I first met Mal Houck through the O&W society, Mal is a long-time member of the society and its modeling guru. For 2005 the society decided that the theme for its annual calendar would be the O&W in models. Mal and I put our collective talents together and started playing around with some digital photos – some on his dioramas of O&W locations and some on my layout. We quickly developed a chemistry that makes the end result of our work much more than just the sum of the parts. At the same time, we have fun!
At first we were crediting each photo as “Mal Houck and Bill Schneider”. This was way too much to type each time, so it was shortened to “Houck and Schneider”, which - probably with the help of several beers, became “Houckenschneider”. The nickname has stuck with several members of the society.....
Among Mal’s claims to fame is his ability to take older brass steam models and rebuild and re-detail them to match specific O&W locos. He works at a furious pace, but with a few quirks. Mal doesn't like to do things one at a time, and as a result, his workbench often looks like a mini production line with multiple copies of a given project lined up for work. Sometimes he gets a little carried away. Wanting a model of a “Bullmoose” 2-10-2 and having no commercial model to start from, he completed a still born scratch building project he had inherited. After many hours of work he was now the owner of a model any brass importer would be proud of. However, Mal didn’t want to breakout the old airbrush to paint just one loco, so he scratch-built a second brass “moose” to make it worth getting the spray equipment out!
Although he has no layout (yet!), he has also built several dioramas that uncannily capture the look and spirit of specific locations on the railroad. He also has an extensive collection of rolling stock for the road. When he shows up at the house he often has his Ford Escape stuffed full of equipment, and for a few hours at least the layout goes back in time….
Over the course of several photo sessions we have taken close to 300 photos. The learning curve was steep – the first session yielded only a few usable shots – but our recent sessions have returned so many great photos that it becomes very difficult to choose which ones to keep. Some of the results have been published in the society calendar and Railroad Model Craftsman magazine. Here are a few more of my favorite outakes, un-retouched, that never made it to print.
 |
E-class 2-6-0 #227 at Livingston Manor. The loco is an old Nickel Plate Products brass engine reworked by Mal. |
 |
One of the infamous Bullmoose's (Bullmeese?) at the crossing in Livingston Manor. Scratchbuilt. Yep. Scratchbuilt....
|
 |
The other "Moose" at Roscoe. |
 |
E-class 2-6-0 #227 southbound at Roscoe. Nickel Plate Products brass import reworked by Mal. |
 |
W-class 2-8-0 at Livingston Manor. Another Nickel Plate Products product reworked by Mal. |
 |
Y-2 class 4-8-2 at Livingston Manor. These engines were the most modern steam on the system and were copies of NYC's L-2c Mohawks. Another older brass engine re-wok ed by Mal. |
 |
One of Mal's newest dioramas is of the Liberty, NY station. This is a grab shot we were playing with in the parking lot at the O&W convention in November. A preview of coming attractions? |
 |
Another Liberty test shot.... May be some potential here.... !! |
 |
Highview station on one of Mal's diorama's. |
 |
The Highview station diorama in Mal's driveway during one of our shoots. This gives a good ides how we set things up - the diorama sits on sawhorses in the sunshine. We will hold a backdrop panel (either painted pale blue or with a printed scene) behind the diorama when we shoot.
In the background is the trusty steed - my '73 Mustang. A warm day out was all the excuse I needed to drive it up to Massachusetts! |
| |
|
