I'd like to thank Martin Snow for his conversations, and valuable contributions of photographs and information on boxings, and Vince Pugliese for his discussions and critique. Of course, any problems with the post are mine, and if you see anything amiss, please let me know.
The Origins of AHM's E. L. Moore Designed Kits
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The Brewery arrives from eBay.
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In the late 1960s and early 1970s Associated Hobby Manufacturers of Philadelphia, or AHM for short, began marketing a line of nine plastic building kits based on E. L. Moore articles that appeared in Railroad Model Craftsman. As well, as the years rolled on, a few of those kits were marketed by a number of other companies, and some were used to provide parts for derivative kits that were also quite common in hobby stores of that era.
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AHM kit# 5819, Ramsey Journal Building
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Although AHM initially developed and sold these kits, they, as well as their re-boxings and derivatives, have been offered for sale worldwide at various times by companies that include Tyco, Pola, Atlas, Faller, Hornby, IHC, VAU-PE, Playcraft, Walthers, and Model Power. Some kits, like the Brewery, continued to be available well into our century.
Since late 1967 when the first E. L. Moore designed kit, AHM #5813 Brewery, was announced to the market, the Moore kits and their derivatives have been both a reasonably priced source of basic buildings for model railroads, and raw material for kitbashes; a combination which gave the kits a long life in the marketplace. However, most hobbyists are unaware that the kits’ designer was one of the most influential model railroaders of the 20th century.
Who was E. L. Moore?
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AHM kit#5820, Grusom Casket
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E. L. Moore was a prolific, freelance writer for model railroading magazines of how-to articles about scratchbuilding HO scale buildings. When Moore was at his peak in the mid to late 1960s, a classic article of his would weave together assembly instructions, photographs, and plans with a humorous tall-tale about the building and its inhabitants. And all this was usually topped off with a promise that the project could be built for only a buck or two, requiring no more than two weeks of leisurely after-dinner labour.
The chart below shows how many pieces (both articles & photos) Moore published each year across all the magazines that carried his stories. His first publication wasn't an article at all, but a photo in the February 1955 issue of Model Railroader of a station-under-construction scene on his Elizabeth Valley Railroad. His last publication was a posthumous how-to article, A firecracker factory, in the July 1980 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. Over the course of his career he published 124 items, which appeared in Model Railroader, Model Trains, Railroad Model Craftsman, Railroad Modeler, and the NMRA Bulletin. A couple of stories of his boyhood reminisces were published in Good Old Days magazine in 1979, the year he died.
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| Click to enlarge; Chart includes articles & photos published. |
He got off to a good start in 1955 with 5 publications that year, but throughout the late 1950s he was publishing just a trickle of articles. However, as the 1950s turned into the 1960s, Moore began to hit his stride. By 1967, and continuing into 1968 and1969, he was at his peak and publishing 9 articles a year in RMC. Moore also had some articles in MR during that time, but RMC was his primary outlet.
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 major figure in the model railroading press from 1961 to 1974. During those years Moore was publishing on average 7 articles per year, and in 1967 he hit his all-time, one-year career maximum with 12 articles.
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, E. L. Moore pulled in at number 5, preceded by Jim Boyd, Dave Frary, Bob Hayden, and Bill Schopp. Even though Moore’s heyday was 3 or 4 years back at the time of the survey, he was still highly visible.
Given Moore’s popularity and extensive publication history it’s not surprising that his work was of interest to kit manufacturers.
AHM’s Original 9
The first of AHM’s E. L. Moore kits was number 5813, called the Brewery. It was based on a project described in Moore’s article, F & M Schaefer Brewery, that appeared in RMC’s March 1967 issue. The kit hit hobby shop shelves in 1968, and after that one AHM developed and released eight more. I think of these kits as the Original 9 to distinguish them from the re-pops, new boxings, and derivatives that appeared in later years. The following table lists each kit in the Original 9, and the RMC articles on which they were based.
AHM Kit No. | AHM Kit Name | RMC Article Title | Manuscript Submission Date | Article Publication Date |
5813 | Brewery | F & M Schaefer Brewery | November 27, 1966 | March 1967 |
5819 | Ramsey Journal Building | Ramsey Journal Bldg. | August 13, 1967 | December 1967 |
5820 | Grusom Casket | Grusom Casket Company | April 3, 1967 | July 1967 |
5822 | Ma’s Place | build Ma’s Place | September 11, 1966 | January 1967 |
5828 | Molases [sic] Mine | Molasses Mine & Factory | October 3, 1968 | February 1969 |
5871 | W. E. Snatchem Undertaker | W. E. Snatchem - Undertaker | July 25, 1967 | November 1967 |
5872 | Village Blacksmith | under the green lichen tree . . . THE VILLAGE SMITHY STANDS | June 25, 1967 | September 1967 |
5878 | Busy Bee Department Store | Three Store Fronts and a Shop | June 18, 1969 | December 1969 |
5879 | Emporium Department Store | Three Store Fronts and a Shop | June 18, 1969
| December 1969 |
All of the kits were based on RMC articles from Moore’s peak production years, and were released from 1968 onward into the early 1970s, although the exact release date for each kit is somewhat unclear at this time.
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AHM kit#5828, Molases Mine
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The kits were marketed in AHM’s familiar MinikitS yellow and blue boxes, and many of the earliest issues were also adorned with a little red label printed on the box top that read:
Reproduced by permission from plans as shown in Railroad Model Craftsman by Mr. E. L. Moore,
or
Designed by E. L. Moore, Reproduced by permission from plans as shown in Railroad Model Craftsman Magazine.
As time went on and the kit boxes were further updated, and other companies reissued several of them after AHM’s demise, those little red labels disappeared, and the E. L. Moore provenance disappeared with them.
Birth of the F & M Schaefer Brewery model
Over the last few years a small collection of E. L. Moore’s letters and manuscripts have been found. The collection isn’t complete, but what has survived gives unprecedented insight into both the character of the man, his unedited writing style, his interactions with others in model railroading, and how several of his projects were developed.
There are a number of letters that mention the F & M Schaefer Brewery project - both model and kit - that when the applicable passages are stitched together, tell the story of how this kit, the first of the Original 9, was developed. The archival record doesn’t give a complete account, but does provide enough information for us to see the outline of how what would eventually be sold as AHM kit #5813 was developed.
Like a lot of adventures, this one started with a casual request.
Throughout the 1960s Moore and Hal Carstens, then RMC’s editor and publisher, had an extensive correspondence. Their letters were friendly, and ranged well beyond the typical business-like exchanges between editor and writer. In one letter, dated 5 July 1966, Carstens floated the idea to Moore of writing an article for RMC on scratchbuilding a brewery:
Some one of these days I must commission you to build an old weathered brick brewery or distillery, with slightly more northern construction, for use on my new pike. Construction proceedeth slowly. Wouldn’t do to have vats in the open where various types of nectar would be diluted by rain or damaged beyond repair by frost and snow and ice. In fact the Schaefer Brewing people have a model of their original plant and maybe plans for same could be obtained. Must check this out.
It turned out this bit of musing got Moore to start thinking about the project, and two days later Moore replied to Carstens:
You’re the second to want a brewery -- friend Bart Crosby up Pennsylvania way, too . . . and all I can say is, fish up some plans and I’ll gladly do the rest.
Bart Crosby was an editor at Model Trains magazine in the 1950s, and a long time friend of Moore’s. On 11 July 1966, Carstens wrote to Moore to give him an update:
Called up the Schaefer Brewery and they gave me the address of their Public Relations man, who, I suspect, is on vacation. Guy I talked with says somebody else already wrote in for plans of the brewery model. So now lets see what develops. This building dates back around 1830 something or other and is real class - brick I believe. Guy says the model they have has only two sides because that’s all they have data on. So I figures I know somebody that oughta be able to bull his way through.
That somebody of course was Moore, and in an 18 July 1966 reply Moore told Carstens he was game:
... you get me something, just a picture maybe, of an old brewery that has some character and I’ll work it up for you -- and RMC at the same time.
Moore didn’t get another update on the status of the information from Schaefer Brewing until 26 July 1966 in which Hal Carstens says:
Correspondence with the F & M Schaefer Brewing (burp) Company in Brooklyn, and they have promised me a set of plans and some pix of their original brewery dating back around 1840 or 1860. This is the brewery shown in some of their ads of late on TV and I also saw it in riotous color in Life or Look. Could be that these appear only in New York regional editions. Anyway, will forward the plans and stuff as soon as received. Advise if you want HO stats or can work from the original. I gather that official data is available only for two sides of the structure, since plans were phonied [sic] from a photo. This permits old E. L. (for Erie Lackawanna?) to fake in a railroad siding.
No, the E. L. in E. L. Moore, stood for Earl Lloyd. As well as being a bit cagey about his name, Moore was also a little obscure about his age, noting on occasion that was a secret between him and Uncle Sam, although records show he was born on 14 March 1898.
Moore was keen and turned around a reply on 1 August 1966:
So bring on your brewery and keg of brew or whatever. HO stats hell! You always gotta make changes so nothing’s better than a photograph to work from. Not a TV man nor even a Looker or Lifer so consequently haven’t seen the stuff you mention.
As we get into August and September 1966, the archival record gets a little thin, but from the surviving letters it looks like Moore received the brewery plans, photos, and whatnot from Carstens during that time and got started on the project.
Jumping ahead to an 22 August 1966 letter, Carstens tells Moore not to stray too far from the prototype:
Would personally prefer as authentic a model and plan as possible, leaving the horse and wagon sheds as was. Horses add much savor to a good brew. On the model, some shortening would be acceptable if plan would show shortened and give instructions for building the correct length model. Ditto any freelancing you might engage in. So hop to it, me boy.
On the bottom of that letter, written in Moore’s hand, is this:
Answered by mail Aug 28 suggested 30’ x 90’ if space permits instead of 30 x 80.
On 11 September 11 1966 Moore wrote to Carstens to tell him the brewery was underway, and to note what Al Jolson was once rumoured to have said about horses and beer:
Made a start on the brewery. Completed one wall, the front one, including lettering, aging and all, and truth is it surpasseth even my expectations as to looks. Lined it inside with balsa to give it the necessary “thick wall” look, and she has an ancient look to her. Inside whitewashed. Like an article, you get the first couple of paragraphs to suit and the rest follows along OK. Don’t reckon you’re in any big hurry so I’ll just piddle along with it. Doesn’t show any doors so I’ll just make detachable ones you can use or not use.
You say horses add much savor to a good brew. Maybe you heard the one Al Jolson spilled on the radio many years ago. He’d been to England and was asked how he liked the warmish brew served in their pubs. “So far as I’m concerned”, he sez, “they could throw it right back into the horse.” Unnerstan [sic] his remark roused up some indignant letters, and not all from beer drinkers.
The model and article must have taken Moore longer than he anticipated as he didn’t submit it to RMC until 27 November 1966. As well as being a large 17-page manuscript, this submission was a bit unusual because he sent in the model itself to Carstens along with everything else. Normally he just sent photographs to show what the model looked like, but in this case the model went too since Carstens wanted it for his personal layout. In the letter accompanying the manuscript Moore noted:
I hope you have big damned feet so’s you can shove the brewery down (not up!) in one sock and hang it on your Christmas tree. And don’t say I never give you nothin’
Carstens now had a brewery for his layout, and an RMC article too, just in time for Christmas. And Moore was busy making a second Schaefer brewery for his friend Bart Crosby.
Development of the AHM Brewery kit
On 6 January 1967 Carstens hinted to Moore that preparatory work for a kit version of the F&M Schaefer Brewery, to be later known as AHM’s Brewery kit, was underway:
What’s the chances of real pronto like getting an exact duplicate of the brewery model you done sent me?
Only difference is, it would be sent to a gentleman in Austria, unless he would be here when you finish it.
Only thing is, I gather time is of the essence. If you can do it, when would it be ready to ship?
Although not explicitly stated, I speculate the gentleman in Austria was likely Nikolas Pfusterschmid, who was based in Austria and had a multi-decade career as a marketing and product development representative in the hobby and toy industry. And as Carstens makes clear in a later letter, it may not have been settled at this point that AHM would be the company selling the kit.
And Moore’s response? He sent off a quick one on 9 January 1967:
An exact duplicate! Just tossed the old plans in the trash but I guess I have all the necessary measurements in my copy of the article. Lemme see, it took about five weeks to turn out the other one, and a bit longer for the second one, due to laziness . . . by pushing myself (what a horrible thought!) I might get it built in two to three weeks. Just checked and have enough brick on hand. But just because you poor yokels can turn out something by a schedule how you think that is common procedure? I’d just have to say between two and three weeks, somewhere along, yes, maybe.
He had tossed the plans in the trash! It’s funny how he was now more-or-less forced to use his own article as a guide to help him build a third version.
I guess after building this project twice, Moore had to coax himself into building a third as is touched on in this letter to Carstens on 17 January 1967:
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AHM kit# 5872, Village Blacksmith
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Haven’t heard from you regarding the brewery thing someone wanted -- struck me as somewhat dismaying, first off -- then I recalled I would kinda have liked having one myself but would never get around to building it -- so I started off kinda iffy, marking off the brick but not cutting it out -- then thought I might try the vats to see if I remembered -- until finally damned if I haven’t got everything built except the walls and roof -- like one o’ them jigsaw puzzles -- even cupola and weather vane and such-like. And so I reckon it boils down to about a ten evening job, or maybe I’m speedier (without hurrying) through much practice. Ennyhow, without plans, just my instructions and some photographs to go by.
So I really don’t give a damn if he wants it or no, but I can finish it up in about four days (my kind of days which means piddle a while and work a while)
The Moore archives contain what look like notes written over 27 and 28 January 1967 for a project update letter to Carstens. There’s this snippet, apparently penned on the 27th, which looks like Moore blowing off some steam:
From Editor RMC
E.L. Moore, Gen’l Contractor
In answer:
Hi Buddy . . . Yeh, go ahead and build that second brewery. As close to the original as possible.
H H Carstens
Dammit to hell! I thought I had myself a brewery! And you jerk it out from under my nose. Well, all I gotta do is cement all the pieces together, wire it for lights, find some boxes . . . matter of three, four days . . . . .
P.S: And what’s it worth?
My sales agent is on vacation -- your guess is as good as mine. 10 -- 15 -- 20 -- 25 -- 50 -- 500 -- only one thing I’m sure of, each time I make another the price goes double. I’d haggle if I wasn’t sech [sic] a darned poor haggler.
And then on 28 January 1967, Moore seemed to settle down to a calmer assessment of where the project was at in this P.S. to letter to Carstens:
PS: Yeh -- three, four days and maybe another -- I thought all I hadda do was put it together, but a million little things crop up before I can do that -- some painting, some fitting, decals, a little additional aging here and there -- piddle, piddle, piddle, puddle. But I reckon I ought to be able to get it off by Wednesday or Thursday. Worth, man? I couldn’t charge what it’s worth to make -- two weeks at the least, 25¢ an hour -- I do a lot of featherbedding -- see what I mean. Worth all of twenty-five bucks, but not being in the business I’d say split the difference somewhere and let it go at that -- but not another one, please! Figuring I was getting this for myself I made one little change -- a long window between the office and horse bedrooms which will allow office light to shine through for night effect. Was going to make two of the roofs into slate -- Crosby’s slate roofs were darned purty -- but I’ll keep ‘em shingled -- most of the difference is in the coloring anyway. You might want to swap when you see the improved spigots with cutoff valves and drain in floor -- otherwise he won’t vary much. Oh yes, changed office light to location at end wall.
Why is this a PS? Was this little note ever mailed to Carstens? The archive isn’t clear, but it was written by Moore, and gives some insight into what he thought was fair payment, as well as showing that even on this third brewery model he was still incorporating changes here and there to make it better.
I don’t know if Moore ever got paid for the model. As for his work on the kits themselves, all he received in compensation was a number of kits to sell or do with as he pleased.
On 1 February 1967 Moore sent the finished model to Carstens, and noted he was relieved the project was done:
The damned brewery is on its way and I don’t want to hear any more about brewery building for a while -- and I sure as hell am not going to build myself one. Thought that thing never would lay down and call it quits -- last two nights till 2 AM. That thing is a steady three weeks job but who wants to work steadily.
Moore’s F & M Schaefer Brewery article appeared in the March 1967 issue of RMC, and in response Moore sent this little note in a letter to Carstens dated 9 March 1967.
You did a right nice job on the brewery article, I thought.
And then things went quiet for a few months. No mention of the brewery kit until this paragraph in a letter from Carstens to Moore dated 28 June 1967:
Understand that the brewery model you built is now in Europe somewhere and is undergoing conversion into plastic. Not sure what maker but best guess is that it’ll emerge under the AHM label. Now if you’d awaited, you wouldn’t have had to make one cause you coulda bought the kit!
Then more months of silence on the brewery front until this paragraph in a letter to Moore dated 18 October 1967 from Bill Rau, then MR’s associate editor.
By the way, I notice in our current November MR, on page 11, that AHM is coming out with the Schaeffer [sic] brewery in a plastic kit. Did they buy the rights from you, pirate the design, or get the plans somewhere else?
That’s the only indication in Moore’s archives that the kit was soon to be released, and there’s no record of a reply. But as we’ve seen, it appeared to have been a completely pirate-free deal between RMC and the kit developer.
It turns out that both RMC and MR were running the same AHM ad in their November 1967 issues. It announced the brewery as one of the ‘New Building Kits Coming Soon’ and listed it for $2.95. It wasn’t until a notice in RMC’s April 1968 Dispatchers Report stating that a number of Minikit structures including the Scheaffer brewery shown in RMC some months ago were due at dealers throughout the year as they become available that there was further information in the press on when the brewery would hit hobby shop shelves.
The next 3 kits after the Brewery
Even though it was a little unclear when the brewery would be out in the world (sometime between late 1967 and early 1968) AHM was hot on developing even more kits based on Moore’s designs. On 17 January 1968, Peter Van Dore from AHM wasted no time in contacting Moore to get going on the next batch of kits and sent Moore this letter:
Hal Carstens of Railroad Model Craftsman suggested that I call you.
We are interested in manufacturing some more of your excellent buildings. For this coming year, we hope to produce the following items:
1. Ma’s Place
2. The Ramsey Journal Building
3. Gruesome Casket Company
It would be much better if we could borrow the original model. I would make sure that these would be returned to you. Perhaps you would like to have some of our Model Railroad items. All you have to do is ask, and we will supply what ever you want. We will probably need the models for about 8 or 9 months. Please ket me know at your earliest convenience, if we can borrow these models from you.
It looks like the developing pattern was for AHM to work from an original model and not just the article. I assume this is to make sure they weren’t risking production trouble by relying on the accuracy of the article’s instructions. Why Carstens couldn’t have simply given his Scheafer brewery model to AHM instead of insisting an additional one be built is a mystery, and given how troublesome that was for Moore, it's good AHM asked for models of the next three instead of requesting new models be built.
Moore got back to Van Dore on 19 January 1968:
I suppose you know just what you want but damned if you didn’t pick three that are scattered. I have the Grusom Casket Company model here but #1 Ma’s Place is on display in a hobby shop up in Raleigh and #2 (didn’t Carstens tell you) I gave him that model and he has it. So you’d have to get that one from him.
I can have Mr. Collier of North Hills Hobby Shop in Raleigh send you Ma’s Place and can ship the one I have which can do soon as I hear from you.
Only thing I’d like would be a kit of each one you produce -- including the one you’ve already produced -- the Schaefer Brewery. I never like to build a second model but built three of Schaefer’s and still don’t have one for myself.
Were the models found? Did AHM receive them? The archive doesn’t say, but after that initial flurry of letters, it seems like Moore was a little impatient and wanted to know more about progress as is hinted at in this snippet from a 29 January 1968 letter to Carstens:
Ain’t heard no more from Pete Van Dore of AHM. Maybe us southern rebels is too slow for him. Well to hell with it.
The silence continued along with some mounting frustration from Moore as evidenced in this snippet from a 15 February 1968 letter to Carstens:
Never have heard more from ol’ Pete of AHM. I answered his letter promptly, so now to hell with him.
It wasn’t until late March that we see anything in the archive about the kits until Carstens mentions some upcoming preparatory work to be done on the Ramsey Journal building in this snippet from a letter to Moore dated 27 March 1968:
Meanwhile, AHM is going to model this place and they had a guy drive up from Phila to swag my model which is supposed to be returned after a trip to Italy. Even gonna have a nut hanging out the window with a camera.
And that’s that regarding what’s in Moore’s archive about those next three kits. If AHM’s kit numbers are anything to go by, Ma’s, Ramsey’s, and Grusom’s were indeed the next to hit the market.
And what about the remaining 5 kits? There’s next to nothing in the archive about them other than these random snippets.
In 1971, Moore mentioned to Denis Dunning, then managing editor of Railroad Modeler, in a PS to a letter dated July 13, 1971 that AHM might have him design a kit exclusively for them:
Peter Van Dore of AHM says they’re working on another model of mine -- they have three now listed -- and asked me to make one specifically for them. A dynamite plant with one side blown off.
There’s no other mention in Moore’s archive of such a project, but AHM did market a repackaged version of the Molases Mine kit called Kaboom Powder Factory, so that must have filled the bill and got extra life out of a kit already in production. However, Moore didn’t drop the idea, but pursed his own ideas in both his infamous MR article called The Cannonball & Safety Powder Works that appeared in the April 1977 issue where he blew up the finished model at the end of the story, and again in his last article, A firecracker factory, that appeared in the July 1980 issue of RMC.
It’s two more years until the archive even hints at further kits. In a 10 July 1973 letter to Russ Larson, then editor of MR, Moore mentions he received a Molasses Mine kit in the mail:
Package came from AHM today . . . they’ve come out with my old Molasses Mine, a rough looking backwoods structure . . .
According to the AHM kit numbers, the Molasses Mine was likely released next after Schaeffer’s, Ma’s, Ramsey’s, and Grusom’s.
Some derivative kits and hints of kitbashing potential
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AHM kit#5873, Speedy Andrew's Repairshop (derivative kit)
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Derivative kits got started early in the history of the Original 9, and if this snippet from a 6 November 1972 letter from Al McDuffie, a member of AHM in product development, to Moore is any indication, AHM was well aware of the potential:
1. Under separate cover (don’t think they’d fit in this envelope actually) I have sent off to you our two latest plastic structural kits - a wooden styled Coaling Station and our new “Speedy Andrews” Repair Shop.
2. I think you’ll get a kick out of what the German manufacturer did to create the Repair Shop, since it is based on the main parts from Ma’s Place?
Several of the Original 9 were used as the basis of a number of other AHM kits, where Speedy Andrew’s Repairshop, kit #5873, which many years later was marketed by Model Power as Billy’s Auto Body, was the first - this kit is the Repair Shop mentioned in Al McDuffie's letter.
Documenting the derivative kits, and their various boxings as their molds passed from one company to the next, is a story in and of itself. I won’t touch on all the kits here, but a few of note are: AHM kit# 5839, Machine Shop, is half of the Grusom Casket Company; AHM kit# 5883, F. C. Rode Hardware Store, and AHM kit# 5885, Aunt Millie’s House, are re-packagings of W. E. Snatchem Undertakers; and AHM kit# 5834, Rooming House, is a variation on the Ramsey Journal building.
And speaking of the Ramsey Journal building, careful examination of the Grusom Casket Company kit shows that its two storey half is simply a variation of Ramsey’s walls, meaning even a member of the Original 9 was based on another. So, manufacturing and releasing Ramsey and Grusom around the same time as noted in Van Dore’s letter likely had associated manufacturing efficiencies.
The potential of the kits as the basis of kitbashes, thereby extending their desirability in the marketplace, was also something that wasn’t lost on AHM. In the same letter McDuffie went on to point out a recent Ma’s Place kitbash he’d seen:
3. I have done some experimenting recently with the original Ma’s Place kit, and it certainly lends itself to kit-bashing, doesn’t it? Even saw a article in Railroad Modeler (I believe it was) where several were used to create a Boarding House - cleverly done.
That boarding house was a model built from two Ma’s Place kits, and was described in an article by Jeff Scott called The Holiday Inn It's Not that ran in the October 1972 issue of Railroad Modeler. And by coincidence the magazine 1001 Model Railroading Ideas, in its Fall 1972 issue, ran a kitbashing article called Ma’s Station that also used two Ma’s Place kits to create a small passenger station.
Even Art Curren eventually did a Ma’s Place kitbash in the January 1977 issue of RMC with one used as an office in his Frenda Mine project. Interestingly, Curren credits his build approach in that project to an earlier Ma’s Place kitbash by John P. Allen, Qinnimont - with a difference, in the March 1974 issue. Curren was to use Ma’s Place again in an introduction to kitbashing he wrote in MR’s August 1980 issue called Star Printers.
It’s curious that Ma’s Place went on to live a long and interesting life in plastic, because its submission to RMC as a construction article was something of an afterthought for Moore, as he indicated in this 19 October 19 1966 cover letter that accompanied his manuscript:
Sending along this thing I’ve had on the closet shelf ever since you jolted me into taking up industry hunting -- maybe you can use it sometime even though it’s kinda trivial -- if not, shoot it back.
Kitbashing with Art Curren & E. L. Moore
Like Moore, Art Curren was a prolific author in the model railroad press, who, beginning in the 1970s, wrote primarily about kitbashing buildings with readily available plastic kits. Curren joined the MR staff in July 1978, but published many articles in RMC prior to that, and his “Scratchbuilding” - with plastic walls that appeared in the June 1977 issue succinctly outlined his philosophy and methods, as well as credited Moore and the Original 9 for providing great scratchbuilding supplies:
Thank you E. L. Moore for the design and AHM or Tyco for the material.
Curren viewed the kits as raw material - primarily as a source of walls - that could be cut and glued into an almost infinite variety of buildings. In the article he discusses a number of Original 9s that were particularly useful. With a high-profile writer like Curren promoting the usefulness of the Moore kits he no doubt helped extend their production life.
Interestingly, Moore himself wasn’t a kitbasher and said so in a letter dated 6 September 1977 to MR editor Russ Larson.
I know one shouldn’t knock anything one hasn’t tried, but it has always seemed to me kit-bashing was more work and expensive than to build from scratch. Fact is, I hate like poison to put a kit together. Seems I have a helluva time following instructions.
Hidden History
E. L. Moore died in August 1979, and in the November 1979 issue of RMC, Hal Carstens noted in his memorial to Moore that:
Moore was best known for his many construction articles on structures. Among them are the Schaefer Brewery, the Ramsey Journal Building, a molasses mine, the Gruesome Casket Co., W. E. Snatchem - Undertaker, and many more. A number of these were later released by various companies in plastic kit form.
It turns out all of those projects he listed, plus a few more, lived on as plastic kits.
Those kits have gone on to become a piece of model railroading’s hidden history: kits whose backstories are unknown even though they’re still popular. Today the kits continue to appear now-and-then in photos and articles in the model railroading press throughout the world. For example, there were two kitbashes based on the Grusom Casket Company in an article by Ken Scales called Kitbashing structures for fun and profit... in the April 2019 issue of Narrow Gauge Downunder. No hint of the donor kit’s Moorian heritage, but now you know that all these kits have origins that go back a long way to one of the most influential scratchbuilders in model railroading.
In some ways the E. L. Moore plastic kits have little to do with E. L. Moore and his legacy. They're an interesting side story, and maybe a less than positive one for E. L. Moore. He didn't make money from these kits, and more-or-less after the early AHM distribution, for most of their life Mr. Moore was not generally known as their designer. As well, ironically, he didn't like building plastic kits, but for the most part these kits are the most durable part of this legacy.
I've only touched on the many boxings of the kits by AHM and a host of other companies. In future posts I'll catalogue these as well as the derivative kits. Stay tuned!
