Draft chapter: E. L. Moore: modeller, writer, photographer

Morton's Stone Cutting Plant from an original E. L. Moore photo

The purpose of this chapter is to summarize E. L. Moore's writing career. It won't include his life prior to becoming a writer in the model railroading press, or go into non-model railroading aspects of his life. That subject will have its own chapter. 

I haven't yet finalized nomenclature and abbreviations. For now I'm using ELM for E. L. Moore, and other obvious acronyms for the various magazines. All will be listed in a glossary. 

Here's the draft:

E. L. Moore, whose full name was Earl Lloyd Moore, was a model railroader who published 124 articles and photographs in a variety of American model railroading magazines between 1955 and 1980. The magazine articles were mainly about how to scratch build HO-scale structures from low-cost and simple materials. ELM prided himself on being able to construct sophisticated models in around two weeks of leisurely after-dinner labour for a cash outlay of just a couple of dollars. Sometimes the cost was a little more, sometimes the projects were simple and didn’t require that much time, but two weeks and two dollars was his norm. 

ELM focused on modelling the buildings and life of rural America in the 1890s and early 1900s, his boyhood years, in accordance with his personal vision of that era. When ELM began to hit his stride as a writer in the mid to late 1960s, a classic construction article of his would weave together how-to instructions, photographs, and plans with a humorous tall-tale about the building and its inhabitants. The photographs would often include one or more staged scenes, complete with people, animals, scenery, and vehicles, illustrating the tale. His use of common materials, especially balsa wood, along with an emphasis on relatively easy-going construction, leavened with humour and one of those tall-tales, would become his signature style. He didn’t limit himself to modelling particular railroads, or even layout building, but ranged over variety of subjects and prototypes.

Number of articles and photos published per year across all magazines

The chart shows the number of ELM publications that appeared each year across all magazines that published his material. His first publication wasn't an article at all, but a photo that appeared in the February 1955 issue of Model Railroader of a station under construction on his HO-scale Elizabeth Valley Railroad. His last publication was a posthumous building construction article, called A firecracker factory, in the July 1980 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. Over the course of his career his publications appeared in Model Railroader, Model Trains, Railroad Model Craftsman, Railroad Modeler, and the NMRA Bulletin. A couple stories of boyhood reminisces were published in Good Old Days magazine in 1979, the year he died.

ELM’s publication history has three distinct periods. I present lists of his articles that appeared in each period in Chapters X, Y, and Z, but for now let’s take a look at the characteristics of those periods. 

The first started in February 1955, with the publication of the aforementioned photograph, and ran until March 1962, when his article on how to build an HO-scale model of the Grizzly Flats depot was the cover story of the final regular issue of Model Trains. During this time he established himself as an author capable of writing on a range of model railroading subjects, but hadn’t yet settled into his signature style.

The second period ran from June 1962 to October 1970. As the 1950s turned into the 1960s, ELM began to come into his own as a writer. By 1967, and continuing into 1968 and 1969, he was at his peak and was publishing 9 articles a year in RMC. He also had some articles in MR during that time, but RMC was his primary outlet. This period saw ELM develop and solidify his signature style. Also, in this period the plastic model kit company, Associated Hobby Manufacturers (AHM) of Philadelphia, obtained the manufacturing rights for nine of ELM’s projects that were published in RMC between 1967 and 1969, and turned them into plastic model kits. I discuss these kits and their development history in some detail in Chapter W.

There was almost no third period. There were 13 months, starting in November 1970, where he had no articles published anywhere. This was his longest dry spell, but he got out of it by offering some articles to the newly launched Railroad Modeler magazine, whose inaugural issue appeared in April 1971. The editor was glad of the offer, and ran the magazine’s first ELM article in its December 1971 issue. This period lasted until ELM’s death in August 1979. His last article was a posthumous one, and appeared in the July 1980 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. At the end of this period some of his boyhood reminisces were published in Good Old Days magazine.

 

If you step back a bit and take a look at the total number of publications he made across all magazines during his career, it’s clear he was a prolific writer in the model railroading press from 1961 to 1974, which spanned the end of the first period to the mid-point of the third. During those years ELM was publishing on average seven articles per year, and in 1967 he hit his all-time, one-year career maximum with twelve.

In response to RMC’s August 1972 merchandising survey - which, interestingly, wasn’t reported on until January 1975 - it was noted that when readers were asked who their favourite RMC author was. ELM pulled in at number five, preceded by Jim Boyd, Dave Frary,  Bob Hayden, and Bill Schopp. Even though ELMs heyday was almost over at the time of the survey, he was still highly visible in reader’s minds.