Model railways, mini-campaigns ... and the ghost of an idea

Looking at the map of the Fiddletown & Copperopolis Railway ...

... I was struck by the similarity to the sort of maps found in Donald Featherstone's book, WAR GAME CAMPAIGNS. This set me thinking ... and I remembered the 'Long Live The Revolution!' mini-campaign that I included in my book, DEVELOPING THE PORTABLE WARGAME.

The campaign was a linear one and players moved backwards and forwards from one map to another, thus:

Regional Capital

Provincial Capital

Railway Station

Capital City

Now, the last two maps had railways of them, and it would not be that difficult to add some railway track to the others. I could easily build four small, self-contained baseboards (in the style of those featured in the Budget Model Railway Challenge) that I could then use to fight a mini-campaign on, based on the 'Long Live The Revolution!' one ... and I could also connect all four together to create a small model railway.

I don't know if anything will come of this idea ... but it is certainly an interesting mini-campaign to think about!

The Fiddletown and Copperopolis Railway: Some more information

The Fiddletown & Copperopolis Railway was 'invented' by Carl Fallberg, a life-long lover of American narrow-gauge railways, especially those in the western states. His cartoons told the (exaggerated and humorous) story of such a railway.

The Fiddletown ^ Copperopolis Railway's coat-of-arms.

The Fiddletown & Copperopolis Railway was a mainly freight-carrying railway located in the foothills of California and run by (the mythical) George W Luce. He was known for his unconventional approach to the transportation demands of the area, which – until the building of the railway – relied upon the use of mules, wagons, and even rafts to move goods between the mining towns of Fiddletown and Copperopolis. The area featured treacherous terrain, bandits, and very unpredictable weather, as can be seen in the following map:

A map of part of the Fiddletown & Copperopolis Railway. I particularly like the choice of some of the place names, including Nothing Flat, Cinder (formerly Tinder) City, Saggy Springs, Goshawful Gulch, Bicarbonate of Soda Springs, and Fort Grisley P Boondock, the base of the 198th Cavalry!

---

Carl Robert Fallberg was born on 11th September 1915 in Cleveland, Tennessee and died on 9th May 9, 1996 in Glendale, California. He was by profession an extremely prolific writer and cartoonist, and is best known for his work on animated feature films, TV cartoons, and comic books for:

• Disney Studios: He began working for Disney in 1935. His work included being assistant director and storyman for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, and Bambi. He also worked on many of Disney's comic books, often in collaboration with Paul Murray.
• Hanna-Barbera: Between 1972 and 1981, he was the storyman and story editor for numerous TV cartoons – including Scooby-Doo – as well as being a writer for The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, and The Jetsons comic books.
• Warner Brothers: From 1953 until the early 1970s, he wrote stories and acted a story director for many Warner Brothers cartoons, including of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Speedy Gonzales.
• MGM: He wrote comic books that featured The Addams Family, Tom & Jerry, and Droopy.

He also authored comic books for United Productions of America, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, Walter Lantz Productions, Dell Comics, Western Publishing, and Gold Key Comics.

Making progress ... but not quite in the direction I expected

I recently wrote about my experiments with various terrain-drawing programs. One of my regular blog readers (Mike C) suggested that I look at the Memoir '44 scenario map editor ... and I tried to, but discovered that it seems to have been withdrawn by the publishers, Days of Wonder.

In the conclusion of my earlier blog post, I outlined the three options I had:

1. Carry on using Hexographer ... and working as best I can with the screen size problem.
2. Wait until HexDraw2 become available.
3. Draw my own hex grids and individual tiles using MS Paint and accept the inevitable delay that this will cause.

Well, I have tried using Hexographer but I am finding the screen size problem just too much of a strain on my eyes. At present, there seems to be no published release date for HexDraw2, and I could easily have to wait for months (if not years) before it becomes available. I am therefore left with the third option ... to draw my own hex grids and individual tiles using MS Paint.

I've done this in the past, and I used my home-drawn hexes in my book, A WINTER-ISH WAR.

I thought that I had lost my original drawings when I had a computer memory failure a couple of years ago, but I found that I had saved a copy of them on a memory stick and I now have a starting point from which I can work.