Sta-Lox Bricks

Front and back views of Vince's Sta-Lox Bricks can

Not long after I made yesterday's post Vince called me up and told me he had an old Sta-Lox Building Bricks can in his garage. Not the bricks, just the can. He mentioned that he too had a set of these bricks when he was a kid, and loved building things with it. This isn't the can to that set, but one acquired decades later at a vintage goods store in Toronto.

Even so, the can itself is quite interesting. First, there's the list of pieces in this set: 600 bricks in assorted shapes; 14 doors and windows; 9 sidewalks, stairs, awnings and gardens; 2 sheets of roofing. And then there's that little extra piece of information: the Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company was a division of Kelton Corporation Limited, also of Toronto. I don't know what year this set was sold, but maybe by that time Peter-Austin had been acquired by Kelton. More questions for the internet.

Architecture on the Carpet

It’s true that you can’t tell a book by its cover, but there are a few books I buy just on the promise of the cover art and title. That’s the case with this one.

The title was quite intriguing, Architecture on the Carpet: The Curious Tale of Construction Toys and the Genesis of Modern Buildings, written by Brenda and Robert Vale and published by Thames & Hudson in 2013. I don’t think I’d be unduly giving anything away by saying the subtitle is a little misleading. The book’s premise is that building construction toys of the19th and 20th centuries may have had a crucial role in determining the work of modern architects who played with them in their childhood, and on the perception and acceptance of modernism in the general public. In the end the authors come to the conclusion that only a few famous architects of modern buildings might have been influenced by their childhood building construction toys. However, that doesn’t discredit the book at all. The reader isn’t beaten about the head and shoulders with the thesis, but it seems more of a lightly applied structuring device to present the fascinating history of these toys, and speculate on what their influences on the built world may have been. The book’s highly readable and I recommend it.

Of all the toy stories presented, the one about Kenner’s Girder and Panel construction sets in the chapter, Bilt-E-Z, Girder and Panel, Arkitex and the Brave New World, was the one that had the most personal resonance. Sometime in the 1960s I was given one of those Kenner sets as a Christmas present. Kenner produced a wide variety of sets, and I don’t know which one I had other than it must have been fairly big as I recall I could build from it a lot of small buildings or something quite large. It was my favourite toy, but I remember that after much use the little holes that held the panels to the girders tore, making construction a challenge. 

I was surprised to learn that the toy we know today as the Kenner Girder and Panel set was invented and sold by a Toronto firm called Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company in 1956, and the version that Kenner first released in 1957 was more-or-less an exact copy. The Vales speculate the Kenner product was “what appears to be a commercial rip-off”, not something sold under license. Being Toronto born and raised, I thought that was interesting. I then cruised the internet looking for more information about the Peter-Austin company and found that they also sold a building toy called Sta-Lox Miniature Building Bricks, a tube of which I also owned and played with a lot at the time. I continue to learn something new - or maybe old in this case - everyday :-)

What about our old friends the Pretty Village play sets? They aren’t discussed in the book, but there’s an extensive discussion on the dawn of model railway toys with a focus on station models.

Overall this is an excellent book on a particular genre of toys. It also has an extensive notes section whose references may unlock even more interesting material. I can see many nights of good reading ahead.

Son of Space Hopper?

While cruising by the Havelock yard today I caught a glimpse of what I thought was the space hopper, but no, on closer inspection this was much, much more.

This one is apparently an homage to the alleged 1947 flying saucer crash in Roswell, New Mexico.

Is this by the artist who created the space hopper? Is this the mysterious 'other side' of the space hopper? Is Havelock yard the Bermuda Triangle of space hopperness? 

Questions, questions, questions.

Stairs fixed

Using foam to fill the stairs to scenery gap, and then filling the remaining cracks with Celluclay, did the trick. The whole thing dried solidly within 24 hours. So, note to myself: don't fill large gaps with equally large wads of Celluclay. Build up the scene as much as possible with foam, and then apply the Celluclay in thin layers.

It's now on to smoothing the roadbed, filing and shaping the shoreline rocks, and then priming the whole thing with white acrylic paint before installing the track.

Base elements

That's a stack of the last three bases required for the E. L. Moore dioramas. I've made six now, enough for two 'cartoons' of three panels each.

Next I want to spend some time arranging the models on the bases to put together the stories. Also, each will feature E. L. Moore's photographer avatar, so I need to figure out how I'm going to make six of them. Looks like there's some interesting work ahead.

Some Celluclay use results

After 24 hours of drying, most of the Celluclay used to shape the lower level had dried except for the area around the stairs. I had squeezed in a couple of wads that were about 1" or so thick, and that was probably too thick to dry properly.

I decided to scoop it all out and put in some foam pieces to cut down on the thickness of Celluclay required for shaping this section.

With the filler blocks in place I'll reapply a much thinner Celluclay coat, which should dry properly.

The other applications dried quite hard and are ready for a little shaping and painting.

Some repairs to Spratt & Kean Meat Packers

The core structure of Spratt & Kean Meat Packers is in pretty good shape, but a number of accessories are missing. The second rooftop Spratt & Kean sign, water tank, and refrigeration unit are all lost. However, I'm glad to see the animal ramp is more-or-less in good condition. It's an interesting artifact that shows off E. L. Moore's construction skills.

The photo on the right are loose parts from the collection. For Spratt & Kean, only one rooftop sign and a set of concrete stairs for the side entrance are present. Other than the cotton bales in the package in the upper left, I don't know what models those remaining platforms and beams belong to. 
 

Anyway, I used some Weld Bond to glue the sign and steps back in place. That was the extent of repairs for the model at this time.

The only other repair I have in mind is to fix the broken wood pieces on the gate where the animals offload from the livestock car. I think I'll do that once I've finalized the diorama for this model.

First round of filling

Yesterday I went out and bought a bag of CelluClay. That's it over in the upper righthand corner of the photo. All they had were 5 lb bags, so I've probably got a lifetime supply if it doesn't harden in the bag first.

I mixed some up as per the instructions and filled in all the cracks between foam pieces on the first level. I also did a little shaping to blend things in.

You mix the dry material with water, which produces something with the consistency of lumpy porridge - assuming I've mixed it correctly. I applied it with my fingers, and sometimes used a small Tamiya paint mixing spatula for getting it into difficult crevices. 

The instructions say it needs 24 hours to dry and harden, so hopefully tomorrow it'll be ready for some sanding and shaping. I'll likely need to apply a second round. If this works out I think this will be the material for building the mountain on the Elizabeth Valley layout. Stay tuned.

Level 2

The second level is now firmly in place, and is attached to the first level with strips of transfer tape. 

You see the blue line of the 'stone' retaining wall? It outlines what is more-or-less the inner edge of the track loop. Measurements suggest there should be plenty of clearance, and there shouldn't be retaining wall collisions - fingers crossed :-)

Next I plan to try out Celluclay for filling the various gaps and sculpting ground detail. Over at Boomer Dioramas Boomer is doing a series called Modeling Realistic Scenery that I highly recommend. He shows how to use Celluclay for this sort of thing, and I thought I'd give it a try. I'm finding his series quite inspiring.

Speaking of inspiring, I found this video a great introduction to the Common Loon: 

Roughing in the shoreline

The plan is to rough in the levels just below and above the track roadbed so that the nearby messy scenery work is more-or-less done before the track is installed. Today I roughed in the level below the track. All those edge pieces are held in place with transfer tape so that I didn't have to wait for glue to dry. 

That white paper sheet is the track plan - if a loop can be called a plan :-) The dashed line is the perimeter of the next level up. I need another piece of foam board for that one. 

Once the upper level is in place I plan to fill the gaps and do a little sculpting with Celluclay to pull both levels together. 

You might be asking, why's it called the Loonar Module? Last post I mentioned this layout was inspired by Falcon Rock, so I got to thinking about birds. The iconic bird of southern Ontario is the Common Loon. This is a module of sorts, so Loonar Module. I'll leave you with the equally iconic Hinterland Who's Who:

Loonar Module: In the Pink

I'm starting to settle into winter projects, and one that I've had on my mind all summer is a new test layout for running N, HO-9, OO-9, and O-9 equipment, as well as providing a place to test scenery building methods that I've haven't done before. Since I've been cutting up foam sheets for E. L. Moore dioramas I thought I'd buy a few extras and start on the base for the new test loop.

The base is 24"x24", built up from 1" thick foam sheets. I 'glue' the layers together with transfer tape, as one thing I'm testing is the use of that tape to build up all my layout bases. It has worked well so far with the diorama bases and on some test articles. The construction of this little loop layout will use as much of the tape as I can get away with.

The 'layout' - it's basically just a loop of track - was inspired by Bob Telford's Falcon Rock that was featured in issue #100 of Voie Libre International. Instead of a castle, mine will be more-or-less all southern Ontario type scenery so I can practice scenery building.

I've got a lot of projects on the go, and I've given up trying to sequence them. I'm just going to concentrate on building, not scheduling - it's a hobby, not a job. No doubt one project will rise to the top and capture all my time. I'll be curious to see which one it is :-)

Ottawa's LRT continues to inspire songs

This one is for a more mature audience than the earlier one, but things are getting weirder by the day. The derailment that caused the shutdown of Ottawa's entire LRT system happened on 19 September. It's been down since that event. At first, the estimate was for a 3 week shutdown, and now the projection is until ‘early’ November, which at best will be 1 Nov. At that time the plan is to run limited service with 7 trains and 1 spare. The LRT has 17 trains, so slightly less than half the fleet may return to service 43 days after the shutdown began. The public has not yet been informed what the problem is. I'll leave you with the original:

More (Moore?) diorama bases

I swung by the building supply and bought some more 1" pink foam board for building more E. L. Moore diorama bases. They're nothing to look at now, but I find it's important to have a few around as I like to try different arrangements. It helps me to use actual bases instead of just trying different layouts on a sheet of paper. 

Over on the left is Spratt & Kean Meat Packers. Given what it is, it'll likely have it's own base - don't want to disturb the neighbours with the smell :-) The diorama on the right has Hoople & Sons Warehouse and the Village Grist Mill. I'm thinking the rightmost diorama will have the track along the back edge as the action in E. L. Moore's model happens near the wagon loading dock, but we'll see what future iterations hold.

Floor Games Redux

Reprint published by Monroe St. Press, 2016

I downloaded a copy of Floor Games in ebook form a few years ago. The text was complete, but it lacked the original's photographs. As I've been thinking a lot about layouts these days, I wanted to find a copy that had the photos as I was curious to see what Wells was talking about. I recently bought a 2016 reprint published by Monroe St. Press that contained both Floor Games and Little Wars, and included all photos for both. 

Overall it's an excellent edition with complete text and an interesting introduction by E. M. Spencer on where these books fit into play and wargaming history (you may recall such a thoughtful introduction was sadly missing from the reprint of Hobbs' Pictorial House Modelling). 

In the introduction Spencer reminds the reader that Floor Games was a key inspiration in the development of Margaret Lowenfeld's 1929 World Technique and Sandplay therapies in the field of child psychology, which are still in use today. There's even a Canadian association devoted to Sandplay. 

My only quibble with this reprint is that the photos in Floor Games seem a little coarse, and stair-stepping is visible in a few. Little Wars has better resolution photos.

Quibbling aside, I'm glad I bought this edition because the photos are an eye-opener. So much so that now when I give Floor Games a reading, to me it appears like a very early treatise on how to build rather interesting model railway layouts using lots of scratchbuilding and an eclectic mix of found objects. And it has a very expansive view of what constitutes operation, more expansive than what we're used to today. I recommend having a look at the photos in the book and comparing them with the photos of Aldo Cosomati's layout in the December 1933 edition of The Model Railway News. The enthusiasm, creativity, organization, and variety of Wells' and Cosomati's approaches are strikingly similar even though the implementation details are different. 

Scratchbuilding? In 1911? Wells states that the he didn't like the city building toys available in stores:

Of course, it goes without saying that we despise those foolish, expensive, made-up wooden and pasteboard castles that are sold in shops - playing with them is like playing with somebody else's dead game in a state of rigor mortis.

What he and his sons used instead were a vast collection of wooden blocks that measured 4 1/2" x 2 1/4" x 1 1/8" made by a carpenter, and handed down to them by some friends who had outgrown the toys. Wells and sons used them much like people use Lego today, to build all manner of things they could imagine. Lego didn't exist then, although various sorts of wooden building blocks did, and I imagine making your own blocks was a cost effective means of getting a lot of them.  And, honestly, take a look at the photos of the model cities on pages 10 to 12 of the reprint, and you can see for yourself the imagination and detail achieved with those blocks and planks. 

Speculating, I'd say that Wells would look down on using Pretty Village toy buildings, and was a guy who didn't truck with store bought stuff, but was a scratchbuilder at heart, and wanted to instil the pleasures of scratchbuilding in his sons :-)

Speaking of building blocks, I'm reading Brenda and Robert Vale's Architecture on the Carpet: The Curious Tale of Construction Toys and the Genesis of Modern Buildings published in 2013, and surprisingly it has a lot to say about building block toys of the 19th and 20th centuries. I didn't realize such a simple toy had such a long and interesting history. More later when I've finished the book.

One thing you'll also notice in the Floor Games photos is that there are soldiers all over the game's terrain as well as military related items even though war games aren't being played. I think that's because in 1911 there wasn't the vast choice of miniature figures and civilian accessories we have today, and Wells and sons made do with what they had as Wells explains in great detail. Wells expresses a desire for civilian figures, especially since they'd turn the game away from "swashbuckling soldiery" and open up game play to "much more fun":

Then we have "beefeaters," (Footnote: The warders in the Tower of London are called "beefeaters"; the origin of the term is obscure) Indians, Zulus, for whom there are special rules. We find we can buy lead dogs, cats, lions, tigers, horses, camels, cattle, and elephants of a reasonably corresponding size, and we have serval boxes of railway porters, and some soldiers we bought in Hesse-Darmstadt that we pass off on an unsuspecting home world as policemen. But we want civilians very badly. We found a box of German from an exaggerated curse of militarism, and even the grocer wears epaulettes. This might please Lord Roberts and Mr. Leo Maxse, but it certainly does not please us. I wish, indeed, that we could buy boxes of tradesmen: a blue butcher, a white baker with a loaf of standard bread, a merchant or so; boxes of servants, boxes of street traffic, smart sets, and so forth. We could do with a judge and lawyers, or a box of vestrymen. It is true that we can buy Salvation Army lasses and football players, but we are cold to both of these. We have, of course, boy scouts. With such boxes of civilians we could have much more fun than with the running, marching, swashbuckling soldiery that pervades us. They drive us to reviews; and it is only emperors, kings, and very silly small boys who can take an undying interest in uniforms and reviews.

Overall I'm glad I bought a copy of Floor Games with photos. I suspect there're things in the photos I'm not appreciating right now, so it might still have surprises in future readings. Also, those photos in Little Wars are intriguing and I need to give it a read too.

Motorizing Editions Atlas' Hong Kong Tram

Editions Atlas Hong Kong tram with Kato 11-104 truck

In Voie Libre #106 I read about an interesting HO-9 tramway layout called Plage Bel Air by Frederic Mottet. The first thing that caught my attention was it was a seaside scene with a kidney bean track plan much like the LOL, only considerably smaller. The second was the use of static trams by Editions Atlas, which Mottet motorized. 

I had a look online to see what Editions Atlas had to offer, and came across an HO scale double-decker Hong Kong tram. I've admired Bachmann's OO Hong Kong tram, but haven't been able to locate one for LOL Mk II. So, even though the Editions Atlas version is unmotorized, I thought I'd buy one and try my hand at motorization. I found one on Ebay from a German seller, and for a very reasonable $US 7 shipping charge it was in my hands in a mere 5 days!

Bumper pried off

There was nothing conceptually difficult about this project. In fact the hardest part was the most fundamental: figuring out how to get the body and chassis separated without damage.

First thing was to pry off the front and rear bumpers. This revealed 2 holes at each end of the metal frame where the bumpers attached. 

For some dumb reason I thought these might also be holes where screws were inserted to hold on the body. I drilled them out, but the body didn't release.

It turns out the trick was that I needed to drill out the front and rear lights. Behind the light is either a screw or rivet, and once drilled out, the chassis drops out of the body. I'll need to repair those lights during final assembly, but that's not a big deal.

The toy's truck is held on with 2 screws, as is the upper deck seating. Once those items are unscrewed, you're left with the metal chassis.

Now the fun begins.

I have 2 Kato 11-104 powered chassises that I bought a few years ago thinking I'd use them to build a quasi-freelanced O-9 model of Thaddeus Lowe's personal Mount Lowe trolley. 

After lots of thought and inspection, I figured I couldn't build what I was after with these Kato units, so they've been sitting on the shelf. 

Lucky for me the Kato unit fit the Hong Kong tram quite well. 

The only modification I made was to cut off the end platforms, buffers, couplers, and railings: basically, everything outbound of the screws that hold the motor in place was cut off. This reduction in size of the power truck meant a much smaller opening needed to be cut into the toy's metal chassis.

Cutting the opening for the power truck was a big job. It took me about 4 hours of on-and-off work with a drill, dremel with cutting disks and grinding stones, files, and sanding sticks to cut a suitable rectangular opening into the chassis. I probably should have made a video of the process, but I wasn't sure if my methods were best, or even if this was going to work out. 

One important thing to note. The metal beams that connect the front and rear platforms need to cut off for the power truck to fit. However, this weakens the chassis as all that is left to connect the end platforms are those horizontal metal strips you see in the picture. Once the beams are cut off you need to make sure you handle the chassis carefully or you might accidentally bend it during further cutting operations. 

Also, make sure you wear your eye protection and work gloves when doing this job.

Once the chassis is cleaned up it's just a matter of epoxying on the power unit. I've tacked it in place with some dots of epoxy, but I need to go back and see what edges and seams could use some extra epoxy to give the whole thing better strength.

And that's the end of what I think is the most important part of converting this static toy into a not too shabby HO-9 tram. Detailing and paint are next, but to check things out I temporarily slipped the body on the chassis for a quick run around the test track.

Elizabeth Valley RR in N-Scale Magazine

Paul informed me the article he wrote on his N-scale version of E. L. Moore's Elizabeth Valley RR is in the November / December 2021 issue of N-Scale. His layout is excellent, and I'm very glad to hear that N-Scale magazine published his article. I gotta pop out to the hobby shop and get myself a copy.

Walt Disney, boxcar surfer

Vince tipped me off to this gem. Come for the three great railroads, stay for the boxcar surfing. Walt Disney gives a master class around the 8:20 mark.

Coffee and Miniature Buildings and Godzilla....

... who could ask for more? Certainly not moi. I came across these at the legendary Max's Models and was not disappointed. If that one isn't enough, there's this 'making of' too:

Big waves from the ocean lookout

Cleaning up the workshop has a few upsides other than the obvious: I found some long lengths of styrene ladder stock, which meant I could finish the ocean overlook without having to buy any more stuff.

A suitable length was cut and painted a messy yellow, and, voila, it was done.

Would I want to be up there, 30 scale feet in the air, on an old, repurposed, rickety and tilted elevated gate tower? Especially after climbing that ladder. No way. 

But, it looks like there's a party going on, so maybe I'd need to make an exception. Where's my sunscreen?

Of lollipop trees and fall rains

This is a sample of the trees that line the visitor parking between the highway and the Havelock yard. There's plenty of parking, shaded picnic tables, and lots of green space to wander up-and-down and look at whatever happens to be in the yard that day.

The structure of these rather ornamental trees is in sharp contrast to their nearby wild brethren. These things are more like commercially available model railroad trees, but with one big difference: look at how tall they are compared to the vehicles in the parking lot.

The rainy days of fall are starting to arrive, which is my signal for cleaning up the workshop in preparation for layout construction. A tedious but necessary job that'll take a few sessions to finish. Soon the rains will have stripped the leaves, and all the tree photos will be of branch structure. Good timing for all this.

Another variation on Atlas’ elevated gate tower

Images snipped and assembled from here

The last few weeks I’ve been scanning the internet for photos of highly scenicked slot car layouts. I was interested in seeing how the other half lived :-) It was on one such expedition that I ‘discovered’ that photo of Pretty Village models on John Swartzell’s model railroad. 

As well as being primed to see E. L. Moore buildings and Pretty Village models, I’m now apparently primed to see Atlas elevated gate towers. While on another slotted voyage of discovery yesterday I spotted this slightly modified Atlas elevated gate tower being used as a race observation station on the corner of this slot car layout. In this version everything above the building’s belt line has been cut off to produce an open-air observation stand. It looks like a few of these were used around the layout.

Ocean lookout

I have been doing little model building these last few months. We're making the most of the good weather while it's still here.

However, now and then, in spare moments, I've been trying out an idea for converting the classic Atlas elevated gate tower kit into a freelanced ocean lookout. It's getting close to done. I'm at the point where I need to work on weathering, and adding a very long ladder from the beach to the little building.

The Lost Ocean Line Mk II will have coast, and along with an Apollo Lifeguard Module or two, there'll be this thing to keep an eye on the surf.

I need to find a figure holding binoculars up to its eyes, scanning the horizon for trouble. Sharks, maybe? :-)

John Swartzell's layout appeared in Popular Science & Machinist's Monthly Journal

 

It turns out John Swartzel’’s layout got coverage in places other than Model Railroader, which might be a sign that it was indeed quite significant for its time. 

There was a small item in the Oct ’34 issue of Popular Science Monthly (that photo is snipped from the piece). It notes that:

When John N. Swartzell, of Washington, D. C., was studying railroad engineering at the University of Illinois, he enjoyed nothing more than climbing up into the cab of one of the locomotives on the test stands and pulling back the throttle. Swartzell was completely fascinated by his studies and by the prospects of following a railroad career. Then his father, a Washington real estate man, wanted Swartzell to come home and learn real estate. It was impossible to realize his railroading dreams but he could not forget them. He began the construction in his basement of a complete transportation system.

It sounds like he was a frustrated railroad man who put those energies into creating what was to become the first so-called modern model railroad layout. That appears to explain why his layout seemed more railroad-like than others of the time - he had some professional training.

There’s also an entry about Swartzell over at Forensic Genealogy, which covers some of the territory we’ve already seen, but has some new information to add. They include a link to a report on a visit to Swartzell’s layout that appeared in issue 728 of Machinist’s Monthly Journal (likely published around 1924 or so).  Among other things, the article notes that:

The construction was begun over 20 years ago, when Mr. Swartzell was only 14 years old. Some of the equipment dates back to that time, and, with the pieces added since, form a very good picture of some of the changes in railroading.

Given he was born in 1890, that would place the start around 1904. Like many of today’s model railroaders, they often start young, pack it away in their late teens for schooling, marriage, and career, and then come back once settled, sometimes digging up old equipment if it’s still around as a place to start again. I would speculate that something like that happened with Swartzell too. So, maybe those Pretty Village structures were surviving childhood playthings from his pre-teen years in the 1890s. That could explain their appearance on his layout. But, it sounds like those models didn’t have too much longer to go on the layout. Remember that Pretty Village Hotel #5 model found on his layout:

Another old timer is the frame hotel with a general store in one end. That will be replaced by a modern hotel, probably located elsewhere.

Indications are that Mr. Swartzell wasn’t a healthy man. From the obituary* included over at Forensic Genealogy, he had to retire from business in 1925 - he’d be 35 years old then - for health reasons, and died at age 47 in 1937. 

*The obituary at Forensic Genealogy makes no mention of attendance at the University of Illinois as did the Pop Sci piece, so there seems to be some inconsistency on this point.

The Wheels on the O-Train

Normally I only post once a day, however I had a special request to post this video. Ottawa's OTrain continues to have serious problems. On 8 August a train derailed - luckily it was out-of-service and no one was injured - and the recently released Transportation Safety Board report found that it was due to a wheel severed from an axle, which likely could have been avoided if the city had purchased heat-detection equipment for the trains (The full sorry story: Ottawa LRT derailment happened after hours of problems, TSB says.)

Then on Sunday, 19 September a second derailment occurred near Tremblay station. This one was more serious. Thirteen passengers were onboard, none injured, trackside signalling equipment and switch heaters were ripped out. Long story short, the TSB is investigating this one too, and the entire system has been shutdown for at least 3 weeks. No one is commenting on when it will reopen. (Here's the long story: LRT train derailed before entering station, then travelled across a bridge, says TSB)

The last derailment was so serious even the Toronto Star picked up the story, Why the bumpy, two-year ride of Ottawa's multibillion-dollar LRT system is sparking calls for a public inquiry. The Star's coverage is the best summary I've read of the situation.

Basically, Ottawa's LRT is a lemon, and it's looking like we're all going to have our wallets squeezed to fix it.

Pretty Village buildings and Washington, D. C. at the centre of layout innovation?

Repro of Pretty Village Hotel #5

I did a little digging through the Model Railroader archive to see if I could find anything about John Swartzell. I did, and it's quite interesting.

First, there's an article called History of Model Railroading in the Feb '37 issue that has this to say about Swartzell's layout:

The first model railroad that we know of, built as an operating entity according to present ideas, was the Baltimore & Ohio Junior of John Swartzell, Washington, D. C., the track layout and plan of which is shown on the next page. This road started in 1904 as a tinplate line, and the layout shown dates back as far as 1919. The photo above shows how complete it was in careful planning and execution. O gauge with 1/4" scale was used.

Yeap, and the plan does look like that Shorpy photo. But, more importantly, Swartzell's layout wasn't just any old layout, it was the first one to be what we today take to be a layout: a trackplan that seems realistic and allows for operation like an actual railroad set within a scenic context that also seems real in organization and modelling. Also, its construction dates back to 1919, so it pushes back the date of the first known layout quite a ways. The Jan '89 issue reiterated the importance of Swartzell's layout in the opening essay to Legendary layouts and the men who built them.

Interestingly, in that Feb '37 article no mention is made of Hugh Boutell and the HO layout he built in the '20s, although mention is made of Eric LaNal being an HO pioneer, although LaNal later noted Boutell as having the first HO layout in the US.

So, Swartzell had what was considered the first modern model train layout in the US, and Boutell had the first HO layout. Both were residents of Washington, D. C. at the time of these innovations. And both made use of Pretty Village toy buildings. Admittedly, they were used to fill out the non-railroad and domestic aspects of the layouts, but without them would the layouts have appeared as complete scenes? I'd argue maybe not. They fulfilled a role, albeit a minor one, to help boost those two layouts to iconic status. 

Unfortunately, in the Dec '37 issue, MR ran Mr Swartzell's obituary, noting that he died on 18 November 1937.

Another Pretty Village sighting

Pretty Village buildings used on J. N. Swartzell's layout, Aug '29 | Shorpy

I was browsing around Pinterest and came across this photo from Shorpy. It's the layout of Mr. John N. Swartzell of Washington, D. C., dated 5 August 1929. Over at Shorpy there are 4 photos of Mr. Swartzell's layout: 2 from 11 December 1925, and 2 from 5 August 1929. The 1925 photos look like they were taken to document construction. 

One thing that caught my eye were the Pretty Village buildings in the background. I've noted them in the photo: item 1 is House No. 15; item 2 I can't identify from my reference material although it has the characteristics of a Pretty Village model; item 3 is Hotel No. 5. 

I speculate that Mr. Swartzell's layout is in O scale, and if that's the case he's been quite strategic in placing the Pretty Village models in the background as they're somewhat smaller than O; probably closer to S or HO. If you look at the other 1929 layout photo you'll also see what look like Pretty Village models deeper in the background, in the mountain's foothills. This is a rather sophisticated use of these buildings.

My suspicions were that these Pretty Village toys were likely used on many early model train layouts as they were relatively inexpensive and sized just about right for O or HO layouts if carefully placed, as we saw with Hugh Boutell's layouts* (here and here). To me it's interesting to trace the use of these kid's toys that were first released in the late 1890s to early 20th century model railroads.

*I wonder if Boutell and Swartzell knew each other as they both lived in Washington, D. C. in the mid and late 1920s?

Restoring E. L. Moore's Norfolk & Southern yard office

After some restoration work

Until recently I looked down on E. L. Moore’s Norfolk & Southern yard office that was published in the Feb ’66 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. It seemed a simple, two-page space filler project. I shouldn’t have been so snobby. As Mr. Moore points out in the article, it’s a model of an actual Norfolk & Southern building, but what he only mentions in a letter to Hal Carstens, dated May 16, 1965, is that the prototype, along with the blacksmith shop, was one he himself discovered in Charlotte. Much like the HOJ POJ MFG CO. and the 1900’s Foundry, those two little buildings were Charlotte structures he saw, measured, and modelled. So, there’s a little thread of Charlotte history running through a subset of his models that should be given some consideration on my part.

Before restoration

The model as received wasn’t in too bad shape. The end walls have warped a bit. Some parts had broken off, but were included along with the fence section that stands in the landscape outside the front door, so it was complete. 

The more concerning problem were the discoloured edges to the end walls and the slopes on their upper brick work. At first I thought they were exposed raw wood from where the Northeastern brick sheet was cut, but looking closer with a magnifying glass showed faint brick work. It turns out Mr. Moore painted bricks on those edges to finish them, and he outlines the procedure in the article:

Now you will need a paint mixture to cover the raw surfaces to match the brick. Take a few brushfuls of red, a couple of yellow, then a touch of green - and maybe a bit of white if it needs lightening. When you’ve got a close match cover the surfaces and stripe, using a fine pointed brush, and an off white paint to simulate mortar joints.

He doesn’t say what kind of paint was used, but after 56 years it appears to have almost faded away. However, from the article’s photos, it looks like he did a good job of matching the Northeastern brick pattern. I decided not to overpaint these edges, but just leave them as is. I think I’d do more harm than good if I tried to match the brick.

I did do a little touchup painting on those two sets of concrete steps. It looks like their lower edges collected a little plaster from sitting on somebody’s layout, so I overpainted those areas with some thin flat black to blend them into the black washes Mr. Moore had already applied to the stairs. You can also see a little plaster on the lower edge of the front wall. I’ll leave it for now as I’m not sure how to remove it without damaging the brick surface.

So, not much to see here. Glued a few pieces back on and touched up some stairs. 

But, there’s one last thing. Take a look at this cover letter E. L. Moore sent to Hal Carstens with the yard office manuscript:

August 25, 1965

Major H. Hoople Carsten,

Ye Editor,

Railroad Model Craftsman

Ramsey, N. J.

Dear Major . . .

By golly, I didn’t think you’d do it — really dunno as it was worth the extra wordage but I wuz not in the mood to be factual . . . but I can understand now why Mr. Zip (JDL: aka Linn Westcott, editor of Model Railroader magazine), if, as according to one of his readers, he writes three quarters of what goes into his mag, has little time or desire for humor.

But here is one in the approved style, short and terse, to make up for Major Hoople’s excesses (JDL: The ‘excess’ was a long, tall tale in the Hoople Warehouse article; no tall tale in the yard office article). And it’s from the same yard in which I discovered the blacksmith shop.

Y’know why I kinda like RMC best? Not because of your shiny coated paper or your plastic bags — but because it ain’t so damned technical that it gives one an inferiority complex — so keep it kinda that way for us more simple minded folks. But this ain’t no testimonial because now and then I gotta pat my friend, Bill Rau (JDL: Bill Rau was an associate editor at MR at that time), on the back too.

Mud in your eye . . . 

{signed E. L. Moore}

(Had this article ready but held it about a month so as not to push too much into the old boy’s craw at a time)

Yes, that last bit in red was actually typed in red at the bottom of the copy of the letter. He’s done that on a few letters, and I’ve wondered for what reason? A note to himself? A note to a relative? A note to me? I can’t say I know anything about the complexities of the space-time continuum, but one wonders :-)