Ready for scenery

I've been doing some cleanup and fiddling with odds-and-ends on the terrain to get things ready for detailed scenery work.

One thing that I did very out of sequence construction-wise was to add pieces of styrene sheet to finish off the base's raw foam edges. The styrene trim is cut from 0.040" sheet, and attached to the foam with white glue and transfer tape. I spent considerable time finishing the corners and filling gaps. When that was done, the sheets were painted with black acrylic.

I know that all the guides will say not to do this step when there's still a lot of messy scenery work to be done, but I couldn't stare at that rough pink edge any longer. Strangely, finishing the edge made things 'look right', and I get a good feeling looking at the little layout, as well as a desire to get on with creating scenes. I think having that feeling is worth fixing up any spills and nicks to the trim along the way.

Of Christmas shopping and time travel

The Peter-Austin Trans Canada Highway Bridge Set I bought doesn't include instructions or a planning guide, so I have no idea how complete it is, or what the manufacturer suggested one could build. However, I figure they must have included enough parts to build the bridge on the box top, so I decided to see if I had enough components for that project. 

I sort of did. There are enough girders, beams, and stubs to build the bridge, but not enough unbroken ones for the approach structures. Also, there're enough road insert panels for the bridge's elevated roadway, but, once that's in place, there aren't near enough for the approaches.

As well, even though I have plenty of diagonal members, they are quite brittle, and it turns out most of their holes are just a little bit too small to connect to the girders. If I radius the holes just a little with an X-Acto knife, they fit quite well. I didn't want to go and fix them all, so I just installed a handful and left it at that. I should note though that as you install the diagonals you can feel the entire structure stiffen up. Without them the bridge isn't bad rigidity-wise, but some flex and sag are noticeable.

Although the box top says it's a set for building highway bridges, it appears to be able to support HO scale trains. The Kenner planning books noted their's could, so I thought the Peter-Austin sets probably could too. For this application I'd say all of the diagonals need to be installed if the box top bridge is going to support HO trains. Also, I think the set's approaches are likely too steep for trains, so the owner would have to take care to provide their own.

As for O scale trains, I don't think this particular bridge is big enough. It would probably need to be double the size, and I suspect you'd need at least two sets for such a project.

I should have done this first, but after I built the bridge I had a look in the Kenner planning guide to see if they had the same bridge. They did. They called it the Double Diamond Cantilever. Mine doesn't look like a diamond because I left off all the diagonals. The planning book's photo gives a good idea of what the approaches should look like.

Obviously, I then went and built one from the Kenner parts I had bought. I found the Kenner diagonals had the same problem as the Peter-Austins: brittle, and the holes were a bit undersize. Again, I left off the diagonals as I didn't want to damage them. One difference though is the Kenner horizontal and vertical girders seem to have lost a lot of their elasticity over the last 60 or so years. The Peter-Austins still seem quite spry. When I was building the Kenner bridge it seemed the components kept falling part when the bridge was in various partially completed states, and didn't hold together until near the very end when everything was locked in place. No doubt if I had added diagonals along the way this wouldn't have happened. It seemed the Peter-Austin parts were still pliant enough for the joints to hold together regardless of how complete the structure was.

I don't have any Kenner road panels, so I just laid a piece of track over the horizontals to see how the bridge held up with an old HO train. It was fine, but it would have been much better with diagonals. 

A couple things my Kenner parts included that the Peter-Austin set didn't were flag poles and signs. The Kenner signs included one that announced: Kenner Bridge MCMLVIII. Or, 1958 for us. So, I'm assuming the parts date from 1958.

Well, if you're planning on cranking up your time machine today for a little late '50s or early '60s Christmas shopping, that's my review of these two fine building sets :-)

Early arrangements of E. L. Moore dioramas

I finished building diorama bases over the last few weeks. So, I've got a total of six now: one that has been more-or-less fully detailed for the backwoods engine house buildings, and five others awaiting models and stories.

I've started to play with building arrangements. Two things are quite clear: all the models will require more than 6 bases, and getting the right story arrangements is going to take some thought. I'm not sure that I'll make more bases just to have a single display method. Some of the models seem too large for the concept, and maybe they should be displayed separately, but in a way that seems consistent with the cartoon panels. Danger, thinking ahead :-)

E. L. Moore's photography businesses

I’m working on filling some holes in E. L. Moore’s biography as I write the manuscript. One of those holes concerned his photography business. I had done some earlier investigation, but it was far from complete. Basically, all I knew was he ran a photography studio in Charlotte, N.C., that specialized in baby and child portraits. I decided to dive back into the Charlotte city directory to see what I could find. Here’s a summary of what I’ve got:

1933 - 1936

E. L. Moore's 1933 entry in the Charlotte city directory

The first listing of a photographer named E L Moore, also referred to as Earl L Moore in later listings, is in 1933. During this time he’s listed as residing at 204 N College. It looks like he was an independent photographer, working out of his residence without a dedicated studio.

1937 - 1940

Earl L Moore is still listed as a photographer, but now he’s located at 114 1/2 S. Tryon. Still no studio associated with him.

1941 - 1946

First Moore's Baby Studio entry in 1941 Charlotte directory

In 1941 there appears an entry for Moore’s Baby Studio, noted as photographers specializing in child photography, run by Earl L Moore. It’s located at 114 1/2 S. Tyron, the same address listed for the 1937 to 1940 period.

1947

Something odd happens in the directory for this year. I can’t find any listings for E L Moore, or any photography business he might have run. I need to investigate this further.

1948 - 1951

First entry for Little Folks Studio in 1948 Charlotte directory

In 1948 there appears an entry for a company called Little Folks Studio, noted as photographers specializing in baby photography, run by E L Moore. It’s located at 401 N Church.

In 1950, the listing for Little Folks Studio shows a W A Cauthen listed along with E L Moore. Maybe they were now business partners?

1952 - 1960

In 1952, Little Folks Studio has moved to 1702 E 4th. W A Cauthen is still present in the listing along with E L Moore.

1961 - 1963

E L Moore's 1961 Charlotte directory entry

In 1961 the entry for Little Folks Studio is now just a one-liner stating the address. Earl L Moore now has just an individual listing with the address of 525 Oakland Avenue, apt 3, which, as we’ve seen from his correspondence, was his home address at the time. The text “(Little Folks Studio)” appears beside his name, but I think that is included to inform people who are looking for him that he is the Earl L Moore who was associated with Little Folks Studio.

Little Folks Studio also just has a one-liner entry stating it’s at 1702 E 4th. There’s no mention of either E L Moore or W A Cauthen in the entry, or any other names. There are a couple of other names in the directories that have “(Little Folks Studio)” beside them - maybe they now own the studio, or have bought some of its assets? 

I think what we’re seeing is that by 1961, E. L. Moore was no longer associated with Little Folks Studio, and likely that business was no longer a going concern, if it still existed at all. 1961 was likely the year E. L. Moore began his retirement - he’d be 63 years old at that time.

Interconnectable

P-A | K | P-A | K

I was curious to see if the parts from the Peter-Austin set were in any way connectable with those from Kenner. The answer: to a certain extent, yes.

In the photo the base frame is made from Peter-Austin (P-A) parts, the second floor is Kenner (K), then P-A, then topped off with K. It looks like you can stack layers made from one manufacturer on layers made from the other, but you can't mix manufacturers on a layer, because the horizontal girders use different connection technologies. 

I tried snapping a K panel onto a P-A frame and it fit just fine. I need to try mixing and matching the diagonal braces. 

So, P-A  was smart in that if you bought their product you weren't completely locked into the vendor motel, and could do some interconnection with K's parts.

Here's the problem. Those pins on the P-A horizontal girders are weak. I found that if I wasn't careful disassembling a structure it wouldn't take much twisting to snap the pins off the horizontals. You've got to make sure you push the pin parallel to the vertical girder to prevent the piece of molded plastic that connects the pin to the horizontal girder from bending and snapping. The set has 7 broken horizontals and 1 broken vertical. The bag of K parts I bought had no broken girders. Ok, I admit this isn't a statistical sampling, and the parts are 60 years old, but it appears the P-A lug-and-pin connection method isn't as durable as K's. For a child's toy, I can imagine some disappointing breakage while attempting to take apart a structure. 

Maybe the Peter-Austin case file is almost closed?

Peter-Austin Mfg Co,'s Trans Canada Highway Bridge Set

The story so far: In the book, Architecture on the Carpet, the authors Brenda and Robert Vale put forward the idea that Kenner's Girder & Panel toy was invented and first 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, and the proud owner of a Kenner Girder and Panel set as a child, I was intrigued and have spent some time over the last few weeks investigating whether or not the Vale's assertion was true. I won't keep you in suspense: I don't think it is.

I was quite lucky to find a Peter-Austin Trans Canada Highway Bridge Set on eBay. It's roughly the equivalent  of a Kenner Turnpike girder and panel set. It looks fairly complete, but there're no instructions or planning book, so I'm not quite sure how complete it actually is. And, there're no dates anywhere on either the box or parts to suggest when this toy was released. 

Diagram from the U.S. patent

However, while searching the internet I came across U.S. patent # 3,168,793, Construction Toy Means For Locking A Horizontal I-Beam Between Two Detachably Joined Vertical Column Members. It was filed on 20 Nov 1961, and issued on 9 Feb 1965. The inventor was Henry Gibson, and it was assigned to the Kelton Corporation, the parent company of Peter-Austin Manufacturing. 

There was also a Canadian patent, #693194, Constructional Toys, that was filed on 18 Nov 1961, and issued on 25 Aug 1964. Here too the inventor was listed as Henry Gibson, and the owner was the Kelton Corporation. So, patents were filed for the Peter-Austin version of the toy in 1961 in both the U.S. and Canada. 

That scan over on the right is the diagram from the U.S. patent, and you can see that the components are pretty close to Kenner's girder and panel parts. Except in this case the horizontal and vertical girders are joined by a pin-and-lug system, whereas the Kenner toy used a notch-and-insert system. Interestingly, in the patent's References Cited section it notes the patent for Kenner's Girder and Panel set, U. S. patent # 3,002,315.

There seems to be a little weirdness in Kenner's U.S. patents. There appears to be a second patent for the same toy, U.S. patent # 3,132,443. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know exactly what's up with this, but both were filed on 13 Aug 1957, although one was issued on 3 Oct 1961, and the other on 12 May 1964. The key point is that the patents were filed in 1957, which was the year the Kenner toy first hit the market.

Top: Kenner; Bottom: Peter-Austin

Comparing the Kenner and Peter-Austin parts I can see the ones from the Peter-Austin set use the joining technology specified in their patent. Which I know should be obvious, but it's good to recognize that each company used the joining method they had a patent for, suggesting that wholesale appropriation likely didn't occur because I can't imagine either company wanted to become embroiled with blatant patent violations.

Now, back to that Trans Canada Highway Bridge Set box. On the side, in rather tiny print, it's stated: U.S.A. and Canadian Patents Pending. From what we've seen with the patents, for this to be true, this toy shouldn't have been released until 1961, probably late 1961 in time for Christmas, or maybe even 1962. I don't think it was released in 1956 as suggested by the Vales. The patents don't appear to support the Vale's timeline, and I would suspect if there was a rip-off, there would also have been a lawsuit.

So, here's what I'm thinking: Kenner didn't rip-off Peter-Austin's design. I speculate the Peter-Austin sets, although they look a lot like the Kenner sets, are an offering to cash-in on the market established by Kenner for these toys. Maybe Peter-Austin hoped that with some sort of Canadian-ness to their product, that would be enough of a differentiator to oust Kenner in the Canadian market.

One last thing, the set's name: Trans Canada Highway Bridge Set. Construction started on the real Trans-Canada Highway in 1950, but it didn't officially open until 1962. Was this toy named to honour that event and cash-in on the hoopla?

Well, this is the internet, so this is more-or-less just speculation, but the pieces seem to be coming together :-) I'll keep you posted if more comes up.

Model trains in the Girder & Panel planning books

Last week I bought what looks like the remains of a Girder & Panel Set #7. I think it's one of the large sets that dates from 1959 that allows you to build both buildings and bridges.

I say I bought the remains as the 'set' was just a large bag of horizontal girders, vertical girders, signs, flag posts, and bridge diagonals, as well as joiners and plates; however, it included only 3 rather beat up wall panels, and no road panels or masonite bases. But, for all those structural components, as well as 3 instruction and planning manuals, it was a good deal at $20 US. I'll write more on the components in a later post.

I was curious to see what kind of model railroading projects the books suggested you could build. I wasn't disappointed.

I've scanned the pages illustrating the railroad-related projects, but they're just a small sample of all the things the good folks at Kenner showed could be built.

Over on the left is the Railroad Terminal Building from the back page of the Set #7 instruction manual. It's clearly for HO scale trains.

Look at that amazing railroad bridge on the cover of the planning book for the Bridge and Turnpike Building Set. Ok, well, the entire cover is an orgy of bridges, but you've got to give them credit at Kenner that they really did a good job of showing all the different types of bridges that could be built with their parts.

When you flip through its pages its something of a mini-course in bridge engineering. Most of the bridges are for automobile traffic, but the last page and back cover have some railroad bridges. The last couple pages of my book have a bite taken out of them, but the gist of the projects is still clear.

Down in the lower right corner of the back page, Kenner has this to say about scale:

You can combine all these sets to build larger structures such as the Railroad Bridge and Trestle on the cover, which is a combination of No. 4 and No. 5 Bridge and Turnpike Sets. Same scale as "H-O" gauge trains; can also be used with "O" gauge.

The Vales noted that the sets were for O scale, but from the pictures used throughout the instruction and planning books, as well as statements like the above, the target audience was clearly young HO-scalers.

The planning book for the Girder and Panel Building Set doesn't include many train related projects other than a small railroad station on page 5 and ...

... a warehouse with an elevated siding down in the lower right corner of the back cover. 

However, the front cover shows the happy owner that trains as well as planes, automobiles, and trucks are all easily accommodated by this toy.

I couldn't find advertisements for the Girder and Panel toy in old issues of either Model Railroader or Railroad Model Craftsman, but since these products were targeted for the toy market and not serious hobbyists, maybe that isn't surprising. I must say though the toy does embody some real engineering concepts for a young audience, so it's not without its prototypical merits.

Now with less cake

Before | A few days later

Working with CelluClay is quite calming. It's easy to mix up a little whenever the urge to sculpt the layout hits, and I can almost instantly see the landforms emerge as the material is applied and worked. The terrain is now looking a lot less cake-like.

After the CelluClay was dry, everything was painted with Titanium White acrylic to create a surface with a uniform colour. That helps me judge what areas still need work, as well as providing a uniform base layer for scenic painting to come.

I haven't been going into much detail on the methods I've used to build the scenery as I'm trying my hand at using those described over at Boomer Dioramas. He's a master, and I'm just learning, so I recommend following his videos. I'd say his is the best series on layout construction I've seen out there.

I realized I haven't shown the business end of the layout yet. There's no wood frame as I wanted to make the layout as light as possible. The base is just 3 layers of 24" x 24" x 1" foam held together with 3M transfer tape and a little white glue. The bottom-most layer is made from foam strips arranged to create a hollow for wiring. Both pieces of the layout's flex track have power feeds so the track doesn't rely on rail joiners for power distribution.

The wires are soldered to a jack so that I can connect either my DC or DCC power pack to the layout.

That bit of edging in the photo to the left is cut from 0.040" sheet styrene.

I'm planning on having a panel for lighting on this side too, which will allow individual control of all lights.

That's it for the tour. Time to pack up the VW and get back to work!

That's not a winter wonderland, just a pure white undercoat.

Mr. Abernathy introduces the 1957 Girder & Panel set

"Yeah, they're doing it on 5th Avenue now as a matter of fact." But, I ask, what about Toronto?

CSI Track Planning Technique #1: Chalk Outline on the Floor

The track planning methods of the Druids are not that pleasant in mid-November. So, I returned to the basement and switched to the CSI school of track planning: Atlas code 100 and chalk outlines on the floor.

I like to play with real pieces of track and think about what I'm trying to accomplish.* I realized that although my track plan had some fun to it, it was still too railroady. Which is ok for a model railroad, but my goal is to have a layout / diorama for my buildings and streetcars that builds on what I liked about the old Lost Ocean Line, and eliminates its problems.

I don't run streetcars much. In some ways I treat them as just another interesting element of the whole, so I don't want to over emphasize them, especially with complex trackwork that eats up building and scene space. With the loop and passing track I have a simple operational story: city to suburbs to seashore and back. I'm not interested in a streetcar system's support buildings and infrastructure, so they aren't a part of this layout. I'm interested in maximizing urban and open country scenes where streetcars have a presence, so something had to give. In the future I can always add a switch or two to the bypass or the loop's left side if I want to change the concept or story. But, again, there's lots of space for model buildings and those scenes, which are the things I like most.

Dimension-wise, it's roughly 7 feet wide and a maximum of 44" deep. One thing I didn't like about the previous modular set up was it was too large when fully assembled: nearly 14 feet long. It couldn't remain assembled all the time, and I felt that I'd be on a treadmill making model buildings just to fill space on it, and not for the enjoyment of building something that grabbed my attention. I have more buildings than can be accommodated on this layout at any one time. Shelves can handle the overflow.

I need to think about this plan some more, but it's heading in the right direction.

*I find that I can only do a certain amount of planning or design with pencil, paper, or software, and there always comes a time when I have to think by handling and manipulating actual, physical objects. In that mode I often come up with very different ideas, and if things go well, I get a good feeling about the project at the end of the exercise. I'm never going to survive in the meta-verse :-)

It’s Skyline for 1956

Page 31 of 1956 Eaton's Christmas Catalogue

As it’s alleged that the Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company released both their Structural Building Set and Trans Canada Bridge Set toys only in 1956, I was curious to see if Eaton’s carried them in their 1956 Christmas catalog. Luckily for me the only Eaton’s Christmas Catalog scan from the 1950s I could find online was the one from 1956. Unluckily for me, the toys were nowhere to be found.

Page 30 of 1956 Eaton's Christmas Catalogue

Regardless, the search wasn’t in vain. Look at these toy train pages. On page 31, down in the bottom right, you can see an ad for Sta-Lox bricks, confirming that there was some Peter-Austin stuff in the catalog. But, look what’s beside it where I thought I’d see an ad for the Structural Building Set: a toy Eaton’s describes on page 30 as “Skyline” Plastic Construction Sets. Wikipedia calls it: American Skyline. It was manufactured by a Chicago company, Elgo Plastics / Halsam Products Company. Here’s what the Eaton’s catalog says about the Skyline toy:

Developed after years of study of children’s play habits and designed to bring out their creative ability in building true-to-life skyscrapers. True architectural scale-unit parts make it easy to assemble many fine models (1/8-inch per foot, actual size). Interlocking pieces of simple design with three basic parts - made of strong, flexible Plastic for safe play. Precision-fitting. Building units combine artistically with the simulated tile sections provided for floors and roofs. Fine, modern building kits for hours of creative fun. Colourfully boxed.

27-P-575, 229-piece set. Price, del’d…2.59

27-P-574. 476-piece set. Price, del’d…4.95

27-P-573, 723-piece set. Price, del’d…7.95

Lower right corner of page 31: Sta-Lox & Skyline

For reference, those prices are in Canadian dollars, and that top-of-the-line set would cost around $77.50 CDN in today’s money.

A proper investigation would search all Eaton’s catalogues from the 1950s and early 1960s for the elusive toys, but until I either find them online, or at a brick-and-mortar library, that’ll be an activity for the future.

Manuscript Monday: Getting my thoughts together

Low resolution test printouts of some model photo pages

One might think that after the grand gesture of announcing that I'm cutting back on blogging to work on the manuscript for the E. L. Moore book I'd have a lot to show for myself. It turns out that when I stopped writing at the blog, I stopped writing period. 

For awhile I engaged in a lot of avoidance behaviour, but soon felt guilty and settled down to trying to figure out the most important things the book should focus on, while at the same time trying to make sure the book's cost wasn't going to be heart attack inducing. The thing will likely be an ebook with a small number of printed copies. Probably a very small number. Clearly this is a vanity project. I did lots of thinking, not much writing.

In an ideal world I'd like the book to be a one-stop, mammoth compendium of everything E. L. Moore. It would contain: reprints of all his published and unpublished articles; colour photos of all his known surviving models; a collection of all his surviving black-and-white photos; a complete collection of his correspondence; a thematic collection of all my blog posts on E. L. Moore; an introduction, table of contents, and index to tie it all together. As great as this would be, it would likely violate all known copyright laws, take me years to complete, and probably cost many hundreds of dollars per copy to print. I had to scale back :-)

Right now I'm thinking the book should be rather simple: no more than 100 pages; a collection of colour photos of all known surviving models (one model per 8 1/2 x 11 page) - there are around 65 models; a selected collection of E. L. Moore's black-and-white photos, which will be about 10 pages; a table listing all published articles along with a small number of short chapters outlining E. L. Moore's life and work as a model railroader edited so the book's page count doesn't exceed 100. The fewer pages the better. The text will be mainly blog posts edited for the book. 

As far as format is concerned, in the back of my mind I see this book as something of a hybrid of Sheperd Paine's How to Build Dioramas, published in 1980 by Kalmbach, and Sarah Suzuki's Bodys Isek Kingelez, published in 2018 by The Museum of Modern Art. If there's a physical version of the book, it'll be some sort of 8 1/2" x 11" paperback.

So, pictures of E. L. Moore's models will make up most of the content. I think it's the correct approach to let the models speak for themselves.

My task for the coming weeks will be to select the model photos to be used, and layout their associated display pages. Once that's done, it's on to creating chapters from blog posts, and then writing a new introduction to tie it all together.

As for blogging, I'll just continue to do as I please since consciously cutting back causes all those writing juices to stop flowing. Who'd have thought?

Spiritual time travel with Polaroids

All that pink makes it hard to read the topography

Between bouts of working on and thinking about - mainly thinking about I must admit - the E. L. Moore book I added in the remaining levels of scenery under-structure to the Loonar Module. 

The next step is to start blending the foam into a unified shape with CelluClay. Right now it looks a little bit like an inexpertly constructed layer cake.

As I gain more experience using foam and CelluClay I can see how I can go about building the mountain on the Elizabeth Valley RR.

This little layout is a spiritual continuation of some ideas I began playing with back in the late '70s before parking model railroading for school and life.

Back then I began to get interested in modular model railroading, mountainous scenery, and casting molds for rocky terrain. I read up on making rock molds from gauze and latex, and eventually made some molds and cast a few paster rock outcroppings. I was even putting together some modules that I hoped would form the basis of an HO model railroad. 

Over there is a Polaroid - shot in my parent's backyard some summer in the late '70s - of the first two modules.

Soon thereafter we moved, I started university, and the modules were set aside. Somewhere along the way they were trashed.

When I returned to model railroading in this century I started with a layout in a mountain setting, but lost interest as I realized it was too big and didn't have space for buildings, my main modelling love. This new little 2' x 2' portable N, HO-9, OO-9, O-9 layout just hits the spot. I can have some fun making terrain with a few little buildings and cameos scattered here and there, experiment with tree and foliage modelling, and run some trains, but not have a big, overwhelming layout to finish. So far, so good.

Cutting back on posting for awhile

After yesterday's posts on the girder and panel mystery I realized if I continue with my present posting pace, and keep going down interesting detours, I'm not going to make any headway on an E. L. Moore book. Also, the ephemeral nature of the internet once again made itself clear to me when I had to go to the Wayback Machine to find girderpanel.com for Peter-Austin information. All the E. L. Moore information at this site is just as ephemeral, and if Google pulls the plug on Blogger one day, it'll wind up in the same netherworld.

So, I figured I need to drastically cut back on posting, spend my writing time doing some serious work on some sort of book, and get those E. L. Moore dioramas finished as I want pictures of their scenes in the book. If you want to contact me, please feel free, I'm still here, just posting less.

Peter-Austin case file update

Peter-Austin Structural Building Set, No. 511 / girderpanel

There were a few good finds after this morning's post. I was again chatting with Vince about this investigation, and it dawned on me to check the Eaton's and Simpson's 1956 catalogues, especially the Christmas ones. I could only find covers, and with this failure I decided to reread the girder and panel section in the Vale's book, especially all the references. This time I remembered I could look for their reference to girderpanel.com in the Wayback Machine even though girderpanel.com appears to be long gone.

That did the trick and I was able to find the page about the Peter-Austin 'Girder and Panel' sets. The Wayback Machine has site snapshots from a variety of dates. The Vales noted they referred to the site on 18 Nov 2011. The last 2011 Wayback snapshot is from 11 July, and that's the one I'll link to here, but I should check the others for further updates.

There appear to be 5 sets, 2 are named, numbered, and come in colourful boxes, and the 3 others are simply referred to as 'Building Set', with set numbers and boxed parts, but it appears that any decorative retail boxes are missing. 

Peter-Austin Highway Bridge Set, No. 500 / girderpanel

I like the name of set No. 500. I thought it might be giving a nod to the Trans-Canada Highway, but that didn't officially exist until 1962, and this set was released in 1956.

The box art on the blandly named Structural Building Set, No. 511, is surprisingly good. It has an iconic late-50s modern vibe, and at the same time is a fairly accurate depiction of what's in the box. 

Speaking of what's in the box, girderpanel.com has a page that compares the various parts in the Peter-Austin, Kenner, and other releases. You can see for yourself the strong similarities - the parts are nearly identical.

Ok, even though the girders and panels are highly similar between the 1956 Peter-Austin version and the 1957 and beyond Kenner releases, that doesn't confirm the Vales' speculation as there might have been some business arrangement between the two companies regarding this toy. girderpanel.com doesn't have anything to add to the story. I'm thinking what actually happened is somewhere between the story the Vales assert and the one confidently given at Wikipedia. Maybe there's more out there waiting to be found.

Unsolved Mystery: The Case of the Peter-Austin Mfg. Co. Girder and Panel Set

Etch A Sketch* / Sourced from the National Museums Scotland

After reading that the Girder and Panel construction toy was invented by the Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company of Toronto I had to try and find some more information about the company, and hopefully about the toy. I’ll let you in on this post’s ending if you want to bail out early: there isn’t much online other than some fragments of company history, and nothing about the toy. In this post I thought I'd try to piece those fragments together before continuing investigations.

Company origins

CrayonCollecting.com tells me the company was founded by two brothers, Peter and Austin Kelk, hence the name Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company.

On the Sta-Lox can, the company is listed as: Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company, Division of Kelton Corporation Limited Toronto, Canada. From the look of the can, I’d say that instance of the product dates from the early to mid 1960s. Also, I speculate the ‘Kel’ in Kelton derives from Kelk, the brothers' last name. I don’t know how the companies were structured, but CAN1 Business tells me Kelton Corp was registered in Canada on 9 December 1948, made its last annual corporate filing in 1984, and held its last Annual General Meeting on 23 May 1984. Was Peter-Austin ever a stand alone company? Was it always a division of Kelton? Were there re-organizations where one became a division of the other? I don’t know. I think all I can speculate at this time is that the company, in some form or the other, existed from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s.

Where was the company located? CAN1 Business and Vince tell me Kelton Corporation was at 240 Madison Avenue in Toronto. I don't know if that was just the location of the head office, or the entire operation. According to Google Street View Toronto's Madison Avenue is now the site of a lot of tony residential real estate.

Vince also alerted me to an entry in the 1965 issue of Might's Greater Toronto City Directory that lists Peter Austin Mfg. Co. as being located at 314 - 326 Davenport Rd. Maybe the factory was on Davenport Road, and the headquarters, which might have been the Kelk residence, was on Madison Avenue?

A little Kelk family history

The online book, Kerrimuir Road on Lake of Bays, published by the Lake of Bays Heritage Foundation, has a little bit of Austin Kelk’s family history regarding their farm at 1071 Kerrimuir Road, which was originally built and owned by a John Edwin Brown in 1929:

In 1960, the farm was sold to the Kelk family. Norman Kelk purchased the property to enjoy lakeside living as opposed to farming and so the pastures have, over time, reverted to forest. The Kelk family enjoyed other pursuits, like boating and area residents remember the 1933 model, 21-foot Sachau Marine launch, Glida, with its distinctive wide beam and riveted hull. 

The Kelks were on Lake of Bays prior to purchasing their current property. In the early 1940’s, it was reported in the newspaper that Norman Kelk’s son Austin, when he was a lad, designed and built the S. S. Victory along with Donald Dyment. They used the remains of an old punt and the sides of packing cases to build this cruise ship. It had a tall, stove pipe boiler 9 and a cow bell signal system. While it looked like a steamer, the boys paddled the vessel and gave rides to paying customers. In doing so, they raised $25 in the Baysville area, for the British Victims Fund during World War 2. 

Later, Austin Kelk left lingering memories the children of Baysville during the 1970’s. On Christmas Eve, many would await his anticipated arrival in his station wagon full of toys. Mr. Kelk would delight them with a choice of one toy from his magnificent collection. He was the “Austin" in Peter Austin Toys, who manufactured the Etch-a-Sketch, the Bake-O-Matic and other well-remembered toys. His big-heartedness made Christmas magical for area kids. 

Austin Kelk passed away in 2003. The property remains in the Kelk family today with Cathy Kelk now enjoying the beautiful views and breezes from the lake.

What about toy museums?

There’s not a lot of information about Peter-Austin in the toy museums I’ve checked; in fact, there’s almost nothing. I would have expected the Canadian Museum of History to have something as they have what is probably the largest historical collection in Canada of children’s toys made by Canadian manufacturers. They have a couple of items in their collection as well as this rather grim death notice:

The advances in toy manufacturing made over the previous quarter century were wiped out in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the Canadian toy industry virtually collapsed under the pressure of increased competition from American and Japanese companies.

Peter-Austin / Kelton seemed to have been hitting its stride in that era, and apparently were able to avoid the reaper for another two decades.

Hopefully, I’m just looking in the wrong museums and something will turn up elsewhere.

Toys

Peter-Austin appears to have manufactured a lot of different toys; however, it's not clear to me which ones they made under licence and which were of their own invention. Here's a partial list of the toys they were said to have manufactured: Etch A Sketch, Magnajector, Little Miss Korking Set, Play Doh, Sta-Lox Bricks, Kiddie Color and Hobby Crayons, Bake-O-Matic, Sister Susie Sewing Kit, Bat 'n Button Tennis. No doubt there were many more.

What about their 1956 Girder and Panel Set? So far I can't find anything more about it. No pictures; no information other than some stray acknowledgments that Peter-Austin made it; no nothing. I'm still looking. Frankly, until I can find photos of the Peter-Austin version of the toy, I'll have to take the Vale's origin story with a grain-of-salt. The Girder and Panel Wikipedia article makes no mention of the Kelks, and presents quite a different origin story. Not that I believe Wikipedia is the supreme source of all knowledge, just that I need something substantial to support the Vale's version.

Scale

The Vale's note,

The original Girder and Panel sets, both Canadian and American, were of a scale that fitted with the O gauge model trains that were the American norm; these were made by firms including Lionel (still making trains in 2012), American Flyer, and, for the poorer boys, Marx.

From various online sites, the Vale's pictures in the book, and my recollection, I think the sets were closer to HO than O. It's true that the 1950s were a big time for O gauge toy trains, but HO, even though it was invented in the 1920s, was coming into its own in the late 1950s and was well on its way to dominating the model railroading marketplace. This doesn't mean the girder and panel sets couldn't be used with O gauge trains, just that I think the sets were sized smaller so they were somewhat compatible with both O and HO, not too mention keeping costs down. Much like the Pretty Village play sets of an earlier era, the girder and panel sets likely appeared on many model railroads regardless of gauge. Although I had a girder and panel set as a boy, it was long gone by the time I started with model railroading, so it unfortunately never appeared on my layout. If I ever buy another one of those sets I'll have to run my own scale tests and see for myself :-)

So endeth my case notes.....

*You might be asking, what's with the Etch A Sketch picture in a post about the Girder and Panel set? Well, when I came across that photo I had a flashback as I clearly recall that box it came in. Memories, can't control 'em :-)

[4 Nov 2021, morning update: It looks like the Wayback Machine has a copy of the website the Vale's reference in their book, www.girderpanel.com, and it contains pictures of the Peter-Austin 1956 sets: https://web.archive.org/web/20110711094053/http://www.girderpanel.com/ . The Vale's note they referenced the site on 18 Nov 2011. The last 2011 site copy the Wayback Machine has is for 11 July 2011, so hopefully that one will have the information I'm looking for. Stay tuned]