I'm modeling the Alaska Railroad in N scale, and would like to submit this photo for your modeling section. Hopefully you'll recognize this as a model of the Fairbanks coal bunkers, scratch built in N scale from photos on your website. - Bristol Weeden

This tender scene fits inside one of the end curves on my "Garden Island" layout. No, Garden Island doesn't refer to Kauai, but rather that section of Fairbanks which is bounded by the Chena river to the south and the Noyes slough to the north. I'm not sure why it's called Garden Island as it is mostly industrialized with the Alaska Railroad's northern terminus. So the scene, while tiny, lends credence to the name.

I've had the matronly lady figure in my inventory for many decades. I guess she's a Preiser model from the mid 70's. She originally held a broom, but I noticed her hands were in the right position to safely hold a 12 gauge, so I made one for her out of styrene sheet. The cabin in the background was originally from a Swiss village kit, also an elderly european model I've had around. I added the sod roof and a stovepipe I had laying around. The garden is entirely scratch built, including the cabbages. The cow moose is from Neal's N-gauging trains, and that's a scratch built malamute I made out of Super Sculpy easy bake modeling clay.For the aspen trees I use the flower tops of sage brush plants, paint the trunks and add Woodland Scenics foliage.Any questions? Refer to my modeling agent!

The Alaska Railroad transports a lot of pipe to the rail head in Fairbanks, where it is loaded onto trucks for the long haul up to the oil fields on the North Slope. Naturally, I have a team track on my layout. This photo shows workers transloading pipe onto a flatbed trailer. The crane is technically a kitbash, since I started with a Micro-Trains crane body load for flatcars. The boom, rigging, and tracks are scratch built from styrene. The ARR gondola is a Micro-Trains model which I custom decorated using Micro Scale decals. The pipe loads are made from cocktail straws. I've just recently found the ARR load manual you have on your lovely website, so I'll be improving those loads to be more prototypically accurate in the near future. I like my open top loads to be easily removable, so there's always some compromise between tying stuff down in a realistic manner and removability.

The flatbed trailer is entirely scratch built from styrene, wood, and modeling clay. I paint my own backdrops with oil paints left over from my college art classes. As you can see, I'm a no talent hack. Perhaps that's why I dropped out of college...

Here are a couple of  shots of my "Garden Island" layout. The northbound Aurora is nearing the end of it's journey,curving past the bunkers and crossing Philip's Field road into the depot. The Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce occupies the south bank of the Chena River, while across the river an old steam locomotive is on display. The steamer, while not an accurate depiction of a prototype, does lend a sense of history to the layout since it was my first n-scale loco. To the left of the bunkers, the Eielson branch disappears around the backdrop. There are industries to switch on the other side of the backdrop, they are not scenicked as yet.

The chamber of commerce is kitbashed from Kibri's "Max Ziegler's Boathouse." I cut the end walls to give the roof a shallower angle, and added the chimney which is real stone masonry done in miniature. As a young man in 1979 I planted the roof on the prototype. Planting grass on the model was much easier.