Memoirs of a Former Model Railroader: The Moonlight & Violins RR

First version of the M&V RR; The Model Craftsman, Dec '47

For a very long time I’ve been trying to get my hands on Bill Schopp’s series of articles, Memoirs of a Former Model Railroader, that ran in the Dec ’47, Jan’48, Feb ’48, and Mar ’48 issues of The Model Craftsman. It turns out the C. Robert Craig Memorial Library had copies, so last week Debra and I went out there. Luckily the parking issues I had encountered on previously attempted visits weren’t a problem this time so I was able to make it in and read through those long sought after articles. 

They’re eye opening to say the least. Bill Schopp, probably the most prolific American mid 20th century model railroad writer with over 1,000 publications, arguably model railroading’s amateur scientist, gave up model railroading in the mid 1940s - well, at least temporarily by his own telling. He even went so far as to sell off his equipment. You know that Rancocas Valley freight car that appeared in eBay last October? It was likely sold off during that time as Schopp had 1 and 1/2 versions of the Rancocas Valley RR under his belt before quitting. By some miracle it survived from its sale in 1946 or '47 until 2023. Hopefully it’s tucked away safe-and-sound for 21st century enjoyment.

Ok, back to the series. It’s about his history as a model railroader, and what caused him to give it all up. Luckily we know this was but a hiatus; however, in 1947 and '48 his future in the hobby was still up-in-the-air.

Although he tells us about a long, enchantment filled engagement with model railroading as a child, teen, and young man, he didn’t construct what he considered to be his first true model railroad until 1936: The Moonlight & Violins RR. It was a 3-rail, HO scale setup built in an attic bedroom.

The most striking thing about this layout to me is how modern and sophisticated it is. There’s none of that spaghetti-like track that is unfortunately often associated with Schopp’s trackplans in the modern imagination, if they’re thought about at all. Or maybe I’m struck by this plan because I’m naive about 1940s layouts? Could be, but still, building a model railroad with its trackplan today would not be considered unusual.

The other striking thing to me is the fictional railroad’s name: Moonlight & Violins Railroad. That does sound very 1940s to me, and reminded me of George Allen and Ernie Huebner’s Tuxedo Junction layout construction series that started in Model Railroader in October 1952. Okay, that was the early 1950s, but the reality was the 1940s weren’t done by then, and the railroad itself has its roots in them. Look, the Glenn Miller song by the same name was a big hit in 1940.

Apparently, according to Mr. Schopp the Moonlight & Violins RR was also named after a song. Here's how he tells it in the Dec '47 issue of The Model Craftsman:

“A word regarding the name of the pike to those people who are always curious about “where did you get the name of your railroad?” (unless it is Pennsylvania with Belpaire fireboxes to make it even clearer). Several months before construction really got under way I had drawn up carefully a gigantic three-room model railroad, to fill the whole attic. One section was named Moonlight and Violins from a song of the same name from Earl Carroll’s Sketchbook. Another section was named Moonlight, Magnolias, and You from a song of the same name by yours truly. For about four years before taking up the model hobby in earnest, I was a completely unsung songwriter, tossing off many dillies [sic] which song publishers wouldn’t even open. The most interesting from a railroad point of view was one about riding the open trolleys through Fairmount Park, rhymes with spark, rhymes with arc - conductor walking down the side in his daredevil way and telling me to keep my foot off the trolley rope, etc. At the present time I am contemplating a Chrapsody [sic] for Five Air Horns and a Trolley Harp, with directions as to soft and loud (usually given as p, mp, f, ff, etc.) given as first series position, full series, etc., up to Field Taps when temporary deafness sets in. So the M. & V. was almost called Moonlight, Magnolias, and You.”

Bill Schopp was a failed songwriter? Who knew? His Fairmount Park song might not have seemed like a bad idea at the time given that Tuxedo Junction is about a jazz and blues club located close to a trolley crossing - a junction - near a place called Tuxedo Park in Birmingham, Alabama. If he had wound up on Tin Pan Alley, model railroading would likely have been a lot different. Was model railroading his self awarded consolation prize?

I didn’t know what ‘Earl Carroll’s Sketchbook’ was so it was Wikipedia to the rescue. Apparently Earl Carroll was in the business of putting on musicals and such, and the ‘Earl Carroll Sketchbook’ was a Broadway show of his that eventually became a movie in 1946. Moonlight and Violins was a song in the show given the layout's date, but I'm curious to see if it's in the movie. Unlike Tuxedo Junction I wasn’t able to find the song in YouTube or anywhere else. 

I need to find that movie.