How I built the Mt. Lowe layout's trefoil base

Trefoil layout base made from styrofoam. Area is 4 sq. ft..

Last fall I wrote about some notes Bill Schopp published on trefoil planform layouts. I've been intrigued with the shape since then, especially for micro-layouts, and I spent many evenings last winter making drawings in my sketchbook of possible layouts. The shape seems to offer a way to build small layouts with good scene separation since each lobe could host its own scene with vertical elements providing a degree of visual separation in accordance with the design philosophy advocated by Olson and Furlow.

The glued up base is a 2-1/4" thick, 3-layer foam sandwich.

I like to use foam sheets for my layout bases because the results are lightweight as well as quite rigid and strong. Foam sheets are also easy to work with. 

I made the base for the Mt. Lowe micro from 3/4" thick sheets of styrofoam measuring 14-1/2" wide by 4' long that came in a 6-pack from a big box home renovation store. I think the price was around $17 CDN. This isn't the only material you could use to build a base. It just happened to be convenient, and I also had some scraps in the workshop, so that was what I used. 

Paper template; 4 sq. ft., maximum micro-layout size.

You may recall that last fall I also drew a full size template of a 4 sq. ft. trefoil shape so I could physically compare it to a square of the same area. I made use of that template to trace the lobes onto the styrofoam sheets. 

Once again, I'd like to make it clear that you don't have to build up the base in pieces as I'm showing here. If you have a large, thick sheet of foam you can cut the entire shape in one piece from it. In fact, that would be the best way to go, but if all you've got are small pieces, you aren't prevented from making a base, you just have to be a bit more cunning.

Lobe template detail showing interior edge lines.

Do you see those lines radiating from the centre of the template marked by the red arrows in the photo above? Those are the interior edges of the three lobes we're going to cut out. I laid the lobe template on a foam sheet and with a Sharpie pen traced around the lobe's perimeter to where it intersected both those interior edge lines. Then I marked the trefoil's centre with a dot - I had previously punched a small hole in the centre with a compass. After I lifted the template from the sheet I used the Sharpie and a ruler to join the centre dot with the ends of the lobe's perimeter. 

All three lobes laid out on the styrofoam sheets.

I repeated the process two more times to produce three lobes. It was then on to cutting them out.

Checking the fit of the interior edges.

I cut the interior edge lines first so I could check the alignment of the pieces before trimming the lobes' perimeters. I used a razor saw and a metal ruler to make the cuts.

After trimming the lobe perimeters to shape.

The lobe perimeters were then cut to shape freehand with the razor saw. Once the cutting was done, the edges were lightly sanded to smooth them a bit.

Gluing the lobes together. A weight holds the pieces down while drying.

The next thing to do was glue the lobes together. Start by spreading a generous amount of white glue over all the internal edges, then press them together. That metal box in the photo is full of nuts and bolts and is a good weight for holding the lobes in place while the glue dries. The box is an item from the workshop stuff I inherited from my father. I think he made it in high school shop class in the '40s. It's still full of the nuts and bolts it has always contained. That stash comes in handy now and then, not to mention its weight :-)

Filling layer for the styrofoam sandwich that will be the base

Here it is a few hours later after the glue has dried. The pieces fit together quite well. 

At this point the base is quite flimsy and needs careful handling, so be gentle moving it around. What we're going to do next is make a styrofoam sandwich with the above layer as the filling.

Applying the first piece of a 'bread' layer to the centre section.

The top and bottom bread layers of the sandwich are pieces of sheet foam glued to the filling layer we just made. At this stage, the bread pieces don't need to be cut to any particular shape. We'll trim them up once they're glued in place. 

Start by taking a long sheet of foam and laying it on the filling layer so that all three of its edge joints are covered. The sheet can extend well beyond the top and bottom of the filling layer - we'll trim it later. Now apply a generous amount of glue to the area on the filling layer where the bread sheet will go. Place the bread on top and hold it in place with some weights and clamps. Yeah, I've got a second collection of inherited nuts and bolts I keep in a plastic bin, and along with the metal box inside, it makes for a nice weight to hold this half sandwich together while the glue dries. 

Applying a bread layer to a lobe.

When the glue has dried, trim the bread piece's edges so they match those of the filling layer. The next steps are just a repetition of that first application of a piece to the bread layer. You keep gluing on pieces until both sides of the filling layer have bread sheets glued to it. There's nothing special to know other than these two points to keep in mind: 1) make sure you apply a large slab over the centre edges that covers them and as much of the filling layer as possible, and 2) make sure the joints of all the other bread pieces applied to the lobes have the joints staggered with respect to the top and bottom layers. Point 2) helps make the base is as strong as possible. If the joints on the upper and lower bread surfaces line up it makes for a weaker final structure.

Almost done adding pieces of bread :-)

The above photo shows the base when the sandwich is almost done. Over on the left side of the photo you can see the perimeter is rough cut at this stage. Once all the pieces of the bread layers had been glued together and cut to match the filling layer, some final shaping  was done with a rasp and sanding block to smooth out the contours.

All the trimming of the bread layers creates a lot of styrofoam odd cuts. I saved most of them for use when building the mountain scenery.

And here it is. The sandwich is done and awaiting perimeter smoothing.

This way of making the base is fairly easy, although it does take a bit of time. So, if you've got a few pieces of sheet foam lying around, this method allows a layout board to be built up from those scraps.

Before I go for coffee I should mention that when I built this base I wasn't sure if the layout would work, that is, I didn't know if could I successfully install the multilevel track plan with its complex - well, complex for me - grades, easements, and curves. Now that track work is behind me, and the layout appears viable, I think I might add some extra foam layers to the bottom so I can cut in some deep valleys to make the track seem even higher. Well, that's for the future, now is for coffee :-)

Running back to Bill Schopp

Vince alerted me to these 2 excellent videos by Tom Pierpoint about customizing brass locomotives. It's very impressive stuff.

Interestingly both make a tip-of-the-hat to Bill Schopp and his legendary loco customization projects.

The other thing that's been on my mind this week is The Guess Who. When I was in Austin recently I got into a long discussion about this and that in a record store with my friend's cousin. Somehow we got onto the topic of The Guess Who and their early 2000s Running Back Thru Canada tour. Since I've returned I've gotten all nostalgic and have been playing the videos from that show. There should be no doubt that Winnipeg is the great music city of Canada.

The Blasphemy of Bill Schopp

 In It Ain’t Railroading, But ... it’s a lot of fun, RMC, July 1960, Bill Schopp describes a model trains game he and a friend played. He starts his story with the outcome:

The Result

“…I hadn’t had so much fun with a model railroad since 1944.”

Then he goes on to outline the frame of mind you need to play the game:

The Precondition

“…you must not regard your trains, or at least the trains you run in this ‘game’ as sacred…”

Then, if you want the result, and are ok with the precondition, you’re ready to play:

Layout Schopp used for the game; RMC July '60

The Game

1. “…start a fast piece of motive power…out just ahead of…” a loco that is a lot slower.

2. Since “…the track, altho shaped like a water wings, is essentially a big oval,…” it “… was not too many laps before the faster…” loco “…got pretty close behind the slower...” loco.

3. “The idea then was, with the aid of the two passing sidings drawn, to run the faster engine around the slower one without stopping. You’d have to get just the right distance behind the slower one coming down the homestretch toward the entrance switch to the passing siding to be used. This sometimes entailed grabbing it with the hand and holding it, wheels spinning, until enough space had been opened up. There was stopping or holding sections along the track but not quite as many as drawn on the plan, so that unrailroadlike tricks had to be used.”

“Back about fifteen years before that I recall doing similar running wild with tinplate engines on various layouts we would set up.”

Any chance on the Way Out Layout?

The Summary

“What it requires is a layout with some chance of doing it, as well as a recognition on your part that all model trains are not sacred.”

If the letters-to-the-editor column is anything to go by, this piece of sacrilege appeared to pass without comment from RMC’s readers. Not so a much more seemingly benign Bill Schopp article called, Stalling at Switches, that appeared a year and a bit later in the Nov ’61 issue. In it Schopp discusses various approaches for fixing the common problem of having locos stall at switches - the summary is in the article's title :-) - that a friend of his was having on his layout. He lists 4 points that could alleviate the problem. The 4th deals with a finicky directional slide switch on the layout’s power pack as being a potential problem since these little switches had no centre off setting. He goes on to tell about an operational solution to get around the lack of a centre off position:

“This means [JDL: having no centre off that is] once you choose your direction with the slide switch, you start and stop the train by means of the speed control knob. Very realistic you may say, “just like real trains.” But also, I say, very annoying when switching. I much prefer to have toggle switches (short or bat-handled) with center-off position on my power packs. Then I can turn the speed control full-on [JDL: full-on is bolded in the text] and control direction and stopping of the train with the reverse switch. If the train is too fast, as rubber band diesels would be, I cut the speed control down to 3/4 or 1/2 speed and leave it there except for very finicky operations.”

Maybe it was the term full-on appearing in bold that caught John Allen’s eye, but the operational recommendation got him to send off a letter to the editor. In RMC’s January ’62 Safety Valve column he had this to say:

“It was a sorry surprise to read on page 43, November RMC, that a modeler of Bill Schopp’s skill and experience would say, and I quote, “… Then I can turn the speed control FULL ON and control direction with my reverse switch.” This must sound like blasphemy to each modeler who tries to run his trains in a realistic manner. An engineer would find himself quickly removed from the job if he followed this advice, on most of the model railroads with which I am acquainted.”

A couple of reflections on the above. With the benefit of looking back 60+ years, Mr. Allen failed to note that Schopp did say that if full-on was too much, then try a lower setting. I think the point Schopp was trying to make was to leave the throttle in a fixed position, but the bold text presentation of  ‘full-on’ undermined the message. More importantly though, these two excursions from orthodoxy further strengthening my thought that Schopp was model railroading’s amateur scientist. Any truly creative scientist, amateur or professional, is going to try some things now and then that might be fun and interesting but look odd to the establishment. I wonder if he played bongos?

The Railroad Photography of Walter Schopp

A few days ago when I was working on a Memoirs post I stumbled across this video about the railroad photographs of Bill Schopp's son Walter. I didn't realize he was a serious railroad photographer. 

Memoirs of a Former Model Railroader: Why Bill Schopp left the hobby.

Bill Schopp’s four part Memoirs of a Former Model Railroader series is a detailed and fascinating look at what HO model railroading was like from the mid 1930s to mid 1940s for Schopp and his generation. He goes into great detail about how he built several layouts and their associated equipment. By today’s standards there was not a lot that was commercially available or ready-to-run so construction of just about everything was required. I haven’t gone into that story very much here, but I would highly recommend it to those interested in the roots of the hobby. In these posts I’m focusing on what we might today call the ‘human interest’ side of Mr. Schopp’s story.

Bill Schopp went to college and trained as a teacher. Very early on in the memoir, the fourth paragraph of Part I to be specific, he hints at the issues he eventually had with teaching:

“While attending college I would dream away many an unhappy hour in History of Education class drawing model railroad layouts, while my notebook edge doodles in other classes consisted of switches, crossovers, crossings, slipswitches, scissors, ladders, and other fascinating variations of trackage. For that matter my doodles even now are similar, except that they usually are a variation of the trolley Grand Union theme with extra intersecting tracks thrown in to make it tough. Wonder what a psychologist would make of some of them if he didn’t know I was off my trolley over trolleys? “The diverging lines indicate a split personality, while the complexity of the diverging, merging, and intersecting lines indicate a tremendous inner conflict.””

But, boredom aside, he stuck with college and did graduate. Schopp doesn’t mention when he graduated, but reading between the lines a bit I speculate it was in June of 1936. He notes he was unemployed for a year after graduation - it was the middle of The Great Depression - and only held the occasional substitute teacher job during that period. He used his time to build the Moonlight & Violins layout and finished it in early 1937.

It’s not until we’re into Part III of the memoir that Schopp mentions all was not well with being a school teacher. However, he notes model railroading was keeping him sane, much in the way it provided some diversion in college:

“Of course you need a hobby as absorbing as model railroading after a tough six hour day of being a policeman, educator and parent all in one, caught between the desires and needs of a bunch of stupid kids and the proddings of a stupid supervisor whose main job is to avoid trouble so he can be advanced to a higher job.”

Bill Schopp wasn’t the only person in that period to note that having an absorbing hobby was crucial to staving off the corrosive effects of a day job. Our old friend H. S. Coleman in his 1952 book Teach Yourself Modelcraft notes:

“Everyone is familar [sic] in these days with the value of an absolutely different interest from that of the workaday routine, not to mention the fascination arising out of an entirely fresh circle of friends and associates. There is hardly a profession or calling which does not leave its impression upon those who follow it - an impression which frequently is definitely not advantageous. Thousands of people are unconsciously suffering from the effects of their vocation. The parson grows parsonic, and thereby rebuffs without knowing it the similarly acquired sophistication of the tradesman. The “country man” may unwittingly grow snobbish through want of more intimate relationship with the rank and file. The sergeant can tend to become a cynic or a bully unless he mixes in his off-duty hours with people who redeem him to the realm of humanity. There is, within the mixed fraternity of model-workers, a common interest which, bringing all manner of people together, does for them a great and significant work. Modelcraft makes for humanitarianism. 

I wish that last sentence were true.

Anyway, getting back to our story. 

The bulk of Part III recounts layout building activities beginning soon after he was married. This phase of Schopp’s model railroading career saw the creation of his Rancocas Valley layout. His model railroading was continuing to get more sophisticated, but the impact of his teaching job was taking its toll on his mental health as he rather casually notes deep in some technically oriented text:

“I had plenty of time to work on this line during a six month layoff from nervous exhaustion.”

By the time we get to Part IV his Rancocas Valley Route Interurban layout is more-or-less finished, and so is his teaching career.

“It took several years [JDL: to build the Rancocas Valley layout], but meanwhile my health was getting worse and worse and, with the help of a psychiatrist, I discovered that perhaps some of the nervous trouble was caused by the occupation of school teaching. (I claim to be the only model railroad enthusiast who admits he has been to a psychiatrist!) So I took a Vocational Guidance test series which showed that I was hot stuff at writing and at manipulating small things, whereas I was not so hot at the traits involved with school teaching. Now I wonder where I picked up the ability to manipulate small things? HO gauge railroading perhaps! Among the suggested occupations were train repairing, locksmithing, printing, typewriter repairing or watch repairing.

Of these I leaned toward watch repairing and was going to take it up in night school and in the summer. Instead, however, I soon took it up full time, going to Horological school for over a year.”

At this point Schopp took to tearing down his Rancocas Valley layout to make room for a home watch repair bench. He wasn’t giving up on model railroading just yet as he had a plan to build a new, smaller Rancocas Valley along side his new watch repair facility.

So, life goes on and Schopp becomes a watch repairer. In his spare time construction on the new Rancocas Valley layout is moving right along. When the layout is fairly well developed he realizes that some parts are proving quite troublesome. He then decides to pull up “all the track, wire, buildings and everything” and then makes a “new platform of slightly different shape and put down all of the roadbed-board except the highest part.”

It’s at this point the crucial decision is made to give up the hobby, at least for awhile:

“At that stage proceedings stuck for about a month. I could not get up ambition to go to work on the layout until one Sunday I decided that this was the time. I started to lay track at the site of some heavy special work but could not seem to get interested in it. After about an hour, I suddenly thought, “the devil with it,” and started to make up my mind to give up model railroading for the time being.

In time, almost everything was sold off except a bunch of relays, which nobody seemed to want.”

He then speculates on his reasons for quitting the hobby that provided solace when he was a teacher, but frustration when he was a watch repairer:

“I think the real reason for laying aside the model railroad hobby was psychological. While I was teaching school and before, I had plenty of spare time and also the construction and operation of models was a change from the work I was doing. In one sense, it was an escape from the unpleasantness of teaching. But watch repairing is very much the same as model railroading in that there is much work with small parts, and besides, I like it! So the modeling was no more escape, it was just more of the same thing, on a grosser scale, and so lost its savor. My guess is that there is no watchmaker in the country who builds models as a hobby unless it be live steam.”

Later he seems to confirm my speculation that he was model railroading’s amateur scientist:

“I think that another reason why I finally quit model railroading was the lack of new worlds to conquer in HO gauge. I had three-rail, two-rail, trolley and narrow-gauge operation. I never had pantagraph [sic] or live steam but they didn’t appeal to me. I thought one time of trying two-wire operation as in Havana and Tokyo (and Ann Arbor, Mich), and another time I thought of a very small gauge, maybe the size of present TT gauge, but with trolley operation.”

He didn’t leave the pages of The Model Craftsman, but noted that the magazine had a backlog of his articles that would be published, and that he’d be around to answer questions in print wherever he could.

We know Bill Schopp did return. The 1950s and 1960s were a time of great creativity for him in the pages of Railroad Model Craftsman - including some collaboration with E. L. Moore ! - so he clearly came to terms with his day job / hobby conflict. I speculate becoming a staffer at RMC and running his own model railroad related business helped resolve things. 

Decades later, after a prolific model railroading career, in a letter to the editor in the May ’73 issue RMC, he had this to say about his retirement:

“I continue to get mail inquiring about my health and whether or not I’m still in the model railroad business. I am not in business any more, and no longer advertise (almost all stock was sold to another dealer in one transaction). I have no desire to return to business in any way, including layout design.

All things considered, I’m doing fine and am getting a lot of reading done these days (especially domestic and foreign model railroading magazines). Which reminds me: anyone have a copy of The Fleet That Had to Die?”

RMC reported in its June ’74 issue that Bill Schopp had died, and in their Jan ’75 issue reported that a recent reader survey showed he was their 4th most popular author, one position ahead of E. L. Moore. 

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.

A freight car by Bill Schopp for his Rancocas Valley RR?

Auction for a Bill Schopp freight car?

First off I must thank Galen for alerting me to this online auction. After studying it a bit, and a little discussion, we agreed that this was most likely a freight car built by Bill Schopp for his Rancocas Valley RR, which I discussed here awhile back. 

Mr. Schopp's Rancocas Valley RR appears to have been built and active from 1940 to around 1947, and based on a visual inspection of the auction's photos that's where this car lands as it looks similar to the kits and scratchbuilds from that time. Also, the hand lettering, complex RR name, and paint are other telling features. Unfortunately the car isn't signed, so we can't be 100% certain of its provenance.

I suspect the vendor didn't know this was a Bill Schopp item because no mention of its possible heritage was mentioned in the product description. It just contained the usual Buyer Beware note.

I made an attempt to buy it, but quickly learned that a relentless bidding algorithm was countering my bids, and that I was going to have to exceed my budget to win, so it did not become a new acquisition of the 30Squares Museum.

No big deal. I'm glad this item has survived this long. What a journey it has been on: created in the 1940s for a layout in New Jersey and ending up for sale in Kentucky in 2023. And, who knows where its new owner is located. Not to mention it looks in pretty good condition. It's all quite amazing. There must be a story in there somewhere. 

To the buyer: You've got an amazing find. 

To the vendor: Do you have other similar Bill Schopp artefacts in your warehouse? I hope you do.