A couple of days ago another modeler, Andy Root, posted a picture of his 100-square-inch-challenge project for Gary Beatty's Mini-Festa, a small depot. He calls it "The Last Train to Clarksville," which got me thinking about train songs and depot scenes. There are lots of great songs about trains, of course, but the song that clicked with me was Guy Clark's "Desperados Waiting for a Train." Ironically, it's not a song about trains at all, except as a metaphor.
Anyway. Not to steal Andy's thunder, but I decided I needed to build my own depot scene, inspired by the song, with an old man and a boy sitting on a bench.
4/16/26: Some further progress. The interior walls are painted ivory with craft store acrylic paint. The wainscotting is printed on cardstock from a Clever Models texture file. I've temporarily positioned some of the interior details.
Here's the result:
If I really wanted to stay true to the Guy Clark backstory, I probably should have put the name Monahans on the signboard, for the Texas town where Clark grew up, but as a practical matter, I plan to use this on a planned rebuild of the Frazier Borate mini-layout, and I don't want to have to re-sign it. So Amargosa it is.
Here's a link to an article from American Songwriter magazine about the song: https://americansongwriter.com/the-idol-driven-meaning-behind-guy-clarks-desperados-waiting-for-a-train/ Scroll to the end of the article to listen to the song.
The station is a Full Circle Models depot, including an interior kit. For reference, here's a picture from their web site of Dan Wolschon's build:
A couple of figures from one of Cumberland Shops' passenger sets will portray young Guy and his surrogate grandfather, the two on the far right of this group, Passengers #4.
4/11/26: I finally started work on the station this week. So far, I've cleaned up some parts, pre-assembled a couple of things, and sprayed a light gray rattle can primer on the walls and roof.
The primer will help reduce warping of the large, flat pieces, and the light gray will also provide a good base for the finish colors. Exterior walls will be depot buff, interior walls and ceiling off-white or ivory. The doors, windows, and trim will be red-brown.
I had been using Badger Modelflex paint, but it seems to be formulated with airbrushing in mind -- not surprising, considering the source -- so it doesn't cover great when brushed on, especially lighter colors. And availability has been spotty recently. I ordered some Micro Mark paint -- a set of earthtone colors -- and I'm going to try that out. Their color selection isn't as extensive, but they offer some generic railroad colors, like boxcar red and Pullman green, and make them in two formulas, one for brushing and one for airbrushing. If I like it, I may order more colors next week.
Nothing worth photographing yet, but maybe in a few days.
4/15/26: I've done some painting, mostly using the Micro Mark paints.
Before I go much farther, I need to figure out what I'm going to do about lighting.
4/22/26: Here's where I am after the weekend. I'm not sure about the light over the door -- the Evanmodel lights are pretty crude, and I may end up removing them and just putting a ceiling light inside the building.
4/23/26: I decided I wasn't happy with the lights over the doors, and removed them. There will still be an interior light, and possibly one under the covered deck area.
The obvious change here is the addition of the roof. I also glued in some of the interior details.
The kit comes with a simple backless bench, but I want a more traditional depot bench on the covered deck, and perhaps another one inside, so I ordered a pair of Banta depot benches. They'll probably get here in a week or so.
4/25/26: Getting close to complete. The kit comes with (I think) real wood shingles, which are very nice. It includes some small individual shingles to cap the peak of the roof, but mine didn't come out looking good to me, so I removed them and instead used stripwood painted to match the shingles.
The figures -- a young Guy Clark and an older Jack Prigg -- are from Cumberland Shops.
I have a few other details to add, and some touch up painting, but this one is close to finished. I hope to wrap it up, other than final details, tonight or tomorrow, then knock out a quick diorama base to take to Gary Beatty's get together next weekend.
4/26/26: Here it is on Sunday evening. The station itself is done, and I put together a quick base for it this afternoon, just a slab of foam painted tan, a length of Atlas track, and a mix of Woodland Scenics Buff ballast, sifted decomposed granite, and sanded grout.
4/27/26: Added the Banta bench; a trash can and pigeons borrowed from the BTS cabin kit I built few months back; a ladder from a set of assorted tools I had on hand, and a couple more signs I printed.
Even if I don't do anything more on it, it's presentable enough that I could take it to Gary's and not be embarrassed. I should have time this week to add some vegetation, including at least one tree, either one of my pines or a Woodland Scenics sycamore that I have in my scenery box. And I've got a Model A Ford I can park next to the platform. That would be the car that Jack taught Guy to drive "when he's too drunk to."
4/28/26: A bit of work on the diorama base this evening. I carved a rock for the back corner to break up the monotony of the flat foam slab surface. Then I built the tree. This is an old Woodland Scenics metal armature, with their Fine Leaf Foliage. Most of the foliage had broken off -- this tree was originally on my old HO layout but has been in a box for 20 years. So I spent an hour or so cleaning up the trunk, repainted it, and applied new foliage. It's a time-consuming process, but it makes for a great looking tree.
I also posed the old Renwal Ford Model A next to the station.
Calvin Witt is going to be shooting video Saturday and suggested that people make up a card with their name and a few pertinent details to post on/by their layouts so he can identify what's what. I was already thinking about posting a QR code with a link to the Guy Clark song. So I combined the two ideas:
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