The Lengthy Lineage of Little Layouts, Part 4: A '75 vintage micro in N-6.5

An N-scale, 16" x 23" layout using Z-gauge track; Railroad Modeler, Jan '75

I was pleasantly surprised to see this charming micro-layout as I began my read through the 1975 issues of Railroad Modeler. There it was, only 32 pages into January '75, looking like a lost time traveller from 2026.

The layout is a tour de force of micro-layout construction by Jim Finnell, the owner of Durango Press. 

The base was made from corrugated and artist cardboards. The track and turnouts were scratchbuilt from code 40 rail and HOn3 wood ties. 

The "transistorized" power supply and controls were built into the base, so the entire layout formed a single unit. I was pleased to see a thick-base design (which I estimate to be about 5.5") that I am partial to even though it was probably used simply to accommodate the controller housing.

The scenery was made from plaster and rubber molds, trees were scratchbuilt, and the ground cover was a combination of natural and store-bought materials.

Even the locomotive was a custom job: a very decent looking wood and card superstructure built on a Marklin Z-scale chassis.

An exceptional 2-page spanning beauty shot of the layout

Besides the model railroad, the way it was shown to readers illustrates how Railroad Modeler pushed the boundaries of layout presentation in magazines in that era. Today this sort of page design and use of colour isn't unusual, but back then is was. And with such a small layout as the subject, the team did an exceptional job of showing it off.

The staff referred to the layout in the text as a "mini-layout", but with an area of 2.6 sq. ft., it was definitely an advanced ancestor of today's micro-layouts. 

The Lengthy Lineage of Little Layouts, Part 3: Noitcart Traction, a Micro before Micros

'Track Plan' of the Noitcart Traction 'layout'

As I worked on the lunar loco I thumbed through all the pages of the April '78 issue of Model Railroader in which it appeared. Near the back I stumbled across a 2-page article called Noitcart Traction by Eric Bronsky, the legendary traction modeller. 

Noitcart Traction is closer to a typical humorous April article than Cerny & Hayden's both in style and content, even though it's about an actual 'layout' that actually runs. I draw your attention to it because one might think of it as a micro-layout before there were micro-layouts.

It's simply a long strip of O-gauge track for running Mr. Bronsky's fine-standards O-scale traction car. It's noted that the layout "...rests upon three separate planks of 1/2"-thick plywood wide enough to accommodate the single track and line poles." and "The three roadbed sections butt together like sectional track. All six line poles, the wire and all, are stuck into a block of Styrofoam for storage." 

No dimensions are given for this portable 'layout', just a drawing that says it's drawn to 1" = 1'-0", so I got out my ruler and made some measurements. What I find is that when it's assembled it's about 108-3/4" long by 3-3/4" wide. That gives an area of about 2.8 sq. ft., well within the micro-layout range.

Mr. Bronsky clarifies that the 'layout ' isn't just a test track: "What little scenery I had room for is best described as "changing roadbed", but it is sufficient to keep NT slightly above the test track category." It's true, the car runs through street track and varying natural ground cover.

A minimal traction 'layout' indeed, and a micro-layout ancestor.

Riffing on Cerny & Hayden's lunar loco in OO scale

A lunar locomotive inspired by Cerny & Hayden's Apr '78 MR April Fool's project.

A couple of weeks ago Steve was telling Debra and me about Lego's upcoming release of the moon rocket from Tintin that was featured in the albums Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon. This lead to a fairly wide ranging discussion, and me being me, I started to wonder about the feasibility of building a small, maybe micro-sized, futuristic lunar model railway. And with April coming up this lead me to again think about the article A lunar railroad you can model by Alan Cerny and Bob Hayden that appeared in the April 1978 issue of Model Railroader.

Once a scale was settled on I started to work out dimensions to fit the drive unit,
and look right when an astronaut stood beside it. The loco is unmanned.

After that initial discussion I started to think long and hard about a freelanced little lunar layout that would incorporate, and maybe showcase, Lego's Tintin rocket and the Cerny & Hayden train. To make a very long story short, I eventually settled on a layout that included the rocket, elements of the C&H train, as well as the excavation site in the moon's Tycho crater where the monolith is discovered in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Yes, you read that right: Tintin, C&H, and 2001 in a single layout :-) If I can get the locomotive, train, and track to pass various layout feasibility tests I have in mind, I'll post the layout plan, but until then it's all highly questionable as to whether it will work. Regardless, this gave me a good excuse for trying my hand at making an operating version of the C&H loco as I've wanted to do for 48 years!

These figures are molded in some hideously soft plastic.

The first question that needs to be dealt with is scale. I won't keep you in suspense: I chose OO, 1/76 scale. Why? Well, there are two reasons: one technical, and one artistic.

The technical one is easy (although not completely separable from the artistic one): I have 2 boxes of Airfix OO scale astronauts, and an HO motor bogie from BD Concepts (16.5mm gauge with a 34mm wheelbase).

And then there's the artistic reason, which gets down to questions of size and viewer relatability. 

Let's start with the Tintin rocket. It sure isn't OO scale. The Lego website states it's 49cm tall, and the official Tintin site states that according to Tintin canon the 'prototype' stood 75m tall. So, this puts the Lego model at 1:153 scale, which is in the range of the various N-scales that are used throughout the world: 1:148 to 1:160. If the Lego rocket was in OO this would put the prototype at 34.7m tall, considerably shorter than 75m.

Does this height discrepancy matter? As you know I've posted a lot about Selective Compression over the years (for example, see: Selective Compression [alternate], Selective Compression [alternate #2], Use small to seem large, and Selective Impression) and its application to make big things still seem big on a layout even though rigorous adherence to scale is violated. Recall that I'm still trying to build a TD-Centre replica for an HO-scale micro layout, and if I was rigorous about scale an HO scale model would stand nearly 8 feet tall! So, the answer is, the rocket needs to seem a lot taller than surrounding elements, especially people, even though it is considerably shorter than its 'prototype'. Given that the Lego rocket stands 490mm tall, and the astronaut figures are around 20 to 25mm tall, that relative height requirement is meet. 

Also I should point out that the rocket itself makes it easy to play this game with scales because of its lack of visible size markers like windows and hatches. There is a lower hatch on the fuselage, down near the fins, but when closed it disappears into the red-and-white checker board pattern. 

If I had stuck to N-scale I think the non-rocket elements on the layout, especially the people, would be too small to be relatable to viewers. There'd be a giant rocket and everything else would be teeny-tiny. As well, I don't know how I'd build a C&H train that small.

So, compromise and judicious balancing of layout element sizes is the order of the day.

The BD Concepts motor bogie used to drive the lunar loco

The article states the C&H loco is built to 3/8" scale, which is roughly 9.5mm = 1ft. OO-scale is 4mm = 1 ft, so my model is considerably smaller than theirs, and my model's size is driven by the size of the BD Concepts motor bogie I used: their 34 mm wheelbase unit. They have smaller ones. I used their 28mm unit in the Spumoni Flyer. I only had the 34mm one on hand, so that was that. My choice makes the loco longer than C&H's.

The loco is built up from 3 styrene boxes cut from 0.020" thick scraps:
a rectangular box that covers the drive unit,
a box with trapezoidal ends that sits on top, and
a funny shaped 'nose box' that's stuck on the front.

Ok, you're at 30Squares, and you know I'm interested in the backstories to old model railroading projects, and this one had a strong pull :-) I've wanted to build it for a long time, and looking back, 1978 was a rough year for me, so there's a little bit of nostalgic retrospection going on in me with this project.

I got a little confused when I started searching for Cerny references in the Model Railroader archive because there was mention of an Elmer Cerny and an Alan Cerny. It turns out Elmer was Alan's father. Elmer was an exceptional draftsman, and had a career in the pages of MR as a contributor of highly detailed drawings of locomotives, rail cars, buildings, and other structures.

Two nuts from my cast-offs box were glued in for weight.
The hatch panels are cut from scraps of 0.010" thick styrene.

It appears Elmer's first contribution was a letter to the editor in the December 1952 issue. From what I can tell his first full length piece in MR was an article called Build the Bartlett Building Materials Warehouse in the September 1970 issue. 

State of construction at the end of day 1.

From then on Elmer Cerny was a fairly regular contributor of exquisite mechanical and architectural drawings until the October 1978 issue. MR had very high drawing standards, and Mr. Cerny's work was one of the cornerstones of that tradition. By my count it looks like he contributed 13 articles and/or drawings throughout the 1970s.

The top of the rectangular box is made from 0.040" (about 1mm) thick styrene.
The opening is sized to accept the drive unit mounting clips.
I explained how to attach one of these drive units here.

Mr. Cerny contributed a number articles of a type of what I might call, building profiles. In these articles he'd present photographs of a building that caught his interest, describe it and talk about it, and include fine architectural drawings that would allow a modeller to build an accurate replica. So, in some ways, MR was at times playing the role of an architectural historical archive.

Jumping ahead in the build sequence: here is the drive unit clipped into the opening.
I haven't decided on how I'm going to couple cars together, so no couplers yet.

Alan Cerny, Elmer Cerny's son, was a MR staff member in the Art / Layout department. His first appearance in MR's masthead, under the Art / Layout heading naturally, was in the February 1976 issue. His name continued to be listed there up until its last appearance in the January 1979 issue when it looks like he left the magazine.

State at the end of day #2.
The nose box was also built of 0.020" thick styrene.
The bumper is a piece of 0.060" x 0.060" styrene strip.

His name is listed as a collaborator on a few technical drawings that appeared in MR over the years, but his splashiest bylined contribution during his tenure I think was the lunar model railroad article.

The other side of the shell at the end of day #2
The greeblies came from various kit leftovers:
The antenna, front lights, and camera are from a Moonscope kit.
The lifting hooks are from a Sikorsky Skycrane kit.
The lifting handholds are from some long forgotten airplane kit.

The article seems to have gotten a lot of play. 

It was mentioned in Russ Larson's April editorial. Reading that editorial all these years later makes we wonder if MR okayed this project to capitalize on the excitement created by Star Wars, which was released the previous year, and since they noted that Cerny was "caught up in the current space fantasy craze" maybe he was just the guy for the mission :-)

Rare behind the scene view of 30Squares' scrap and greeble bins
located deep in the bowels of 30Squares' secret construction facility :-)

The Bull Session column in the May '78 issue has a lengthy note in the tradition of those book and magazine articles that were published in that era that had titles like The Making of 2001, The Making of Star Trek, and the Making of Star Wars. This bull session note was their The Making of The Lunar Model Railroad. The author mentions the idea of lunar railroading was kicked off by Bob Hayden on the afternoon of 28 October 1977, which would indeed put it in the midst of the Star Wars craze. 

State at the end of day #3: A horribly bungled paint job that had to be stripped!
I was giddy with joy at being able to spray paint outside on a day with summer-like temps.
It was windy though, and I held the spray can too close for too long to the shell and....
blobby paint resulted.

And there were other things going on in the culture that may have also fuelled interest from MR. The lunar model railroad article notes Stewart Brand's book, Space Colonies, which was published in September 1977, as a reference. Also, Gerard O'Neill's highly influential book, The High Frontier, was first published in January 1977, and in paperback in January 1978. Star Wars itself was released at the end of May 1977. There was a positive space vibe in the air at the time, so maybe MR was looking for a little piece of the action.

State at the end of day #5, the final day of construction.
Day #4 was spent repainting the shell with a brush!
And doing detail painting and decaling.
On day #5 all that was left to do was snap in the drive unit....and voila!

The June and July '77 issues contained a number of positive letters from lunar railroad fans in the Railway Post Office column. One correspondent, a Mr. Thomas G. Levy, noted: "If the lunar train concept and modelwork had been in existence before 1968, it would have undoubtedly been included in the lunar surface footage of the motion picture "2001: A Space Odyssey." It would be an excellent idea to be included in the upcoming movie "Star Wars, Part 2"". Challenge accepted :-)

The paint stripping wasn't perfect and left a rough surface.
I rather liked it and just painted over it.
Maybe it's some sort of thermal coating that's been eroded by moon dust :-)

Another correspondent, Mr. Dan Swearingen, noted that some of the components used looked like those in his old Erector Set, and one proposed shipping container looked like a sardine can. Mr. Donald L. Ward commented that: "...the lunar railroad was excellent! Previous attempts at "April foolery" have been just foolishness, but here is an article filled with creative imagination." Overall the response, well at least those published, was quite positive.

I think that greeble on the right is a starter motor from a car model :-)
I haven't figured out what to do about couplers.
And weathering, that'll be much later if a layout comes to pass.

There's a brief biographical note about Alan Cerny in an article that introduced MR's then current staff in the August '78 issue. It notes he had a longtime interest in model building and art, and that he studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. The article also says he regarded model railroading as "a renaissance hobby in which you can learn about the world and yourself - "about your skills and limitations.""

Looks like the Dodge boys had a hand in this thing.
Ugh, I see areas that still need touch-up.

It appears that Alan Cerny's last 20th century appearance in an MR article was in the March 1983 issue as the winner of a MR layout planning contest. The intro to the article notes "Many MR readers will remember Alan's byline from his imaginative article, "A lunar railroad you can model", in the April 1978 issue." It also notes he was then employed at Signode Corp.

Out for a spin on the Way Out Layout.
It runs well.
I need to post a video.

Well, that's that. Next I'll either try my hand at a couple of lunar freight cars, or try some tests to figure out what the minimum curve radius is this thing can handle and what sort of grades it can climb.

While you're waiting for me to make up my mind, I'll leave you with the Deodato hit from '73:

Opening the Railroad Modeler Box, Part 4: Freelanced Rolling Stock circa '74

Freelancing rolling stock in Railroad Modeler circa 1974

While browsing the 1974 issues of Railroad Modeler it struck me that it seemed there were a lot of articles about building freelanced rolling stock. Here's a list of what I found:

Jan: Conversation with the Builder: If you want to know how John Olson built this fantastic small railroad simply ask him; Denis Dunning & John Olson. (JDL: Although about Olson's layout there are a few notes scattered in the article that the freight cars were scratchbuilt and freelanced, here's one: "The caboose was scratchbuilt using strathmore and imagination.")

Mar: An Idiot's Approach to Building Locomotives; Jeff Scott.

Apr: Mini-Contest Results: Photos and plans of the four winners plus some of the honorable mentions. (JDL: These are the winners of the MoW contest announced in the Nov '73 issue. The brief was: "Take a passenger car, any type from any era, and convert it into a maintenance of way car. Do what you want - make it into a crew car, boom tender, whatever you can dream up.")

June: Freelance Center Cab Diesel: A happy marriage of Athern's SW-7 and a pair of Hustler bodies results in a great little switcher; Mike Ross.

Aug: Homebuilt Box Cab Electric: Using various diesel parts, an electric fan comes up with a prototypical looking freelance locomotive; David Smith.

Oct: That First Kit Conversion: Taking a nicely detailed car and converting it to something else for the first time can be a challenge. Take your time and do it right; Miles Moran. (JDL: Although not specifically about building freelanced rolling stock the methods presented apply to both it and prototype-based conversions)

Nov: Cut Up A Coach: A little imagination can provide you with a whole new roster of shorty passenger equipment; Bill Jurden.

        Freelance Generator Car: A modern railroad can't afford to be hampered by something as trivial as nightfall. Take an evening and do something about it; Mark R. Henley.

Dec: Turbine Look-Alike: A massive turbine locomotive results from the judicious blending of commercial diesel parts; Wayne Lyndon.

        Economy Log Hog: The days of nickel beer and twenty cent a gallon gas may be long gone, but a $30 brass logging loco is still a possibility; Brick Price.

More freelancing

I did a cursory look through Railroad Model Craftsman for that year to see what was going on there in the way of articles about freelanced rolling stock. In two words: not much. No articles specifically dealing with such projects, but there were a couple of RMC / Dremel Kitbashing Award projects that caught my attention: An HOn30" Roster by Daniel Johnson (Jul '74), and "Cab-on-a-raft" - plus! by John Weinhold (Mar '74). There was also a 'roster' of N-scale traction vehicles in the article Fairmont Traction Co.: the vertical module by Phil Lehr (Dec '74) that has fascinated me ever since I read about them back in '74.

Even more freelancing

By 1974 freelancing rolling stock was on its last legs in the mainstream as the real prototype modelling movement was gaining momentum, so I found it interesting to find so many freelancing articles in RM. You may recall I wrote about Edward C. Steinberg a few years ago and his articles, beginning in the mid-70s, on kitbashing and freelancing rolling stock. His later projects were not without a little controversy as I noted in the post. Some of his projects appeared in RM, and I'll touch on them as I continue through the 70s.

Dawn Quest on George Iliffe Stokes

"His first love was scenery, not track. Coming from a background in watercolour, he saw that the landscape itself, the buildings, the trees, the textures, this was where the magic lived. His philosophy was simple but revolutionary. Get the scene right first, then put the railway in it."

I stumbled across this excellent video by Dawn Quest about the life and work of the legendary George Iliffe Stokes. It fills in a lot I didn't know about Mr. Stokes, as well as shows a number of b&w and colour photos I've never seen before. This video is well worth watching.

Mid-Century Basement*

Popular Mechanics, Dec '54; Model Railroad With Sound Effects

"... Tolcua Lines, the big central system that is located in the basement of Chet Tayloe's home in North Hollywood, Calif.

To provide the space he needed for the joint railroad system Tayloe had to remove 60 truck loads of dirt from under his home, then build new foundations to support the house. The model layout is 65 feet long and 25 feet wide and there is a sunken way along its center from which all parts of the layout may be reached. The system is actually two systems in one, there being some 1200 feet of "O" gauge (1/4 inch to the foot) and 800 feet of "O" narrow-gauge track.

Two months ago the final "mile" of narrow-gauge track was completed and the occasion was fittingly noted by a "golden spike" ceremony attended by model railroaders of the neighborhood, including Dick Wessel, television star who helped build some of the background scenery, and by A. D. Jack Scott, paint-store manager who installed some of the narrow-gauge trackage."

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* Digressions

Awhile back Vince alerted me to this old Popular Mechanics article. It's a fantastic model railroad, but I must admit I was most taken by the layout illustration at the end of the story done in classic mid-century modern style. I love that style of illustration, and this picture in Popular Mechanics reminded me of the Bill Baron illustration I stumbled across in 2020.

I was surprised to read in the article about the attendance of actor Dick Wessel at the Golden Spike ceremony, and that he was referred to as a model railroader. Although I couldn't find mentions of any layouts by Mr. Wessel in Model Railroader magazine, I did find two full length articles about the Tolcua Lines: A visit to Tolcua, Aug '65; 45 years of the Toluca Lines, Mar '73.

Interestingly Chet Tayloe has a 2-page article in the Feb '73 issue about a 1/4" scale model he created of the Echo Mountain cable incline on the Mt. Lowe railway. The article notes: "Two of the passengers [JDL: of the real cable incline railway] in the 1920s were Chet Tayloe and his bride on their honeymoon."

The Brandywine Transit Co. and Me

After writing the post on the genesis of the Mt. Lowe layout, the project that took 10+ years from desire to finished layout, I got to thinking about how long I've been thinking about building a layout inspired by the TTC's streetcar network. So far it's been 50 years! 

From very early on I've been thinking about a TTC layout. Maybe from around '74 or '75, I can't say for certain other than when I saw the May '75 issue of Model Railroader at the local smoke shop newsstand with The Brandywine Transit Co. emblazoned on the cover I thought maybe this was the project to tell me what I wanted to know about building a streetcar layout.

It turned out I was rather disappointed.

So fast-forward 50 years. I went searching for information about The Brandywine Transit Co. online. There was almost nothing, but there were the usual AI findings at the top of the search results. They were rather sketchy though, not to mention pathetic and misleading. I decided to go and look up the BTC articles in my old magazines to properly get an idea of the big picture, and do a little reminiscing. The feel of the paper and the odour from the pages was enough to induce some mild time travelling :-)

I was surprised to find that the series was much longer than I remembered. There were 15 articles altogether from the May '75 issue to May '78. The first 10 dealt with construction of the layout, and the last 5 showed how to build some buildings and rolling stock. Here's the list:

May ’75: Part 1: Building the benchwork and plotting the plan

July ’75: Part 2: Beginning the tracklaying and overhead construction with the hidden interurban laps

Sept ’75: Part 3: Continuing with the tracklaying

Nov ’75: Part 4: Modeling the streets and sidewalks

Jan ’76: Part 5: Wiring the city division

Mar ’76: Part 6: Building prototypic controllers and wiring the interurban division 

May ’76: Part 7: Carbarn construction

Aug ’76: Part 8: Passenger terminal construction

Sept ’76: Part 9: Overhead wire construction for the city division

Oct ’76: Conclusion: Catenary construction for the interurban division

Feb ’77: Build a block of stores

Mar ’77: Old-time gas station

July ’77: Trolley-stop luncheonette

Feb ’78: Build a modern block of stores

May ’78: Build a trolley work train

I should also mention that there's a brief biographical note about the series' author, Walter R. Olsen, in the Aug '72 issue. He was an up and coming star at the time. Among other things he had written a popular series on how to build an N scale layout in a coffee table, called the East Glasstop R.R.. It ran in MR from Dec '70 to Apr '71. The biography also contains this rather interesting quote: "I don't care about operation at all. Once a layout is finished I usually run it only for visitors until it is torn up to make way for a new one." I'm more-or-less of the same mind, except for the tearing up part - ok, I have done that, but I like to think it's the exception and not the rule with me :-)

The BTC and series is a master class in how to properly build a traction layout with 1970s model railway technology and methods. I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say it was one of the best layout construction series MR published in the 20th century.

So why was I disappointed? 

In retrospect there was nothing wrong with the series. The problem was with my expectations. In Toronto the streetcar system was and is a fully operating, modern day transit system. The BTC was a somewhat old time system set in 1949 and wasn't urban. As well, it was too advanced and expensive for teenage me. The fit wasn't there.

Once 1977 and 1978 rolled around model railroading was slipping to the back burner. I had other things to do and other interests. These days I have the elements for a TTC inspired layout and some experience. There might be a fit now.

Edward C. Steinberg, Kitbasher Extraordinaire and Legendary Model Railroader

Steinberg has 3 articles inside, but no mention on the cover 

I began reading through the model railroading magazines of 1977 with one from January 1978. The January 1978 issue of Model Railroader to be specific. Long ago, and long forgotten, I had stuck a Post-It note to the top of page 58 to remind me where E. L. Moore’s Village Store article was, so when I was getting started on this reading adventure the doofus in me went straight for the little yellow flag sticking up amongst the field of pages on the shelf to see what I had marked, thinking that was the start to 1977. I wandered through the rest of the issue after saying hello to that old E. L. Moore article and was surprised to stumble across 3 different construction articles by the same author, an author who wasn’t E. L. Moore. It’s rather unusual to see 2 construction articles attributed to the same writer in an issue, 3 is rare indeed. The author was Edward C. Steinberg and all 3 articles dealt with kitbashing. I tend to think of Art Curren as MR’s kitbashing guy, and the leading light in kitbashing in general during that era, but I got a bit of an education when I went to look for more articles by Mr. Steinberg*.

I went to the MR archive, as well as the annual indices for Railroad Model Craftsman and Railroad Modeler, to see what he had published in the way of kitbashing and scratchbuilding articles in the 1970s and throughout the 20th century**. Here’s what I found (I’ve noted in () after the title what sort of article it is): 

1975

April: (MR) So you need a heavy-duty depressed-center flatcar! (kitbash)

May: (RM) The Great Coal Elevator (scratchbuild)

November: (RM) Quick & Easy Flat Cars (kitbash)

1976

January: (MR) Scratchbuild a loading platform (scratchbuild)

May: (MR) Stretching gondolas: 50’ + 50’ = 65’ (kitbash)

October: (MR) Bash a convertible bulkhead flatcar (kitbash)

December: (MR) A growing family of boxcars (kitbash)

1977

January: (MR) Model a contemporary lumber rack (scratchbuild)

February: (RM) Freelance Railcrane (kitbash)

    (NMRA Bulletin) Covering Stretched Mill Gondolas (kitbash)

March: (MR) Heavy-duty flatcar (kitbash)

    (MR) Levine Brothers Iron Works (scratchbuild)

May: (RM) Giant Hoppers for Coal (kitbash)

July: (MR) A large industry for a small layout (kitbash)

    (RM) The Super Tanker (kitbash)

December: (MR) Scratchbuilding a turntable (scratchbuild)

1978

January: (MR) The Eastwyck & Fensterstock Construction Co. (kitbash)

    (MR) Bash a transfer caboose (kitbash)

    (MR) Compound kitbashing to produce a feed mill*** (kitbash)

February: (MR) The big truck bash (kitbash)

    (RM) Dynamometer Car (kitbash)

March: (MR) Scratchbuild a depressed center flatcar (scratchbuilding)

April: (RM) Build a Bunch of Bathtub Gondolas (kitbash)

October: (MR) A diesel-powered rotary snowplow (kitbash)

    (RMC) Kitbashing a well-hole flat car (kitbash)

    (RM) Wartsboro Coal Elevator (scratchbuild)

November: (RM) Build a Railroad Magazine File

December: (MR) Modeling a bulk oil distribution terminal (kitbash)

1979

February: (MR) FA’s, Sharks, and Kadee couplers

March: (MR) Modern chemical tank cars (kitbash)

June: (RMC) 3 into 1: A Large Industry from a Smaller Trio (kitbash)

August: (RMC) Portable coal crusher

September: (MR) Toy parts into flatcar loads in one easy lesson

October: (MR) Mahjek Furniture Company (kitbash)

    (MR) Building a modern 60-foot automobile parts boxcar (kitbash)

December: (MR) Building a waffle-side automobile parts boxcar (kitbash)

1980

January: (MR) Safety-cage ladders

February: (RMC) “Standard Freighthouses (kit bash)

March: (MR) Build a wreck train (kitbash)

    (MR) A photo in the sporadic It Ain’t Prototype feature

August: (MR) The Greycourt interchange yard

    (RMC) Trackplan for the DLE&W

December: (MR) Building the Green River RR.: 1

    (RMC) An industry with heritage (kitbash)

1981

January: (MR) Building the Green River RR.: 2

March: (MR) Building the Green River RR.: Conclusion

    (RMC) Multi-level benchwork for the DLE&W

July: (RMC) Americanizing Wiking Trucks (kitbash)

October: (MR) Build a concrete plant (scratchbuild)

1983

January: (RMC) N&W-style caboose (kitbash)

1987

December: (RMC) RMC’s annual index says there was a Steinberg article published this month, but I couldn’t find it.

1994

August: (MR) Modeling Maxon Mills (scratchbuild)

2000

July: (MR) The shops at Marian Eddy**** (kitbash)

Although the article list is probably not a complete record of what Mr. Steinberg published it does strengthen the argument that he was a leading light regarding scratchbuilding and kitbashing from a period extending from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, not to mention a major writer in model railroading. It looks like Mr. Steinberg’s heyday was in the late 70s, with 1978 being his peak year. Here’s a count of how many articles he published by year:

1975: 3

1976: 4

1977: 9

1978: 12

1979: 8

1980: 8

1981: 5

1982 to the end of the 20th century: 4

As you can see, his articles kind of petered out in the early 1980s.

Steinberg’s kitbashing articles are rather different in approach than Curren’s in a couple of ways. First, Steinberg’s appear to use prototypes for inspiration and design, and Curren’s kitbashes seem to focus more on what interesting assemblages can be made with available kits. I wouldn’t say one way is better than the other, just that they’re examples of two ways to kitbash.*****  Secondly, Steinberg did a lot of freight car kitbashes, again focused on replicating, or at least being inspired by, prototypes, and Curren’s work focused on structures.

MR carried a brief biographical note in their Dec. ’76 issue about Edward Steinberg. In it Mr Steinberg is quoted as saying, “I am more concerned with plausibility than with authenticity or correct prototype. I try to do what seems reasonable for my railroad, whether or not it may be ‘correct’. The purpose of the whole thing is to please myself. Ultimately, I suppose, I want to produce an operating miniature railroad. More than half the fun, however, is getting there.” This philosophy apparently didn’t go down well with some readers at the time. One correspondent in MR’s Aug ’77 issue complained that, “Kitbashed freight cars by Mr. Steinberg: These articles are reminiscent of the stage of development that model locomotive construction articles were back in the 1940’s. There is just talk of a prototype, but no photo of the prototype for those who want to decide for themselves whether the model has a close enough appearance to the prototype to suit their taste.” Another correspondent, from Sweden, in that same issue seemed to concur, “And Mr. Steinberg’s kitbashing techniques are good, showing how simple it can be to create variety in a freight car fleet. But without better prototype information included, freight car modeling will remain in a stone-age stage lacking all its potential appeal.” If you look at Mr. Steinberg’s complete works - with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight from this point in the 21st century :-) - many of his freight car articles do contain prototype photos, so you can judge for yourself. 

Maybe those comments were simply a sign-of-the-times. That was the era when the movement in model railroading to model prototypes as closely as possible was emerging, and 1977 saw the release of the first issue of Prototype Modeler magazine to cater to that market. I guess I’m more sympathetic to kitbashing whose concerns are with plausibility than high fidelity to prototypes as I came to model railroading from model car building where building plausible custom vehicles, and sometimes very wild ones, wasn’t unusual. 

Portrait snippets sourced from MR | MR | Obiturary

MR’s biographical note also mentions he was 34 at the time, and worked as a city planner. Mr. Steinberg died in 2018 and his obituary gives a little insight into his professional life. It’s noted that, “Ed earned a B.A. from Columbia College and an M.S. in Urban Planning from the School of Architecture & Planning at Columbia University. He began his professional career in 1966 as a planned [JDL: I think they mean ‘planner’] for the N.Y. office of the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. He came to White Plains [JDL: in New York state] in 1970 to work for the Urban Renewal Agency, where he was later named Director. In 1985, he was appointed Commissioner of Planning for the city.” This may explain the drop off in articles in the early 1980s. He was moving up in his professional career at that time. His background in urban planning may also account for his interest in a more nuanced approach to kitbashing and scratchbuilding as opposed to a literalist one.

Before I leave you I should mention one more 1977 kitbashing story I found while researching this post. There’s an article by George P. Landow called The P. J. Macktez Woolen Mill in the May 1977 issue of MR. It uses the plastic kits of E. L. Moore’s Machine Shop and Gruesome Casket Co.. Well, so what you say? They were used all the time back then. Well, it’s the number of Machine Shops that’re used: 14 (!) by my count (and 1 Gruesome Casket). The article is cagey and never states how many Machine Shops you’ll need to build this large structure - maybe the editors thought by doing so they’d scare off readers. This must be one of the purest expressions you’ll find of Art Curren’s philosophy of using plastic kits as sources of walls, but to build it today with Machine Shops could be a pricey proposition. I was able to find Machine Shop kits in the Walthers Trainline series for sale at a Quebec based online retailer for $24.95 CDN each. Those 14 kits would cost a total of $349.30 CDN. An online inflation calculator tells me those same kits would have cost $75.77 CDN in 1977. Throw in a Gruesome Casket kit, plus some odds and ends to complete the project, and that would have been around a $100 CDN project in 1977. Too much for me then, and still too much for me now. The more things change, the more things stay the same :-)

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Digressions

*I’ll probably have to revise my Secret History of Kitbashing given what I’ve recently learned :-)

**Trains.com used to have an extensive, searchable online index of model railroading magazines and their contents. It’s been gone for a year or two. I used to use it for all my searches as it was an excellent resource: professionally indexed and comprehensive. The NMRA has an online index, but, although it’s better than nothing, it’s a poor substitute. It’s far from complete, and the indexing and presentation of results needs serious revision. The majority of magazine articles I’ve listed in this post came from me slogging through the indexes for MR, RMC, and RM. I suspect I’ve missed a few articles and I apologize for that. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he published in places other than those 3 magazines. I don’t have a magazine collection that covers all publications, or an index that does :-( , so I admit my list is likely incomplete. Please let me know about any additions.

Later in the development of this post I came across a new index, RMI, which seems to fill the gap that Trains.com left. I’ve been giving it a try with searches for the articles of Edward Steinberg, but, although it’s promising, it appears to need work. However, I’m glad to see this development and wish them well.

***This is a particularly interesting article as it promotes kitbashing with craftsman kits instead of the usual plastic ones. 

****Another interesting project as it makes use of Walthers HO scale back shop. You may recall I did a conversion of Walthers N scale back shop to HO.

*****A third approach would be that of Kim Adams, who goes further than Curren does when it comes to imaginative approaches to kitbashing. 

Gil Mellé's Lost Years: A beginning

With the Malcolm Furlow post I’ve started to think again about some of the lost - or maybe just under appreciated - roots of model railroading. I’ll get back to Furlow, but I’ve been wondering again about Gil Mellé because of something Furlow wrote.

There’s about a 10 year period from 1957 to 1967 where Mellé recorded and released no records, but as readers here know he was becoming a major presence in model railroading. The various biographies I’ve been able to find online don’t go into what he was up to during those years. Maybe there’s something in print. I’m thinking of putting together an integrated timeline that shows his transition from jazz musician to model railroader to musician again. I'll combine whatever I find music-wise with his model railroading publication list.

I noted Malcolm Furlow wrote that he believed going into model railroading was a “natural extension of my music career”. I wonder if Gil Mellé thought the same, or maybe he entered model railroading for different reasons? I wonder if, like Tom Daniel, railroading was an early interest, and Mellé for some similar reasons decided to return to it? Maybe I’ll never find out, but maybe there are some clues out there.

So, timeline. It looks like the last album Mellé recorded and released before his long hiatus from music was Quadrama in 1957. The album is on the Prestige label, # PRLP 7097. On it he plays baritone sax. I don’t own the album, but I’m trying to track down either an LP or CD for a reasonable price. Although, on YouTube I did find this recording of the piece Quadrama, that Wikipedia tells me is the very last track on the Quadrama album.

The last track of the last album before hiatus. Significant? I doubt it, but I don’t know. Here it is for your listening pleasure: 

Malcolm Furlow, Photographer/Modeler

Furlow centre spread from A Treasury of Model Railroad Photos

My love affair with model photography began during the summer of 1978. Up until that time I was a professional musician traveling throughout the United States, playing Reno, Tahoe, Vegas, and a host of other, lesser-known watering holes.

As I look back on what seemed a strange transition at the time (becoming a photographer/modeler), I have now come to regard my entry into this creative field as a natural extension of my music career.

From Malcom Furlow’s introduction to his chapter, Performing the art of illusion, in Kalmbach’s 1991 book, A Treasury of Model Railroad Photos.

Furlow’s thought that his move from being a working musician to a photographer/modeler was a perfectly natural career development is quite interesting, but I’ll leave the discussion of the link between model railroading and music to another time as it’s Furlow as photographer I want to take a look at.

In my last attempt to write something on Furlow to mark his passing I detoured onto E. L. Moore street. I guess that happened as my connection to Furlow’s work isn’t that strong. Although he was a prolific and influential modeller, I didn’t build any of his model projects or layouts. When he was at his peak in the model railroading press, I wasn’t active in the hobby, just a sometime reader of magazines. 

What I did appreciate at the time, and continued to appreciate over the years, was his skill as a photographer. He was that rare breed who could create a miniature scene, light it, and then capture it on film in such a way that you believed it was real and you were there, in it and a part of it. I think the majority of model railroaders aren’t able to photographically capture the excitement they feel about their layouts. It’s only a few who can, and those photos energize and change their own work as well as inspire others to improve theirs too. This is a group that includes John Allen, John Ahern, E. L. Moore, Dave Frary, John Olson, Paul Scoles, Ben King, and many others whose use of photography as an inspirational tool has changed the hobby as much as any hands-on modelling technique.

When Furlow was active in the hobby in the 1980s and 1990s I gather he often took a lot of flak, sometimes personal, from more tradition-oriented constituencies and that was one of the reasons he left model railroading for an extended period. Apparently his work was accused of being a John Allen derivative, that he was an imposter, and his approach and view was out-of-step with the real prototype and operations wings of the hobby. I recall reading somewhere that Furlow said he was indeed inspired by John Allen’s work, but was his work derivative? I don’t think so. Again, from his writings, it appears John Allen’s work was one source of inspiration, but his love and affinity with the western and southwestern US was more influential. One of the hobby’s characteristics that accounts for its ongoing popularity is that it has many facets: the ability to simulate railroad business operations, electronics & control, historical modelling, scenery construction, structure building, a wide range of scales and layout sizes, and so on. Conflicts can arise when a large constituency has formed around one of those facets and believes it represents the ‘correct’ way to engage with the hobby, which is no different than lots of other activities in life. 

For me though, it was Furlow's photographs that I remember and admire. I still hope I can achieve even just a fraction of his technical mastery and skill at visual storytelling. If you can find a copy of A Treasury of Model Railroad Photos, buy it. Yes, the photographic techniques it discusses are from the film era, but the photos themselves, text from the authors, and the setups are timeless.