroad?'". Perhaps the era of basement-sized empires is over and the concept of a British-style layout designed to accomodate limited space is where we are going now. I also feel that having less allows to give it more and that in some cases, being limited to what we can do, really cranks our creativity to make it work. Thanks again for your feedback!
@@SouthDownhey bro, you need a tripod 🤷🏻♂️
Yes he did but to his credit this was his first interview! Thanks for the feedback!
Really enjoyed this. I've learned so much from Lance. I hired him to design my current layout. At first he taught me the mechanics, laying track, and wiring. And then the artistic components of composition and color. Six years later and I continue to improve my layout and my skills on a daily basis. It's fun!
I'm so happy to read this! To top it all off, he's such a great guy and just graciously gave me some of his time to just... chat. Pretty incredible experience.
Dear SDSL, always a pleasure to see and hear Lance talk on model railroading. Excellent interview! Love the take on prototypical length, the focus on the artistic aspect of the hobby. Simply beautiful how the meditative side of modeling and switching was interspersed very naturally into the conversation. Cheerio
Thank you for your feedback! The meditative aspect of model railroading is often missed!
I would like to thank you both for putting together this interview. It means a lot because it helps enrich the community and keeps the hobby going.
Thank YOU for the kind feedback. These kind of comments make the effort worthwhile!
This was an excellent interview! Basics interwoven with the soul of the hobby! Great job!
Glad you enjoyed it! I'm happy the more philosophical side was appreciated and I feel like this isn't discussed enough in general.
Each hobby has it's hero and you got to chat to one of them.
I still can't believe he gave me some of his time to indulge me in my request. Speaks volumes of his great character.
Leo, you did a nice job on this video. Nice to cover Lance’s latest book and hear him speak about it.
Thank you, Jim! It was incredible to meet a personal hero and a lot of fun to chat with him.
Lance is a genius. I totally love all that he does. I do enjoy his blog where he posts really great ideas and useful tips. So amazing. Thanks a lot for the interview.
Thanks for the feedback! I’m happy to read people enjoyed it. He’s really the one to thank who gave a bit of his time to indulge me.
What a great little interview. Well done, I really loved this video. Thanks for doing it.
Big deal accolades, thank you! Doesn't happen often a personal hero generously shares some of their time, but Lance did. A great personality and quite a treat to meet him! Thank you for your kind feedback.
Great interview brother. Well done
Always means a lot to get your personal opinion on my work! Thank you!
Leo, that was very interesting. We'll talk some more before I say yes, but this was fun watching!!! Dave
Lance is an absolute delight to talk to and very generous with his time.
Awesome job! you got to interview a legend
Thank you. It was absolutely remarkable to have this one-on-one and I’m still blown away he gave a nobody (me!) some of his time. He’s as good as a person as he’s a writer.
Derailing no problem, some day you get back on track, interesting story
This, exactly. Thank you James!
Excellent video and interview. Must have been fun to edit. 😊
Thanks for your feedback! It was a lot of fun to edit, but still incredible to be able to talk to a personal hero.
This interview is superb! My gosh, so many interesting comments to enter in on.
-Chris
I appreciate your… appreciation! But seeing what you did with your first video of Prince Street, I get the feeling that you are also gifted with an artistic sense and a love for the philosophical aspect of model railroading.
@@SouthDown thank you. As I watched this film or yours, and of course through your previous ones, I enjoyed the way your narrative explores the human space within the hobby. It’s that correlation between what we’re doing and why we’re doing it I find so interesting.
As I listened to your conversation, I thought about how we use the model railway to explore our connection with the hobby and what we’re trying to conjure by making these things. It lead me to wonder how it works: we start building a layout to present an idea; by building a layout we’re exploring the process of what those goals me and what we learned about ourself along the way; how does that inform or refine the goals? Does starting with a simpler goal for the layout become a way or prioritizing space for those lessons so they’re easier to integrate as we discover them?
I love the conversation.
-Chris
@@PrinceStreet maybe we need to have our own conversation and explore these questions. I'd be up for that. What I started making isn't what I ended up building.
@@SouthDown anytime! I’d love that.
-Chris
@@SouthDown we should do this and have that conversation
Totally amazing! This is very impressive. You got to do an interview with Lance and your wonderful layout. Bravo. Very insightful video. Congrats to you both. This is quite the accomplishment.
Thank you! Kudos go to Lance for indulging me some of his time just because. Very honoured.
Fantastic short interview,credit to you
Glad you enjoyed it!
One scale HO mile is 60.459 feet .
Imagine building that to scale!