About Us

We are what is described as a "cottage industry". What started out as an inexpensive way of getting figures for our garden railroad expanded to what we have today. Jack does the actual modeling & painting of the figures; Richard helps with the web site and selling. To give you a little history of us, we have a garden railroad (pictures in the gallery), in the back yard about 80'x30', circa 1900 (1895-1915). We found it difficult to find figures for our layout in this period. Also the figures available were expensive and the amount we wanted became cost prohibitive. Therefore, I started making figures from clay and adding them to our layout.

We have a variety of figures available for your layout. We have passengers, townspeople and workers. We have men, women and children. We try to keep them in the 1:22.5 scale, but a few are closer to 1:20.3. Luckily all people are not the same size so all the figures look good together.

How they are made

I made a face mold from existing figures, and started making people, lots of people. I research books, movies, photos, etc. for costumes and interesting poses. This has given us the latitude to make figures for different scenes along the route. After sculpting the figures, I bake them, paint them, photograph them and then make a mold. After the mold is set up the fun begins. We then call a couple of friends over to help pour and get the finished product. Not everything I mold pours well, so they are not included in the line. After we pour for a few hours, try to do 250-300 per pouring day, I then sand the bottoms, check for air pockets and fill in w/putty as best I can. Therefore, the figures are not perfect, but using the "10 foot rule", they look great.

There you have it! This is what we do and how we do it. The result is that we have a quality product at a reasonable price. There are currently 130 different figures available, Men, Women & Children, enough to populate any train layout anywhere.

Enjoy,

Richard Fox & Jack Davis