The model railroad cartoons of Doug Wright

Snipped from July '64 MR Doug Wright cartoon - his drawing style is unmistakeable.

I wasn’t kidding when I noted that one thing leads to another on this journey through the pages of old model railroading magazines. Looking for Gil Mellé cartoons lead to finding Bill Baron cartoons, which has lead to finding Doug Wright cartoons. And it happened quite by accident. I was chatting with Vince on the phone while scrolling absentmindedly through some pages in the Model Railroader archive, and bingo, a cartoon with Doug Wright’s signature, and just as importantly, his signature style.

Why it was so surprising to me is that Wright is one of Canada's most famous cartoonists, and inspiration for many significant Canadian cartoonists. There’s even a cartooning award, The Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning, established in his honour. I remember reading his strip, Doug Wright’s Family, in the Toronto Star back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but I didn’t know he had this connection to model railroading.

Here’re the cartoons I’ve found so far. As always, I’ll keep the list fresh if new items are found. If you see anything wrong or missing, please contact me and I’ll make appropriate updates.

MR = Model Railroader

1962

Dec: 1 single panel cartoon (MR) [reprinted from the Montreal Star]

1963

Feb: 1 single panel cartoon (MR) [reprinted from the Montreal Star]

Dec: 1 single panel cartoon (MR)

1964

Feb: 1 single panel cartoon (MR)

Jul: 1 single panel cartoon (MR)

1969

Oct: 1 single panel cartoon (MR)

Model Railroader also ran a little note about Doug Wright in the Bull Session column of their Dec ’62 issue. In it our pseudonymed columnist, Ray L. Rhodes, mentions that the cartoon they were running that month first appeared in an August ’62 issue of the Montreal Star to coincide with the Montreal NMRA convention, and to celebrate Montreal resident Dr. Roy Dohn’s layout, which was featured in How we rebuilt the Victoria Northern in the Aug ’62 issue of MR. At the end of the note they quote Wright as saying he found Bill Livingston’s article, My railroad just growed in the Sept ’62 MR, inspirational, and he planned to build a 5’ x 1’ scenic module over the winter. 

Did Wright build that module, or any sort of model railroad? Is it well known that he had an interest in model railroading, and maybe it’s just me who’s the last to know? The Off The Train Wire column in the Oct ’64 MR notes that Wright was selling colored prints of CN 4-8-2 No. 6065, one of the “bullet-nosed Betties”, available for decorating the railroad room or den, so it looks like his interest in railroading things continued, but did it continue in model form as well? Seth has written a book about Doug Wright. I need to get a copy and see what it has to say. Stay tuned.