An E. L. Moore sighting in France!

Screen capture at around 4:15 in 2 Pieds au Colorado

In yesterday's post about the 'Two Feet in Colorado' challenge I noted in the fine print that I thought I saw an old E. L. Moore designed kit on one of the modules. Take a look at the module by M. Guy Knox at around the 4:15 mark. The opening photo to this post is a detailed screen capture of the building in question with, ta da, the Grusom Casket Co. main building (aka the Ramsey Journal Building with different window frames), called out with the red arrow.

It's still amazing to me that here a quarter of the way through the 21st century these old kits keep popping up.

Red Car Barn

Last Sunday I was looking around for a small, simple kit to build to take my mind off things for a little while. I considered a few projects, but settled on AHM's Village Smithy. I had bought this model a few years ago with the goal of using it as a donor for refurbishing the one I built in the '70s. I figured, what the heck, just build it, refurbishment of the old relic can wait some more.

I decided not to go crazy on modifications as I wanted to finish it fast. I wanted to see if I could create a sense of flow by not prolonging construction. Considering my track record, I built this one dead fast: started on Sunday and added some finishing touches Friday. And yes, I entered that state of mental flow a few times and found the experience of building this barn quite pleasant.

At the outset I also decided it wasn't going to be a blacksmith. Since my very first E. L. Moore build back in '73 was a version of Bunn's Feed & Seed converted to an automobile garage I settled on this being a garage too. I think I'm fixated on garages these days, but it is what it is.

I'm not going to describe the barn's construction in detail as it's pretty simple. I'll just note a few minor changes.

I cut open the back wall where the little addition attaches to the main barn so that one can look all the way through the big front doors to the window in the addition's back wall.

The second storey hatch door on the front wall was replaced with an N scale Tichy Train Group window casting from my spares box. 

The base was cut away from the barn's floor and discarded. I should note that the floor was cut in such a way that it fit inside the barn and was surrounded by the walls instead of having the walls sit on top of it, which is the way the kit was designed. This meant the roof opening for the chimney had to be opened up a little so the chimney would properly sit on the floor.

Speaking of the chimney, it was moved to the back so that it didn't block the front entrance. The roof panels are symmetrical so flip-flopping the chimney to the back is no problem. Now, whether it is advisable to park gasoline powered cars near an open flame is entirely another sort of problem :-)

But, maybe the fire is inoperable these days because I didn't include the coal shed in the build.

Given this is the 21st century, and the neighbourhood the barn's located in, and the expensive cars inside, security cameras were called for. Well, at least signs indicating there were security cameras watching.

The barn was painted red to take it back to its roots. Green, being E. L. Moore's favourite colour, was used for the trim to give the kit's designer a tip of the hat.

I didn't have any plan to use this building, just construct it for purposes of mind soothing. However, while looking for a place to snap a beauty shot I absentmindedly plopped it down on the Way Out Layout where you see it in the drone view and instantly thought it belonged there. In fact I immediately had a mental image about how I wanted the large field between the road and the ocean to develop. All that from one careless placement of a building done in a carefree manner. I see lots of things to work on in the aerial view. Maybe they'll be next.

[Mid-morning update]: As seen outside the Red Car Barn early this morning:

[Mid-afternoon update]: A B&W in B&W:

E. L. Moore's smithy as Faller kit #131237

Paul recently brought to my attention the box art for Faller's packaging of E. L. Moore's village smithy kit and build - that's it in the top left corner. He mentioned he thought it was quite attractive and I have to agree. It's much better than the generic, nearly monochrome packaging used by Walthers. There was also a Pola release back in the day. It's box art seems to strike a halfway point between the other two. However, the old AHM box art still holds its own even though it shows a painting, not a model.

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[25 January 2024 update: Paul asked that I post the full catalog shot that Faller created so you could see the full diorama:

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Model Power's Star Journal Building origin year?

Source: Model Railroader, Apr. '77

I was reading through a random stack of old Model Railroader magazines and stumbled across that announcement in the Off the train wire column in the April 1977 issue.

That N-scale Ramsey Journal Building is the so-called Star Journal Building that was the basis of my Ramsey's Garage conversion. Given the lags in publication, I speculate the kit hit the hobby shops sometime between late 1976 and early 1977.

As you can see the fire station* is simply the Ramsey Journal Building's shell with different add-ons. In fact, it would have made a better starting point for Ramsey's Garage given those big doors on the front.

Although we seem to have narrowed down when Model Power released the kit, I still wonder if all they did was repackage and market a kit created by some other company, which was a common practice then. Time will tell.

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*Speaking of fire stations, April 1977 is the MR issue with E. L. Moore's infamous Cannonball and Safety Powder Works project. Why infamous? At the end of the project he blew up the model with some gun powder and photographed the conflagration.

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Afternoon update:

Source: Railroad Model Craftsman, May '77

I did a little searching through Railroad Model Craftsman magazines from 1977 to see what I could find. The May '77 issue has a report on new products on display at the 40th annual Hobby Industry of America trade show held earlier in the year. There on page 63 is a photo of Model Power's three new N-scale structures. In the accompanying text RMC had this to say: Model Power now offers N scale versions of several popular HO plastic kits including a 1:160 version of RMC's former office building down by the railroad tracks in Ramsey, N.J.. So, based on this I'd further narrow down the release date to early 1977.

Ramsey's Garage alias the Star Journal Building

Here at 30Squares Labs we continue to experiment with the compound N₂HO^c. For the laymen out there, N₂HO^c refers to structures resulting from converting N scale kits to casualized HO scale models. You may remember the previous project that successfully synthesized the 30Squares HQ (aka the Eldon Building) from Walthers' N scale Backshop kit.

Ok, ok, enough with the nonsense.

Back in March I bought this kit at a local swap meet. Since then its been sitting on the floor near my drafting table. While I was cleaning up after finishing Cal's Lumberyard I opened the box and wandered through the parts.

After a few minutes of handling I had a sense this little building would make an interesting HO scale garage. Well, it would be a casualized HO scale garage since, strictly speaking, this kit had nothing to do with HO scale.

The kit is an N scale version of the HO scale Ramsey Journal Building kit, which is based on E. L. Moore's project of the same name that appeared in the December 1967 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. The HO scale plastic kit of his project was first released by AHM (kit #5819) in the late 1960s. Over the years it was repackaged and re-released by a number of companies. I don't know when the N scale version was released, or if Model Power was the first to release it - I suspect not, but there's some research to be done on the history of this little model.

The kit was likely first released in the mid 70s or early 80s by the look of the parts. Even though the box wasn't sealed it appeared that all the parts were present. 

To build a credible version of the Ramsey Journal Building - or the 'Star Journal Building' as this thing is called, likely to avoid a copyright infringement legal entanglement - you'd have to apply generous amounts of TLC during construction.

The parts are rather crude by today's standards, not to mention their garish colours.

To make matters a bit worse, the walls have serious sink holes near the chimneys that need to be filled and re-scribed. For my garage I cut off the chimneys as they'd be out of scale, but I still had to fill those dimples.

The walls' inside surfaces are clean, but because I was going to open up the building I had to grind off all the mold release pins and assembly numbers.

I'm not going to walk you through a step-by-step build of this project. It's dead simple to make, and no doubt you'll know how to do it by simply studying the photos.

What I am going to do is focus on its design so if you're interested in doing your own N to HO conversions, you'll get a sense of the trade-offs required, and the properties of kits that might be suitable for such modifications.

First off, I should note I have my biases when tackling these sort of projects. I like a building that lets in lots of light, and that affords unobstructed views into and through it. Those were the primary drivers on the modified Cal's Lumberyard project, Cal's Cabbage Co., the McGregor Park Library, the Insectary, and what attracted me to Walthers Backshop kit. I applied that bias to this project. The kit has lots of windows that can let in a lot of light, a façade that can accommodate a big open door, and a flat roof for a big skylight, so it seemed to have the right characteristics for the kind of building I like.

One question that is often raised is, doesn't the size of the bricks give away the game? N scale bricks are far too small on an HO scale model. Yes, that's true, but there appears to be variation in brick sizes across kits, especially old ones.

The photo on the left compares the bricks on our garage to those on the Walthers Backshop kit. Both are allegedly N scale. Given that in HO a standard brick measures about 0.7mm high by 2.3mm long, the Model Power ones on the right of the photo are quite close to true HO, and the Walthers bricks in the centre of the photo are close to true N scale. Those bricks to the far left in the picture are sheet styrene panels I added to close up some openings in the Backshop. To confuse matters, the sticker on the sheet said they were "1:100 scale, HO scale". Well, they are close to 1:87.1, true HO scale. 

Since the bricks on the Backshop are too small for HO I chose not to detail them with mortar and weathering. To me the important feature of the building is its huge windows, and not its brickwork, so I chose not to call out the bricks and spoil the illusion. However, on the garage, given the bricks were about normal size for HO, and the exterior of the building was quite plain without either the clock tower or stock façade, I detailed the brickwork to provide more visual interest. It's all a choice about what you want the model to say.

Here's another comparison: Ramsey's Garage on the right and the Park Square building on the left. Park Square was built using the HO scale Ramsey Journal Building as its shell.

The Park Square's bricks are huge and seem more like blocks than bricks. In other words, the bricks on the HO scale Ramsey Journal Building kit are very oversize for HO scale.

One last comparison: our garage on the right and Moore's Balsa Products on the left, which is just my renamed build of the E. L. Moore designed HO scale AHM Machine Shop kit.

The bricks on the machine shop are much more HO-like than those on the Ramsey Journal Building. 

The message here is, don't be too swayed by the claims to HO or N scale as far as brickwork is concerned. Size it up for yourself.

And then there're windows.

Each window is a bit small for HO, but they're passable. Which is a good thing, because there were two other problems that had to be dealt with.

The first issue was each window had to be cut from the strips they were molded into so I could create individual frames. This isn't a problem for a box stock build because no one can see inside. Once de-stripped, I cut each window down from 8 panes to 4 by removing mullions with an X-acto knife. Ok, well, actually I removed the mullions first, and then removed the frames from the strips. The extra mullions had to go because in the 8 pane window, each pane seemed too small. With just 4 each, the windows seemed more in line with HO scale.

The second problem was the tops of the ground floor windows weren't high enough above grade. This is very apparent when they're compared to the back door I added - the door's a Tichy Train Group item.

What I should have done was add a styrene foundation wall about 18" to 24" tall to boost the structure. Galen recommended that for the Park Square building and it proved to be a significant improvement in the overall design.

Speaking of windows, the largest are part of the skylight.

The kit comes with a rather small skylight, and simply opening up the roof so it would let light inside wasn't going to produce the effect I wanted. I scratchbuilt a larger one from 0.020" thick sheet styrene and some styrene strips. It's that white, triangular structure shown in the photo on the left. Below it is the kit's stock skylight.

Skylights are pretty common on the E. L. Moore plastic kits. On the left is the Park Square build and that's its skylight. It's an HO scale item, but if I was opening up that model for more natural light I'd say it's too small to do much good.

The machine shop - Moore's Balsa Products in this picture - is better skylight-wise. Although If I were to do another I'd replace the kit's roof with a flat one and add some slightly bigger skylights.

The garage's new skylight uses considerably more rooftop real estate, but it still only just peeks above the walls, and it's not too noticeable from the street.

The only other new cosmetic detail was the addition of a pair of trifold doors out front made from slices of 0.020" styrene sheet. They didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped, so let's move on.

On the structural side, I had to add three internal joists made from styrene strips. The walls bowed inward, and since I had discarded the kit's base, I added the joists to get rid of the bow. They did the trick, and although they're merely sketches of actual joists, they make all the right suggestions when viewed from the outside.

Did any of these modifications for light and views work? Well, here's the view inside:

I can see the sign on the back wall of the post office through the garage's backdoor window, and there are some interesting shadows on the garage floor, so I'm happy with these effects, modest as they are.

Since I've been thinking recently about my father's old '49 Mercury I pulled my HO version from storage and used it in the glamour shots. It's an Oxford item.

Hey, if your friends don't hurry up they'll have to walk to school.

Paper trail on the birth of E. L. Moore’s Ramsey Journal Building

Sourced from the E. L. Moore Archives

In the E. L. Moore eBook I pieced together the story of how the model and kit of F & M Schaefer Brewery came to be as it was the first of the AHM plastic kits based on Moore designs to be produced. The second kit, the Ramsey Journal Building, has no detailed paper trail in the archive documenting the development of the kit, but there are some letters that give us a look into how the model came to be.

Hal Carstens, editor of RMC at the time, was in the habit of bouncing ideas for model projects off Moore. In a 28 June 1967 letter to Moore, Carstens bounced the idea for a model of RMC’s then headquarters, the Ramsey Journal Building:

…How practical would be a model of the old brick structure that was in the RMC Dec. 1965 center fold in the Wallworth painting? And in which our office is? The front would be the roughest part. One side (left) is plain brick with no windows and butts against another building.  Railroad side has mostly simple windows not shown in the photo or painting, but for which data is available. Rear has since been added to, but what was plain brick with a coupla windows, data for which is available. Tower is gone. Be kinda big but cute…

In the margin of the letter, Moore hand wrote this note to himself as he pondered the model’s design:

Much too big as seen in painting - I would say 25x40 and 30’ high excluding tower. Would put clocks in tower - what suggestions as to lettering over lower front? Instead of Vanderbeck Drug Store (Railroad Model Craftsman maybe) or whatever? Who needs data on side windows or rear unless unique?

I guess Moore did some further thinking about the model’s design and bounced some ideas of his own off Carstens in this extract from a 3 July 1967 letter to him:

All that palaver but it’s too much trouble to research waterfronts right now and easiest things first: so, I got out that two page center spread of the Wallworth painting — no research, no nothin’ but build it. And it ain’t so big as seen in the picture which is in HO scale — say, 25’ x 40’ and 30’ high excluding tower. Would put clocks in those vacancies up there, OK? The upper front would take just a little doing. Of course there’s a difference in doing it and doing it so the average modeler can follow without rupturing his sleen (spleen). Made a little trial on it yesterday and have it just about ready to put in place when I build the rest of it. Sunbursts of chalk. Tower doesn’t present any particular difficulties. JOURNAL at top I suppose, but what of the lower lettering — RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN, maybe? Where the Vanderbeck Drug Store or whatever is. Sides no problem, just windows — rear maybe a large door and platform out to siding, and usual windows. I’ll put queries on separate card. Then lay siding and only show one main track blocking rest out with train if necessary in photograph from left.

The next relevant letter I came across is one from Carstens to Moore dated 22 July 1967. It starts off:

What freight elevator? You’ll find some more photo of the “Dater Building” in the July 1963 RMC. Not too good for the side tho. Tsk.

I don’t know exactly what prompted Carstens to mention a freight elevator. I can’t find a letter from Moore to Carstens that mentions including a freight elevator, even though the model eventually did have one. I suspect Moore did send Carstens queries on separate cards as he noted in the 3 July letter  (meaning he sent Carstens questions about the model on postcards - at times they did exchange postcards, so there is a precedent) and one was about an internal freight elevator.

At the end of the 22 July letter Carstens notes:

Ok, no Austrian on the Journal Bldg. There goes my bottle of slivovitz. Heh, if you’d drink one of his bottles of slivovitz, you’d make him a whole dang town.

Once again, I think there is some missing correspondence, but I interpret the above to mean that there had been some discussion between Carstens and Nikolas Pfusterschmid - the Austrian being referred to - about turning the Ramsey Journal Building model into an AHM kit. In the eBook chapter on the AHM plastic models I discussed the possibility of Pfusterschmid, a well known leader in model railroad plastic kit marketing and product development of the time, being the catalyst for the creation of the Original 9 E. L. Moore kits. The only other reference I’ve seen about the development of a Journal building kit was in a letter from AHM’s Peter Van Dore that it would be one of the next ones produced after the Brewery.

The next mention of the Ramsey Journal Building model is in the 25 July 1967 cover letter to Moore’s typescript for the W. E. Snatchem funeral parlour model:

Old Journal building is completed except for lettering other than JOURNAL which is in place. If with drug store below, furnishings are ready to install with colorful window display. Second floor office fully furnished, lights installed. Them four clocks up in the tower really set it off . . . I’ll run up a flag on the flag staff before I photograph it.

It appears Moore quickly went from a suggestion by Carstens to finished model in about a month. It must have been strenuous because he concluded the above letter with this:

Well pardon me while I go out and lie in my hammock a while . . . . . 

On 13 August 1967 Moore submitted the article’s typescript and included this note in the cover letter:

Well here ’tis, looking a bit like the painting, such as shows. Damned telephone poles got in my way so I slapped ‘em down. My Porter hadda do to pull the passenger train being as I don’t have much to choose from.

You can see in this post’s lead photo that the telephone poles that appeared in the painting have been eliminated.

And that’s the story - or what’s left it - of the creation of the Ramsey Journal Building.

Some pictures of the Ramsey Journal Building

Last week's post that started off about Malcolm Furlow and quickly digressed into another E. L. Moore story stimulated a lot of discussion in the comments section about Moore's Ramsey Journal Building, both prototype and model.

Martin did some research and noted that the prototype was built in 1896. A 1979 fire caused it to be rebuilt in 1980, which likely explains the different 2nd floor, and maybe the missing clock tower (more on the disappearing clock tower below).

I realized I had a few images of the building and that it might be interesting to post them in one place to see how the structure has changed over the years.

Snipped from RMC July '63

E. L. Moore noted in his article that he only came across this photo on the right when he was just about finished his model. He had been using the Don Wallworth painting we'll discuss next as his primary reference.

The photo on the right was snipped from a much larger one that appeared in the article Station Stop on the Erie Past & Present - Ramsey that ran in the July '63 issue of RMC. The article's unidentified writer notes that the photo dates from around 1898, and that the tower on top of the building - the clock tower in the model and kit - was long gone by the time RMC moved in not long before the article was written. In his construction article Moore notes he took artistic license when he put clocks in that tower. So, the obvious question: Did the building have a clock(s) in the tower? I see circular indentations up there, but maybe there's heraldry in that space, not a clock. It looks rather clock-free.

From RMC Dec '64

The image on the right is snipped from the centrefold painting called "Ramsey Depot - 1905" that appeared in the Dec '64 issue of RMC. You can see the depot mentioned in the title in the complete painting, but in this snippet I've removed it to focus on the Ramsey Journal Building. I'm going to state the obvious - for reasons of excessive thoroughness :-) - and assume this is what the building looked like in 1905, 9 years after construction.

The painting was done by Don  Wallworth, and on page 35 of that issue there's a brief biographical note about him. I searched for him on the internet, but was only able to find this obituary.

RMC notes that although Mr. Wallworth had been painting for a few years when this one was published, it was "his first railroad painting to appear anywhere in color", and that it "was done in designers colors or tempera."

In his construction article E. L. Moore notes he used this painting as the reference for his model.

Is there a clock in that painted tower? It's a little obscure.

From Postcards Of Historical Ramsey, NJ.

Martin found this image. I've snipped the portion showing the Ramsey Journal Building from the larger image of Main St., and converted the picture to black and white. The source notes the picture dates from 1908.

As with the 1898 photo, you can clearly see that E. L. Moore's model is just of the end section.

I don't see a clock in that tower circle.

From E. L. Moore Archives

This is a photo of the model shot by E. L. Moore for use in his construction article that appeared in the Dec '67 issue of RMC. He submitted the typescript on 13 August 1967, soon after he had finished the model in late July 1967. As I noted earlier he used the Wallworth painting as his reference material.

Snipped from RMC Mar '83

This image was snipped from a larger one that appeared in the Jan '83 50th anniversary issue of RMC.

It's not mentioned when this photo was taken other than sometime when RMC was headquartered there. Based on that, my guess would be it's from sometime in the mid '60s (that portion of parked car in the photo looks familiar, but I can't place it)*. It is noted in the magazine that, 

"Following Penn's retirement, the new publisher, Hal Carstens, moved the headquarters to 6 E. Main St. in Ramsey, to a venerable Victorian structure later immortalized by an E. L. Moore article and a subsequent kit from AHM. Only a portion of the building was modeled by E. L., but it included the part occupied by RMC, which overlooked the Erie mainline."

This information was reiterated in RMC's Mar 2023 90th anniversary issue.

It's pretty clear the clocktower - maybe we should just call it the tower and drop the clock reference - is gone, and some new windows have been installed.

Snipped from the box art for AHM kit #5819

This image - which is slightly distorted - is snipped from the box art of AHM kit #5819, Ramsey Journal Building. The kit was based on the E. L. Moore project of the same name. I believe the kit was released in either 1968 or 1969.

Sourced from Google Street View (taken Sept 2008)

Beginning in Sept 2008 Google Street View has a record of how the building has looked since then. You can see in this inaugural image that the second floor is quite different than that of the original. Likely, as Martin noted, due to the 1979 fire and subsequent restoration in 1980.

Sourced from Google Street View (taken Oct 2021)

According to the Google Street View images from Sept 2008 to Oct 2021, the building hasn't changed over those years, but the tenants have.

No doubt there are other photos still out there, so if you come across any, please let me know.

*[10 May 2023 update: Vince informs me that the photo was likely taken no earlier than 1972 given the possible date of manufacture of the locomotive.]

The Ramsey Journal Building Then and Now

Now: From Google Streetviews (Google notes the image is from Oct 2021)

Paul contacted me a few days ago to tell me that Malcolm Furlow had died and suggested I might write a post about him. I've always admired Furlow's work, although I haven't built any of his projects as he seemed to focus on the American west and southwest, which isn't my area. 

But, I have tried to study his photograph composition techniques as they're excellent. To learn more about them I highly recommend Kalmbach's 1991 book, A Treasury of Model Railroad Photos, that is co-authored by Dave Frary, Malcolm Furlow, John Olsen, and Paul Scoles - an all-star lineup of model railroad photographers if there ever was one. Vince gave me a copy of this book a few years ago, and I'm glad he did as it's a constant source of inspiration.

Anyway, for some unknown reason, mention of Furlow immediately makes me think of Model Railroader's 50th anniversary issue from January 1984, and Railroad Model Craftsman's 50th from March 1983. Furlow was a panelist at MR's 50th anniversary conference and featured prominently in their 50th issue, and he had a feature article in RMC's 50th issue called, 1950 Rio Chama Excursion.

The RMC 50th doesn't dwell much on being 50 other than a long editorial on RMC's history by Harold Carstens. Since in my mind all roads lead to E. L. Moore I took special note of Carsten's reminisces of their business locations over the years. He mentioned that E. L. Moore did a modelling project about one of their locations, the Ramsey Journal Building in Ramsey, New Jersey, and how the model was eventually made into a plastic kit sold by AHM. 

Carstens noted the Ramsey Journal Building was located at 6 E. Main St. in Ramsey. I was curious to see if the building was still standing. It is and I've shown it in the lead picture. It's snipped from Google StreetViews, which they tell me was taken in October 2021. For comparison, take at  look at this painting of the same location that was a centrefold in Dec '64 issue of RMC. Today's version is a mere shadow of its former self, but at least it still exists. If I was to get an E. L. Moore tattoo that would be the place to get it :-) Long live balsa or something like that.

No, I haven't forgotten about Malcolm Furlow. I just need to put my E. L. Moore blinders on before I investigate further :-)

Announcement of E. L. Moore's Three Store Fronts and a Shop kits

Over the last few days for some unknown reason I've been thinking about an old issue of Model Railroader from the 1970s with cabooses on the cover - I think of it as the psychedelic caboose issue :-)

And for some other unknown reason I recall exactly the details of where and when I bought it, what kind of a day it was, and reading it for the first time. Although, all I could recall about its content was the cover and an article called Wayside warehouse* because I eventually built that model. Last night I decided to dig up the issue and see what was inside.

As well as the warehouse construction article there is also quite a good article on how to build models with Strathmore by Jimmy Gavelock, which I guess makes sense as the warehouse in the construction article is made from that material.

The surprising find was a notice in the Trade Topics section for the old AHM kits of E. L. Moore's Three Store Fronts and a Shop project. Given this MR is the June 1974 issue, the kits were most likely released earlier in 1974. This then brackets the period when the Original 9 AHM E. L. Moore designed kits were released: the first was the Brewery in 1968, and last were the two Three Store Fronts and a Shop kits in 1974 (this of course all assumes the larger the AHM kit#, the later it was released).

The Trade Topics notice makes no mention that these kits are based on an E. L. Moore project, likely because that project appeared in RMC as did all the other Moore designed kits. The review also 'bland-ifies' these colourful kits. You can see for yourself some of their baroque glory in my one-and-only stab at an unboxing video I did many years ago:

*I still have that wayside warehouse model I built from the article somewhere around the house. I think I recall the box it's in, and given that it's raining like crazy today, I'll go on safari to find it :-)