Floors for the lookout tower

It's not too straight without the diagonal braces

That red assemblage of Peter-Austin girders, aka the fire lookout tower, has appeared in several posts about the Inglenook Lake layout. I've been thinking a lot about how to transform it from a skeletal form to a credible HO scale forest fire lookout tower, but over the last few days I got out my tools and materials and got down to some serious work.

The first step is floors, and how to link them with stairs.

A floor template was made and then traced multiple times onto a sheet of 0.030" thick sheet styrene.
Those holes are stairway openings.

I played around with various stairway organizations: wrapping them around the interior perimeter in a spiral from floor-to-floor; keeping all the stairs to one side; and finally, settling on a simple zig-zag up the centre of the structure. This last one allowed for the most room for the imaginary hauling of things up the stairs, and for stepping off one stairway to the next with enough clearance, all the while keeping each floor's perimeter free and clear for easy viewing into the forest.

For stairs I'm going to use Plastruct item number 90662. The packaging of these items is weird in that it states the stairs are HO-scale and 1:100. I ignored that. When placed near an HO-scale figure they look right, and inside the tower any issues with scale won't be noticeable. 

Test fitting the floors. They aren't glued in, just press fit.

Maybe I shouldn't, but I'm trying to make whatever parts I create for this thing be as stylistically close to original Peter-Austin parts as I can. Yes, I'll be painting the parts, but I want to see if I can create the illusion of a fictitious Peter-Austin play set being used to create a credible HO-scale structure. 

The roof is a laminate of styrene squares with a corrugated piece on top.
The notches on the inner ply are to set over pegs in the girders.

The structure still looks a bit clunky at this stage with its odd, toy-like colours and not so straight frame. All readily correctable as construction progresses. So far so good though. 

Wanderin'

I stumbled across this simple improvisational kitbash of Revell's Engine House on a vendor's table at last month's model railway swap meet. It's always good to see these old things out and about in the world. No, I didn't buy it as I've got a lot on my plate as it is, and that relic needs a lot of love to bring it back to life.

Ok, after Billy Preston really lightened my mood, I stumbled across VIA Rail getting into the music genre for study, sleep, meditation, focusing, and unwinding with this video entitled, Relaxing Train Sounds for Sleeping:

In case you were wondering, there's a French version too (or maybe I should reverse things and say there's an English version too :-) ) ! 

As the calming train sounds got me all relaxed and horizontal I started again to think about the pleasant horizontality of the Expeditor floatplane:

The Expeditor and the Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior both are cool expressions of mid to late 1930s aerodynamic streamlining that I quite like.

The floatplane version of the Bronco doesn't have that highly planar sleekness, but it does have a purposeful look to it. 

Well, the time change is getting the better of me, so I'll leave you with some classic Billy Preston, and a dash of Anthony Bourdain:

The lights go on at the Repair Shop

I decided to spend some time finishing off the Repair Shop. All I had left to do was the roof and lights. I was getting all wrapped around the axle about what sort of business it would house, and what the interior should look like, and that was blocking me from actually finishing the thing. 

I made the roof removable by gluing to the kit's roof panels some rafters cut from 0.020" thick styrene. I also added a channel for an LED strip.

Roof with new, flexible LED wires.
Note the inside roof surface is painted white to reflect light.

I found when it came to placing the roof on the walls the LED wires weren't flexible enough, and their stiffness kept the roof from sitting properly. So, I rummaged around my odds-and-ends boxes for some smaller diameter, more flexible wire, peeled off the LED strip, removed the old wires, and soldered on the new ones. They did the trick, and the roof now can be made to sit easily on the walls.

To the exterior roof surface a ridge cap cut from 0.010" thick styrene was added, as were two ventilators (they're Walthers rooftop accessory products).

 That guy up there in silhouette is the same guy standing beside this side door:

Out front, him and the building look about the right size for each other, but as I noted in a previous post, he's too tall for the side door. I measured that door, and long story short, based on standard door heights, the model is probably somewhere in the 1:110 to 1:120 scale range, where 1:120 is TT-scale. On the Way Out Layout, the side doors will be out of sight, blocked from easy comparison views by neighbouring buildings. The new door that addresses the street though is HO, and doesn't look out of place on this structure. 

One last thing before coffee: kit history.

Left: Pola 'Quick' B 623 | Right: Pola 11623

I took another deep dive to see if I could find out anything about this kit. It turns out it was a Pola kit that was marketed in the US and Canada by AHM. It was first released by Pola in the late 60s or early 70s in their Quick range as kit # B623. Interestingly Pola also released an N-scale version as Pola 240. An internet search suggested that the kit isn't based on a specific prototype, but don't quote me on that as I can't find a solid reference for that assertion.

The freedom of small layouts

Left: Voie Libre International; Right: Voie Libre
I like how the freedom part is all caps in both headlines.

The Oct / Nov / Dec 2026 issue of Voie Libre International showed up in my mailbox last week. No, my work isn't in it, and no I'm not a shill for it :-) I was struck by the headline: 'Small layouts make you free', or translating the French cover with my rickety French skills, 'Freedom with small networks' ('networks' being the commonplace French usage for what we refer to as 'layouts'). If you're a model railroader, frankly, I think that statement is true, if a bit over the top in the English version.

This fall I've realized it's been almost exactly 5 years since I started the Loonar Module on a lark, which lead to the Centennial Experimental Farm layout, which lead to the Mount Lowe layout. All small, all completed, all fun. I don't know what the next 5 years has in store, but any layouts I do will likely be small. There certainly is freedom in small layouts, and I highly recommend them. I'm glad to see that stated so clearly. And, yes, there are fantastic small layouts and layout ideas in that issue.

Ben King & Wally Moore: Masters of Model Railroad Photography

Framed cover of the August 1973 issue of Model Railroader on wall leading to my workshop.
A few years ago Kalmbach offered oversized prints of selected MR issues and Aug '73 was one.
Naturally, I immediately bought one  :-)

Last week I had a surprising and delightful email exchange with S. Afterwards it got me thinking that I need to continue on with writing a number of blog posts I've put on the back burner. Things got stalled out after unsuccessfully wrestling with Gemini to create an index for the 1975 issues of Railroad Modeler. Creating the 1974 index was tough enough, but the failure of '75 made me down tools. 

Over the years I've gone on and on about 'discovering' the work of E. L. Moore in the August 1973 issue of Model Railroader that I bought at a local smoke shop while on a comic book run. What I always leave out of that story is what made me pick up the magazine in the first place: it was the photograph on the cover. I distinctly remember that it was the cover image that grabbed my attention.

Written by Peter Blum, with photos by Phillip Stearns; published in 1964 by The Odyssey Press

Maybe I shouldn't be too surprised I picked up a magazine based on a photo featuring miniature figures. As a boy I was given the little book shown in the above photo as a Christmas stocking stuffer and was entranced by it. I flipped through its pages over and over for years. I speculate it primed me for picking up that fateful issue of MR a few years later.

Every page is graced with brilliant, well composed, colourful photos.
Every 2-page spread is expertly laid out.
It's a small gem.

It turns out the Aug '73 cover photo was shot by Ben King, and inside was one of his most influential (and somewhat controversial) articles: Modeler's camera with roll-film holder.

That article was a follow up of sorts to his oddly titled January 1964 article called Ben King's photogenic modeling where King describes how to scratchbuild a pinhole camera with a lens that is capable of taking both 'you are there' eye-level photos of layout scenes and stereo photos! According to mentions in MR many readers built this camera, and several MR cover photos were taken with them.

I consider King's camera a rather significant piece of work in model photography. Pinhole cameras aren't new. They're the most fundamental of image capturing devices, and stereo cameras weren't new either. What is new is he used a lens to provide precision focusing to the pinhole, and created a device for allowing the lens to be moved to a second position for taking a second photo for the necessary two photos required for a stereo image to be created. The basic principle of stereo photography is to take two image of a scene, one for each eye. Typically a stereo camera has two lens spaced the same distance apart as are one's eyes. In HO this is impossible as the eyes in HO are only spaced 1 mm or less apart. King solved this by allowing the camera's lens to be moved a little to take the second photo. Layout scenes are static, so unlike with a full-sized stereo camera, both images don't need to be taken at the same time. He put all this into a compact package that could be set on a layout for picture taking. Me being 13 at the time and clueless, I didn't know all this, and just looked upon it as a complex project I would never build.

Ben King
Image snipped & processed from MR Jun '71

Over the years MR published three biographical notes about King. They can be found in the June '71, September '95, and June '97 issues, with the last one being his obituary. King himself also provides some biographical information in his September 1995 article, The Timber City & Northwestern. If one stitches together the sometimes contradictory information found in all four a little more comprehensive biography comes to light. If you see errors with the stitching in my following account, please let me know.

Ben King was born in either 1926 or 1925, and died on 7 March 1997, aged 71. He was in the US Army in WWII right from 1941 until 1945, and fought and was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. He met his future wife in France while he was in the army. After the war they took up residence in Greenville, Ohio. They had 8 children, 4 boys and 4 girls. He opened a business that repaired radios, televisions, and other electronic equipment. 

King became interested in model railroading sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s. He didn't have any room, so he didn't have a layout, but focused on model building. Once he and his wife bought a house in 1958 he started in on a layout, but it didn't work out and was abandoned. He started a new layout in 1960, The Timber City & Northwestern. Railroad Model Craftsman gave it an early look in a June 1965 article, and then a followup 20 years later in June 1985. MR finally ran an article about it in September 1995. Surprisingly, it was a shelf layout that measured only 2-1/2' x 10', but was an incredible tour de force of craftsmanship of the highest calibre.

In one of the King bio pieces I stumbled across this philosophical statement from him:

“I never work at modelbuilding so hard that I become tired of it. I never set any deadlines nor try to meet any schedules. This way I work at it only when I’m in the mood, and it has given me many hours of spare-time enjoyment.”

I got a feeling of deja vu from that. It seems E. L. Moore had a somewhat similar work philosophy when it came to model railroading. He had this to say in a May 1965 letter to Bill Rau:

"Me, I’m a saver, too . . . can’t bear to see anything wasted . . . except time. I like to work a while, then prop up my feet and read a while figgering what I don’t get done today will be there waiting for me tomorrow or the next day, and surprisingly I usually finish what I begin, but I never handicap myself with a schedule or deadline. If I get interested enough in something I’m building I’ll go on to maybe two or three o’clock in the morning — then sleep till ten and loaf all day."

A case of Great Minds Think Alike? Who knows.

King noted that as well as model railroading, he was interested in designing and building cameras and camera equipment, quartz clocks, and electronic instruments. I'd add that he was also a prolific contributor to MR of both articles and photos. Check out the following list of his works (all were published in MR unless otherwise noted):

Aug '54: Photo of his K4 Pacific in HO by Penn Line.

Dec '61: Photos of his United 2-8-0 in HO.
Apr '62: MR cover photo.
Aug '62: MR cover photo.
Aug '62: Photo of his scratchbuilt engine house (Quality Craft Models produced an N scale kit of this model that was reviewed in the July 1977 issue in the Trade topics column)
Feb '63: The life of Benjamin Flats camp.
Jan '64: MR cover photo.
Jan '64: Ben King’s photogenic modeling. (Eye level pinhole camera with a lens capable of taking stereo photos)

Jun '65: Timber City & Northwestern RR. (Railroad Model Craftsman photo essay of King's layout in an early stage of construction.)

Mar '66: MR cover photo.
Mar '66: Photographing a model scene.
Aug '69: MR cover photo.
Aug '69: Build a sensitive drill press.

Aug '69: Model of the Month Award. (Freelanced 2-6-0)

Jan '70: Belt drive for the sensitive drill press.
Feb '70: MR cover photo.
Feb '70: Station for Timber City. (Later, James E. Ison won MR’s Model of the Month Award in Oct ’71 for building this model from the article)
Sep '72: Motor magnets and how to charge them.
Aug '73: MR cover photo.
Aug '73: Modeler’s camera with roll-film holder.
Jun '78: A miniature oilstone bench grinder.

Jun '88: RMC cover photo. (Railroad Model Craftsman)

Jun '88: Revisiting The Timber City & Northwestern. (Railroad Model Craftsman)
Feb '91: MR cover photo.
Feb '91: Building an HO interlocking tower.
May '94: Building Weimer’s Mill.
Sep '95: MR cover photo.
Sep '95: The Timber City & Northwestern.
Sep '95: See the TC&NW in stereo.
Aug '96: Build a 35mm SLR view camera.

May '97: Scratchbuilding Yancy’s coal yard. (Posthumous publication as King died on 7 March 1997)

You can see King published on a range of topics covering cameras and photography, scratch building structures, and making precision tools for modellers.

While I was doing reading for this post I stumbled across a review by Andy Sperandeo in the August 1984 issue of MR of the Pinhole Camera Attachment made by the A. J. Fricko Co.. He panned the product noting that MR's testing confirmed that publication quality photos of the  'you are there' type required a lens for proper focusing of the image that a pinhole aperture accessory (like the one provided by this product) alone could not provide. Sperandeo notes:

“The best pinhole pictures have been produced with a combination of a small aperture and a good lens, like the pinhole photographs by Wally Moore and Ben King that longtime MR readers with remember. Fricko’s attachment seems to demonstrate that a pinhole alone is not enough.”

Wally Moore? Moore? Photographer? Moore? Who's he? The Moorian gong was going off in my mind :-)

I didn't find a lot of articles and photos by Wally Moore in MR, but what there were, were excellent, and the general assessment of his work was that he was a master of model railroad photography. Here's what I found (I don't think this is a complete list of all his published work, so please let me know if there is more):

Jul '57: Parade at MA Tower. (With Bill Reid)
Aug '58: Cover photo ; Aug 1958 
Aug '58: A day at East Side. (with Bill Reid)
May '59: “OS Union Pacific extra west No.831, 2:10 p.m.”.
Aug '60: New dimensions in model railroad photography.

Oct '62: Narrow-gauge from Ophir.

His Aug '60 article is a deeply technical one discussing the optics of taking realistic model railroad photographs. It's on par with articles one might have found in the Amateur Scientist column of Scientific American at that time. His article is the documentation of his reasoning on how to modify a lens for a 35mm camera to take realistic, 'you are there', eye-level model railroad photos. The new lens is basically a lens with a suitably sized and positioned f 90 pinhole.

Now that I know of Wally Moore and his renown I'll be on the lookout for more of his work.

In our era of digital cameras, image stacking, image processing software of all sorts, and AI, all this early work by King and Moore may seem somewhat irrelevant. Technology-wise, maybe so. However, what is still relevant is their commitment to obtaining the best images possible, high-end model work, and their knowledge of what makes for a good scene. Their images continue to rival those produced by our current technology. Although we have fantastic technology, it's still the person using it, their artistic sense, their technical skills, and their vision, that matters.