A Tale of Boyce F. Martin, Sr. and Boyce F. Martin Jr., Legendary Model Railroaders

I've been reading through old issues of Model Trains magazine looking for articles on streetcar layouts. When I'm on these expeditions I often latch onto names of writers who for some reason catch my attention. In this case it was Boyce F. Martin. What I found on this trip was quite surprising.

It turns out there were two Boyce F. Martins, father and son. Both distinguished, and both interested in model trains, but it was Sr. who became the prolific author in the model railroad press.

Boyce Ficklin Martin, Sr. (1 Apr 1907 to 31 May 1981) was formerly Assistant Dean at the Harvard Business School, Dean of the Emory School of Business, and President of the Louisville Cement Company. 

His byline was Boyce F. Martin, or sometimes just Boyce Martin. The Trains.com index tells me Sr. published 85 articles during his career: 39 in the NMRA Bulletin, 20 in Model Railroader, 15 in Model Trains / HO Monthly, 7 in Railroad Model Craftsman, and 4 in various books. There were also some letters to editors, and a mini-bio appeared in the May '52 MR. His first article was published in 1950, and the last in 1980; a good 30 year run. The University of Louisville Archives has a collection of his of model railroad article manuscripts, photographs, slides, railroad books, and correspondence. Their website states the collection spans the years 1948 to 1979, and takes up 10 linear feet.

Boyce Ficklin Martin, Jr. (23 Oct 1935 to 1 June 2016) was formerly a US circuit judge of the court of appeals for the sixth circuit, and from 1996 to 2003 was the chief judge of the circuit.

According to his May '52 MR mini-bio, Sr. got into the hobby in the late '40s when he bought Jr., who was 12 at the time, an O gauge tin plate train set and they both became enthralled by it. One thing lead to another and Sr. eventually built an HO layout called the Osage Railroad, which won first prize in MR's 1950 "How I Built My Railroad" contest, and is described in the Oct '50 issue of MR. That was Sr.'s first article, but his first publication in MR was a letter to the editor in the April '49 issue in response to a question in the Feb '49 issue that asked readers if the plural of caboose was cabooses or cabeese? Here's his response:

While goose are geese,
No moose are meese.
Two noose are nooses,
Cabeese? Cabooses?

The question's abstruse.
Poor crummy, caboose.
If fleece are fleeces.
Are cabooses cabeese?

Let's have a truce.
Call it caboose.
We all want peace.
Why not cabeese?

There might be some brave soul whose scalp fears no bullet creases
Who might even prefer some term like CABOOSESEESES!

Maybe this kind of word play ran in the family, or maybe Sr. didn't want to be outdone by Jr., who had provided this response in the Jan '49 MR to the "They prefer Varney HO kits, because" contest:

I prefer Varney kits because: Varney vends value. Vehicle veterans vow Varney's vast variety, valid virtues veto vexing vicissitudes. Veering, variable velocities vanish. Volume very vigorously vehemently vaunts. Varney's Vunderful!

The editor's literary review of that youthful prose of a future circuit court of appeals judge: canned corn from a good dictionary :-)

Snipped from Houses for Sale; note Sr.'s PCC through the suburbs

Although I always marvel at the apparent nonchalance of editors back then to publish verse and prose of various sorts, that wasn't what caught my attention. As usual, it was model structure articles. Sr. wasn't a structures specialist as his articles ranged over many model railroading subjects, but he did have a knack for them. I was especially interested in his April '52 MT article, Houses for Sale, where he shows photos of HO houses, both finished and under construction, and as befits a knowledgeable businessman, he explains how and why some real life aspects of the home construction industry should be represented on your layout thereby bringing out another level of realism not often seen on 1950s model railroads. In light of my recent postings about the development of suburban Scarborough in the same time period I found his article quite interesting. Sr. didn't limit applying his business knowledge to the housing industry. Being an executive in the cement industry he wrote a couple of especially insightful articles, A Ready Mix Concrete Plant in the Nov '52 MT and Freight Traffic at a Cement Plant in the Mar '51 RMC, on incorporating aspects of that business on your layout.

I don't know if Jr. ever continued on in the hobby beyond boyhood. Maybe a deeper dive into the articles will tell, but until that time, I'll just enjoy what's out there.