A new stake car for the Lands & Forests RR

Left: Unconverted | Right: Converted

I took the stake wagon that had a pair of broken stakes on one end and 'converted' it to a freelanced car for the Loonar Module. I say 'converted' because all I did was add some sign boards, paint the body yellow, the wooden floor a dirty brown, and the chassis a grimy black, and then add some decals - not much of a conversion.

A few days after finishing I was reading through Brick Price's narrow gauge modelling book again, and stumbled across a very similar 'conversion' on page 95. Concerning the gondola in figure 8-24 at the top of the page, Mr. Price had this to say:

It is made in England and is considered N scale, but the body size is perfect and the trucks are even credible for arch bars. It took fifteen minutes to convert the coupler, weather it, and remove the buffers on the end.

Everything old is new again I guess.

Brick Price's Modeling Narrow-Gauge Railroads

MN-GR from 1984 | How to go T&TWM from 1982

A major difficulty in modeling realistic structures from kits is to produce an original design. Most of the dozens of building kits on the market have already appeared in hundreds of photographs in one book or another. It makes no difference how these buildings are placed on a layout or what colors that are painted. If the buildings are from the same kit, they will always look alike unless they are heavily modified. This problem is unique to structures. You expect to see thousands of almost-identical boxcars, but you don't expect to see more than one of Dale's Dingies. Ironically, most model railroaders tend to purchase as many different freight cars as possible, yet they buy the same structures that appear on other model railroads and build them just the way they come out of the box.

Brick Price on Structure Conversions; Modeling Narrow-Gauge  Railroads, 1984.

Being curious about the work of Brick Price recently prompted me to buy a copy of his 1984 book on narrow gauge model railroading. It strikes me as something of an odd book, and it leaves me wondering if it was given a rigorous editing prior to publication. It seems like a book for someone who has a bit of familiarity with model railroading and still has large gaps in their general modelling and model railroading knowledge, but might be interested in taking up narrow gauge model railroading. So, there is a lot of general modeling and model railroading material, which at times leaves me thinking the narrow gauge material is a bit thin.

Although, I particularly liked the somewhat misnamed Cross-Kitting chapter. It's not a chapter on the general techniques of kitbashing, or cross-kitting to use the author's term, but an excellent summary on how to kitbash HO scale narrow gauge rolling stock and locos circa the late '70s and early '80s. Lots of interesting examples are shown, and I think the information is still quite applicable today. I found the Scratchbuilding chapter the oddest as it concentrates on providing very general overviews of woodcarving, making rubber molds, lost wax casting, resin casting, metal die-casting, and vacuum forming plastic, which are all rather advanced, professional level scratchbuilding techniques. There isn't anything in the chapter about traditional hobbyist oriented scratchbuilding methods like building from styrene stock or cardboard. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised as Mr. Price was a professional modeller. 

A modified Revell Engine House; Compare to Jack O'Vall's

Maybe you're wondering, how does David Voice fit into this? Both books are from the same era - Price's was published in 1984 and Voice's in 1982 - and deal with specialist subjects, but Mr. Voice's doesn't drift much beyond his topic and into general model railway subjects, even though some knowledge of them is useful for building a successful tramway layout. The most striking difference is Mr. Price doesn't show example layouts or trackplans, even of his own layout. Narrow gauge layouts, like tramway layouts, are quite different from conventional model railroads, so examples are worthwhile. Mr. Voice has plenty of examples to ground his discussion. 

Yes, I know, my review is around 40 years too late :-) So, what's the big deal? None actually. With these old books I don't look at them as they were intended when they were published. I wouldn't use Modeling Narrow-Gauge Railroads as a guide to building a serious narrow gauge layout today, but look at it as a compendium and record of some of Brick Price's work and thoughts in the area, which are excellent and inspiring, although it would have been nice if the book had some pictures of his layout.

A third Brick Price Railroad Modeler article

Railroad Modeler, May 1975

Last week I wrote about how I had stumbled across two articles by Brick Price in Railroad Modeler. I went on a hunt for others, but only found one more: instant M-O-W caboose in the May 1975 issue. The article is about kitbashing an MDC / Roundhouse old time caboose and a billboard reefer into a maintenance-of-way caboose.

I'll let you know if I find anything else from the pen of Mr. Price.

Connections: Bruce MacRae to Brick Price to Railroad Modeler

Scale Modeler, March 1974

Late August to early September this year is more or less the 50th anniversary of when I got seriously interested in model building. I look back at the period from August 1972 to sometime in the spring or early summer of 1974 as the time when my interest in all things related to model building gelled into a lifelong pursuit. There were many periods, often years long, when the only expression of that interest was buying a model building magazine or two, but the interest persisted.

I still have many of the hobby magazines I bought at that time and have been looking through them again; this time with an adult’s critical eye instead of a boy’s unbridled enthusiasm. I don’t want to get all weepy and nostalgic as no good will come of that, but I do want to try to understand myself and my immersion in that time better. 

Around the end of that period, maybe in February or March of 1974, I bought an issue of Scale Modeler magazine, which was also published by the same company who published Railroad Modeler, Challenge Publications. Buying it was a bit of a risk because there was a No War Comics edict in my house, and that issue of SM clearly had a painting of two warplanes on the cover. Even so, it wasn’t those two planes that made me take the risk of having the $1.50 magazine confiscated, but the extensive set of photographs of a diorama built by a gentleman named Bruce MacRae. They appeared in an article called The Wine Tasters. It spanned 8 pages, and included 9 large black-and-white photos as well as a double page spread of 3 equally large colour photos. I was fascinated by the diorama, and had to buy the magazine to study the diorama at my leisure instead of under the accusatory eye of the smoke shop owner where I bought my comics and magazines.

Railroad Modeler, December 1974

I’m still impressed by that diorama. I think the reason is the high level of animation in the figures and vehicles, coupled with strong story telling all throughout the scene. The models are also excellent, but that wasn’t the main attraction. I’m usually blasé about military subjects no matter how great the modelling, but this one was - and still is - compelling. 

So, I wondered who is Bruce MacRae? A little bit of internet searching informed me that he is a professional model builder, and at one time worked for the legendary modeller for movies (Star Trek: The Motion Picture being one of the more famous), tv shows, and NASA, Brick Price. Mr. Price featured a number of photos of MacRae’s work in his 1981 book, The Model-Building Handbook, which, as well as a train, has a photo of a scene from a MacRae diorama on its cover.

Over at Memory Alpha there are entries for Brick Price’s company, WonderWorks, Inc. (founded in late 1977 as Brick Price Movie Miniatures according to the site) and Bruce MacRae, who is noted to have worked for Price’s company in 1979. WonderWorks still exists.

I learned with the Tom Daniel surprise that if a famous model maker lived in the Los Angeles area in the 1970s, it might pay to see if they were ever published in Canoga Park based Railroad Modeler magazine. Bruce MacRae’s work had appeared in one of RM’s sister publications, so I wondered if he or Brick Price ever had anything published in RM?

Railroad Modeler, February 1975

I haven’t found anything yet for Bruce MacRae, but so far I have found two articles by Brick Price:

Economy Log Hog, December 1974 (how to convert a Far East Distributors 2-6-0T into a logging locomotive)

Jack O’Vall’s Machine Shop, February 1975 (kitbashing an AHM Weekly Herald into a locomotive repair facility / machine shop / Ford dealership / gas station complex)

I don’t see any mention of these articles at the WonderWorks website, although the Memory Alpha article notes Mr. Price published extensively in International Modeler magazine, and those IM articles were instrumental in getting him noticed in the movie and tv business.

These 1974 and 1975 articles predate the founding of WonderWorks by 2 or 3 years, so maybe Mr. Price still had time for model railroading in the early to mid ‘70s. The 1975 article notes he was building a 3’ x 12’ HO scale narrow gauge layout.

Hopefully there are more interesting surprises still to come. The search continues.

E. L. Moore’s Legacy in the 21st Century: Grizzly Flats and The N-scale Affair

E.L. Moore published almost exclusively in HO scale, although a couple of his articles dealt with rolling stock projects in HOn2-1/2. But, there was one project, which appeared in the October to December 1968 issues of Railroad Model Craftsman, where he worked in a very different size: The Enskale and Hoentee. It was a small, 30 inch square, layout that cleverly integrated N, TT and HOn2-1/2 models. 

You may wonder why I built such a small pike in the first place, when the bigger they come the harder you fall for them. And frankly it was because suddenly smitten by this petite little N scale, and then too I wanted to see if my old love affair with HO might be rekindled to include N in a bigamous union.

[E.L. Moore on why he incorporated N and HOn2-1/2 in a single layout]

If one looks closely, the layout is basically an N-gauge layout where the landscape is sized to allow HOn2-1/2 rolling stock to run. N and HOn2-1/2 both run on N-gauge track, so no problem fulfilling H. G. Wells’ basic requirement for rolling stock that everything is ok as long as it all can run on the same gauge track!

[The unused station from Part 3 of the RMC article on the construction of The Enskale and Hoentee that appeared in the Dec '68 issue.]

The odd thing is why was TT included? Mr. Moore makes little mention of TT in the series other than stating that he had three TT scale buildings on hand - a rather large and ornate station, a freight station and a water tank - that he had scratchbuilt well before starting this project. TT rolling stock won’t run on N-gauge track, although narrow gauge TTn3 will. But, TT is roughly halfway between HO and N in size, so the terrain could be used with TT if the reader decided to build pure a TT layout back then. I don’t know if TTn3 was around in ’68, but if it was, The Enskale and Hoentee could accommodate.

[Elevations for the unused station from part 3 of the RMC article of the construction of The Enskale and Hoentee that appeared in the Dec '68 issue.]

The TT scale station seems to have been included on the layout quite by accident, so maybe the TT thing was just a way to use buildings that were on hand that looked ok in the N scale world. Mr. Moore stated he built an N scale depot for the layout, but it looked too small in comparison to the other N scale buildings he had made; however, the TT station looked just right, so the little N scale depot was abandoned.

The N scale depot is only 15’ x 25’, built of 1/32” scribed sheathing, .025” spacing, which was then cemented to 1/32” balsa for extra thickness. Actually it is so small it is dwarfed by other buildings and so was not used. A simple thing to build and requiring but a couple of days.

[E. L. Moore on how to build what is essentially a simplified Grizzly Flats like depot for the The Enskale and Hoentee]

Although, that discarded N scale depot looked very familiar. It has the same overall dimensions and shape as his HO scale version of the Grizzly Flats depot [1] that E. L. Moore built in the March ’62 issue of Model Trains, although the roof and trimming were highly simplified in his N scale iteration. This got me wondering if I could build an N-scale version of the Grizzly Flats depot from that old Model Trains article. And although the Grizzly Flats depot didn’t appear on E. L. Moore’s Elizabeth Valley Railroad, adding one to an N-scale version would seem to fit into the spirit of his layouts.

E.L. Moore used balsa as the basis of both the HO scale Grizzly Flats model and its N-scale little brother. Given the complexity of the Grizzly Flats build, I didn’t think I could build an N-scale version in balsa, and decided to use styrene instead as I thought that would allow me to cut the components with more precision. It’s not a Moorian choice [2], but one that I thought would make the project more viable for me. And, it turned out that as I proceeded, I had to make changes to accommodate my skills in order to allow me to make progress and see the project though to the end. It took much longer than Mr. Moore’s "couple of days" for the N scale version, and even longer than his "a week is about right" for the HO one. I haven’t scratchbuilt an N-scale building before, and it retrospect it seems a little too difficult for a starter project in either HO or N. But, with caveats in hand, here goes.

The project got started by cutting wall substrate from 0.020 in. styrene for all walls except the front, which was built up from two layers of 0.010 in. sheet. This was so a depression could be created for inserting the bay window.

After that stage I posted a few instalments of the build as I made progress. I won't repeat them, but if you're interested you can find them here,

here,

here,

and here.

Once the build got to this point with the walls all glued up and standing, I moved on to making the windows.

The window material came from a box of Christmas chocolates.

I used E. L. Moore's method of drawing the window frames on paper, taping the clear plastic sheeting over them, and then drawing the frames on the sheets with a paint filled ruling pen. I used the same technique when I built the handcar shed and Vicki's Veggies.

I used the Poly Scale blue trim paint to line the window frames. I must admit that I had to go back and do some extra lining because I messed up the dimensions of the windows a bit. In the end, it worked out, but was a bit of a pain to redo the job after the windows were cut out.

Here they are cut from the sheet and ready to be trimmed for fitting into the window openings.

The bay window -with its 3 walls - was drawn out as a single piece of clear plastic that was scored so it could be folded into the bay shape.

Three individual bay walls were cut from 0.010 inch styrene and painted with the light blue mix. The idea is to glue these over the three folded clear windows to build up the bay.

After lining the window frames with the ruling pen, the bay walls were glued to the window unit with Krystal Klear.

The bay window was bent into shape and used to size the floor.

Before gluing the bay window unit into the building a shelf and ceiling were cut from 0.010 inch styrene and glued into position.

Here's the bay after it was glued in place and the trim strips were added. One thing I should note is that Mr. Moore makes no mention of doors, although the actual station appeared to have them. I also left them off. A small transom window was added at the top of each door opening. These windows were made using the same methods as the other windows.

Once the bay window was done I started on the roof. The basic panels that make up the primary roof structure were measured from the article's plans and cut from 0.020 inch styrene.

Three triangular gussets are used to strengthen the roof. Mr. Moore designed the roof to be removable, hence the gussets. At this point in the project, I thought I'd do the same, but later I abandoned that idea and glued the roof in place for strength.

A piece was then glued into the triangular cut-out. Some sanding and filing was needed to smooth out the fit.

Next was to cut a hole in the roof for the dormer over the bay window.

I didn't use the dormer templates provided in the article to make these as my roof opening was a little larger because I erroneously made the bay window unit taller than the article showed. I had to dust off my high school trig to layout these pieces. I won't subject that to anyone now, but I'm thinking about a future post on how to layout dormers of any size.

It fit well once it was glued in place and a triangular piece was added.

Here's the almost finished roof. During test fitting it was easy to see that the bay window didn't mesh into the roof structure properly, so I added a fascia to the front of the dormer as a view blocker.

You can see the blue fascia in this view. I painted the outer surface of the roof flat black before gluing on shingles to make the structure a little opaque.

But, the inner surface was painted flat white and some pencil lines were drawn on to represent boards.

In the May 1954 issue of Model Trains, Bill McClanahan wrote an article called How to Raise the Roof which summarized the then typical techniques for modelling shingles. In E. L. Moore's article he used the old method of scribing balsa with a sharp, hard pencil, and he appears to have used it on the N-scale version slotted for the The Enskale and Hoentee. I wasn't keen on it, so I decided to use the John Allen technique outlined in Mr. McClanahan's article. Basically, I started by getting a piece of brown wrapping  paper (note that Mr. Allen used brown construction paper for his HO shingles), taping it to a cutting mat and painting it with loose washes of blue and brown paint. I didn't use white paper because when it's cut to represent shingles, there would be unsightly white edges.

I cut out a collection of 4mm strips and proceeded to slice into them shingles in roughly 1 to 2mm sections. Rather large for N-scale, but they looked ok in the end. I'll need do better on the next project.

The strips were then glued on the roof - using white glue - in staggered pattern.

Here's what it looks like with all the shingles glued on. I should have added individual shingles where the dormer joins the main roof as I did with the roof corners, but I didn't think I could do a good job, and the intersection of the two roofs looked sharp, so I left it as is. Although, I was happy with the colour variation in the roof.

The decorative roof ridge trim was cut from 0.010 inch styrene. The short piece shown above goes on the dormer. Mr. Moore's model also has decorative posts at the ends of the trim carved from round toothpicks. I thought these would be a little too difficult for me to make in N-scale, so I left them off.

There are a number of exterior roof supports mounted under the eaves that run along the front and back walls. I made each from two pieces of 0.020 inch styrene. The first piece is a V-shape - shown above - were the long arm attaches to the wall, and the short arm attaches to the eaves. The actual Grizzly Flats station has rather ornate roof supports, and Mr. Moore noted they were too elaborate for him to make in HO, so he built some simplified curved ones instead. I simplified even further and made the supports with straight struts. Photo-etch or laser cutting methods would certainly allow for more precise modelling of the prototype's supports - the roof ridge trim too.

A diagonal strut is then glued across the opening of each V. The untrimmed supports are shown above.

The end walls also have roof supports, but they have a different shape. The 'V-portion' isn't really a V, but an L since the arms are perpendicular to each other. However, they're made in the same way as the main wall roof supports. The picture above shows them after they have been glued together, trimmed and sanded to the final shape, and are ready for painting. The triangle near the upper left is the far end wall decorative insert. It was cut from 0.010 inch styrene.

Here are some painted roof supports along with the decorative end-wall inserts, which are both made from 0.010 inch styrene. The white triangular insert goes under the eaves in the roof end that doesn't have the drooped, triangular cut-out. Reading Mr. Moore's article closely I wonder if he detailed this wall or left it plain as he said he did with the back wall. No photos or plans are shown, and the text is skimpy, so I wonder if for expediency of article production, it was left more-or-less unfinished. I had to go to the Train time at Grizzly Flats article in the October 1950 issue of Trains to see what it looked like.

Believe it or not, other than adding signs, some touch-up painting, and gluing those pieces on, it's done!

Here's the station side-by-side with the E. L. Moore HO-scale handcar shed that I built way back in the second instalment in this series. The shed seems huge.

And, yes I did finish the 'back' of the station,

as well as the 'front'.

Digressions

[1] The real Grizzly Flats station wasn’t real at all – it was a movie prop. The station was built for the 1949 Walt Disney movie, So Dear to My Heart. 

Some internet searching suggests that the Grizzly Flats station prop might have been inspired by an actual depot on the Lehigh Valley Railroad. That station’s story can be found at Scot Lawrence's excellent post on the subject.

Instead of being scrapped when filming was over, Walt Disney, a serious train fan himself, gave it to his equally railroad obsessed chief animator, Ward Kimball. Mr. Kimball moved it the backyard of his San Gabriel estate where he had a small, full-sized layout with a steam loco, water tower, windmill, engine house and 925 feet of track. It was profiled in an October 1950 Trains article called Train Time at Grizzly Flats. From the article it looks like Trains publisher, Al Kalmbach, was invited to tour the layout to get a first-hand impression. Interestingly, some internet searching suggests that the Grizzly Flats station still exists today on the grounds of the Lasseter Family Winery in California's Sonoma Valley.

While I was searching online for information about the Grizzly Flats station I came across this publicity photo of Rowland Emett ‘getting ready for a good night’s sleep’ in the depot. An interesting coincidence of two signposts in the early E. L. Moore canon: Rowland Emett and Grizzly Flats. 

[I can't find the url for this photo, but I'll insert it here when I find it again]

[2] While browsing in a local used bookstore in the summer I came across The Model-Building Handbook: Techniques Professionals Use by Brick Price. It was published in 1981 and to me it’s still interesting. 

One thing I particularly like about this book, and others of its vintage, is the extensive use of line drawings. Although, Mr. Price makes it very clear on where he stands about using balsa in the  Materials chapter, "Forget you ever heard about balsa. The woods I use are bass, clear pine, Jelutung, walnut and oak." 

Mr. Price’s extensive comments about balsa as a modelling material are correct, but it should be remembered what the book’s sub-title makes clear, he’s a professional model maker whose firm made models for many high profile Hollywood movies. Although they undoubtedly worked within a budget, that budget was likely far greater than a typical amateur hobbyist has available. What makes balsa attractive is that it’s inexpensive, easy to work with and readily available. It has its limitations, but many can be minimized through various finishing techniques. This is why it has hung on as a model building material even for those who don’t need to make use of its light weight as people who build flying models do.

Since E. L. Moore was an individual of modest means, with apparently a patient attitude and some modelling time on hand, I can see why he stuck with balsa. However, a modeller with a bit more cash available can make use of other materials that can yield more refined results with less time and effort. I’d hate to recommend that people completely abandon balsa and card and other simple, common materials as they’d be needlessly turning their backs on the potential for creating interesting and charming works. Although mid-20^th century modelers like E. L. Moore, John Allen, George Stokes, Jack Work, John Ahern and others may have initially used simple materials more out of necessity than choice, they produced excellent pieces and developed simple practices that I think still have the potential for producing good models.