WOOPS 2025

As perhaps only Westerner model railroaders know, “WOOPS” stands for “Western Oregon Ops,” an event held in alternate years. This year it took place during June 6–8. Though literally only in the northwestern corner of Oregon, there are a number of fine layouts, and a fair crowd shows up every time. Below is their emblem, including iconic Mt. Hood, a visual presence throughout the region. 

I reported on a WOOPS event once before, in a blog post, and if interested you can view it at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/06/woops-2019.html .

I was only able to attend for two days this year, but enjoyed two really nice, large, and interesting layouts. The first was Charlie Comstock’s Bear Creek and South Jackson, with a challenging operating scheme. I worked at Bear Creek Yard, and was kept moderately busy all day. 

I was especially intrigued to see the ground throws that Charlie uses: they are the Caboose Industries N-scale throws, though the layout is HO scale. This works because his hand-laid switches have a near-prototype spacing of point and stock rails, so the smaller throw distance of the N-scale device is sufficient. It’s quite visible here at an unpainted switch.

The layout is scenicked nicely in a number of areas, while not yet done in other areas. The completed ones were quite well handled, such as this scene at Junction City, Oregon. It’s very sharp depot model, and some good industrial buildings (the one at right is a computer-printed paper). Notice at left he is experimenting with photographs for the streets that head straight into the wall. And every station has a schematic map on the fascia to help orient crews.  

The other layout was Bill Decker’s Cascade Division of the SP, set in the early 1970s at the moment (he plans to backdate in the near future). The layout is HO scale, and models from Eugene, Oregon and environs, then up the long climb to cross the Cascades at Cascade Summit. Again, I managed to snag a yard job in the big and rather busy Eugene Yard, and had a lot of fun doing it, busy most of the day.  This photo looks railroad west along the yard. 

In addition to mainline trains climbing or descending the grade, there are several busy locals. Below you see Steve Menker (left) and Jim Radkey (right) working the Springfield Local. 

As has happened every time I’ve attended, it was a fun weekend with really enjoyable layouts. If you get a chance to attend a future WOOPS, don’t miss it!

Tony Thompson 

Southern Pacific’s railroad in Mexico

Recently I received an email question that I thought was interesting enough to merit discussion here. The question was, what were the freight cars of the SP railroad in Mexico, did cars go back and forth over the border with the U.S., and when did that all stop?

The background is covered in a number of books, perhaps best in the one authored by John Signor and John Kirchner, The Southern Pacific of Mexico (Golden West Books, San Marino, CA, 1987). The story began in 1882 with the completion of the Ferrocarril de Sonora  in the Mexican state of Sonora, from the U.S. border at Nogales, Arizona to the port of Guaymas on the Gulf of California. This was built under the auspices of the Santa Fe, which operated it until 1898.

In 1898, the SP’s little-used line from Mojave to Needles, California was traded to the Santa Fe (to forestall further Santa Fe construction westward) in return for the Sonora Railway. SP soon acquired also the railroad properties of the Cananea, Rio Yaqui and Pacific, and in 1905 began to build southward past Mazatlan, eventually to reach Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco. The name given to the combined railroads (FdeS, CRYyP, and the new construction) was the Sud Pacifico de Mexico or SPdeM. 

Much of the new railroad’s rolling stock was handed down from the SP in U.S. or leased. In the 1930s, to cite an example, SPdeM owned only 29 of its 112 locomotives and 657 of its 1251 freight cars. The SPdeM, as emphasized in the Signor and Kirchner book, was remarkably like the parent SP, not only with its hand-me-down rolling stock and locomotives, but in use of the SP rule book, timetable and train order operation (with telegraph communication only),  and many familiar features of SP practice. 

Photographs of yards and trains in the 1940s and up to the sale of SPdeM to the Mexican government in 1951 show that most freight cars, certainly all the modern ones, had SP initials, interchanged into Mexico. In principle, SP cars made empty in Mexico were not permitted to be reloaded to further destinations in Mexico, only back to the U.S., but this regulation was not stringently enforced. The same applied to PFE cars. Moreover, significant numbers of empty SP and PFE cars were interchanged into Mexico for SPdeM use.

One consequence of these cross-border movements of cars has to do with waybills and how they were handled. I have described earlier the basics of the situation (see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/10/waybills-part-75-non-us-freight-cars.html ), and followed that discussion with several further examples of both Canadian- and Mexican-origin shipments (in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/10/waybills-part-76-more-on-cross-border.html ).  

Let’s look at some rolling stock. Below is a photo (Library of Congress) taken during the Mexican Revolution of 1911, showing insurrectionists atop a train. The caboose is an SP design, Class CA, and the box car (number not readable) is one of the early Harriman-standard double-sheathed box cars, likely Class B-50-5 or -6.

 To show one of the few cars built new for the SPdeM, below is a builder photo (AC&F, Al Westerfield collection) of a member of Class B-50-6. 

Another example of these cars in service is this view (Southern Pacific) of the Redo Sugar Co. mill at El Dorado, Sinaloa, with several box cars in sight. These too appear to be Harriman Class B-50-6 cars. 

After the sale of the SPdeM to the Mexican government in 1951, the railroad was renamed Ferrocarril del Pacifico (Pacific Railroad), initially with reporting marks FdelP, but soon changed to FCP. I have described the changes of the former SP rolling stock to the FCP ownership in an earlier post (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/08/ferrocarril-del-pacifico.html ). Since I model 1953, I need to focus on the FdelP, not the SPdeM.

On the modeling front, I have shown my creation of one of the re-lettered former SP cars in a post a few years ago (here’s a link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/09/resin-box-car-build-part-3.html ). A photo of my completed model, a former SP Class B-50-14 from a Sunshine kit, is below, including the “patched” change of reporting marks. 

So that’s an overview of “SP’s railroad in Mexico,” and a few of the aspects that can be part of model railroading.

Tony Thompson 

Some additional SP advertising

I’ve recently posted a number of examples of the “institutional advertising” that Southern Pacific published in the 1950s, bright, eye-catching graphics from their advertising agency of the time, Foote, Cone & Belding. This is defined as advertising not to those who were necessarily actual customers or potential customers of the railroad, but the public at large, and was placed in general circulation magazines such as Time.

I began with a number of these “institutional” ads that to me are interesting because they promoted the image the railroad wished the public to have, a progressive and modern railroad. That first set of ads was contained in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/sps-public-advertising.html . 

In a following post, I showed more of the same kind of ads, but also included a few of the advertising efforts SP made toward their actual customers. that post is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/other-sp-advertising.html . Lastly, I returned to more of the public ads, along with an interesting example of SP advertising to companies who might be considering a new plant location in SP territory, Here’s a link to that post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/more-sp-advertising.html .

Now let me show a few more of the vivid Foote, Cone  & Belding examples, with one simply intended to draw attention to the “Golden Empire” as a possible plant location. As mentioned previously, this is from the latter part of the 1950s, because it has the later-era addition of the Cotton Belt to the Golden Empire logo. You can click on the image to enlarge if if you wish to read the text.

Next is another example of SP emphasizing how much of certain agricultural and mineral products were produced in the Golden Empire:

In this period, SP also liked to publicize various modernizations that the railroad was achieving. This one is a good example. President Donald J. Russell was eager to promote SP to the financial community as progressive and modern.

Next  is an ad that actually may have reached out to railroad customers, once again including publicity for SP’s trucking subsidiary, Pacific Motor Trucking, and the related piggyback service. Note also the inclusion of one of SP’s largest and most profitable freight categories of the time, lumber. That was the main reason the the SP freight car fleet contained 10 percent flat cars, while the national average was just 3 percent.

Beginning in 1956, SP experimented with “dual-fuel” arrangements for diesel locomotives, promoted here using the traditional engineer’s glove. The two fuels were conventional diesel fuel, and cheaper “residual” fuel oil, so thick it had to be heated to flow. Dual fuel would be abandoned in the early 1960s.

Lastly, they decided to publicize the enormous project of replacing the Harriman-era Great Salt Lake trestle with a fill, with a dramatic comparison of the volume of material used. The project was carried out from 1955 to 1959.

All these ads have, naturally, a similar style that the agency created, and as this series of posts demonstrates, they covered a wide range of aspects of the railroad that could be promoted to the general public. 

Tony Thompson

Weathering: a couple of open-top cars

As I often mention, I have put together a pair of what Google calls “Reference pages,” linked at upper right in this post, with a fairly specific description of the weathering method I usually use, along with examples of numerous car types to illustrate what is done. The method is based on washes made with acrylic tube paints. But there are some excursions beyond even those relatively complete descriptions. 

An example is open-top cars, which can exhibit a wide range of appearances. Certainly if the cars are gondolas, wood floors can exhibit the kind of wear and damage and color changes typical of flat cars, and various kinds of debris, dunnage, and trash is often left in gondolas. Metal loads such as pipe can leave a residue of iron rust, as can wire or steel banding used to secure loads. The prototype photo below is one illustration (Dick Flock photo). Notice both the colors and the rubble on the floors.

How rare it is to see model gondolas that look like this! Still, there are those who have labored to achieve this kind of appearance in models. One I’ve recognized before is the late Bill Neale, mentioned in posts such as this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/11/gondola-interiors.html . Here is a repeat of one of my photos of Bill’s gondola interiors.

I wanted to head in this direction too, although perhaps not as far as Bill went. I have two open-top cars awaiting weathering of their interiors, which happen to be cars about which I’ve recently posted. Both are fairly ancient HO white metal models. One is an Ulrich N&W hopper car (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/03/restoring-ulrich-hopper-car-part-2.html ).

The other car is the Roundhouse C&O gondola project of Richard Hendrickson’s (completion of which was described in this prior post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-richard-hendrickson-gondola-part-2.html ). 

My standard method of weathering with washes of acrylic tube paints is my approach, well described and illustrated in the “Reference pages” linked at the top right corner of this post. I’ll begin with the C&O gondola, the completion of which was described in two recent posts (concluding with the post linked in the previous paragraph). I wanted it to show some rusty tint, though maybe not as complete as the Bill Neale cars shown above. With additions of chalk marks and route cards, here is the car:

The other car is the Ulrich hopper. Here again, I wanted some rusty tinge on the interior, plus a few chalk marks on the sides.

I may go back and add more color to the interior of the gondola, will wait to see how I like it in a couple of weeks. But I continue to feel that getting car interiors right is worth some extra effort.

 Tony Thompson

Small project: another Chateau Martin wine car

Back some six years ago now, I described a few minor upgrades to bring an ancient Laconia Industries kit up to my layout standards (or into that vicinity, anyway), keeping in mind the fine historical character of the kit. Recently another of these cars came to me from Jim Radkey, who was passing it on as a survivor of a dismantled layout. That previous project is described in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/02/restoring-chateau-martin-wine-car.html . 

Back in that day, Laconia did offer this kit, as with many of their kits, in multiple car numbers. This newly acquired car happened to have a different number than the one I previously restored, so I decided I could keep it. But it does need some restoration and a little upgrading, including the longitudinal streaking on the roof.

My first step, as was the case in the previous post about one of these cars (see link in first paragraph, above) is to fix the exposed edge of the cardboard sides at each end. This exposure is evident in the photo above. This requires matching a paint to the color of the car sides. As it happens, there is an acrylic point  from Acrylicos Vallejo or AV, their no. 70.945 in the Model Color series, that is called “magenta.” This is what I used on the other car, and used it again here.

Painting the exposed edges made a noticeable difference, as you can see below. Also, here at the B end of the car, the end sills were missing, as was the rod to the hand brake. The end sill parts were in the kit box in which I received the assembled car, so these could be added. And the No. 4 coupler box lid, and coupler, were missing too. I will simply add new Kadee couplers in their own boxes at both ends. Shown are the original trucks.

Next, the grab irons, sill steps, and ladders had some wear in the black paint, as you can see in both photos above, exposing brass metal, along with some funky weathering, so these were all touched up with black. Lastly, the roof was repainted a grimy black mix, and still needs to be weathered a bit, as you can see below.

The nice thing about having a second Laconia Chateau Martin car like this, with a different number from my first one, is that switch crews working the Zaca Mesa winery in my layout town of Ballard may now have the experience of picking up one loaded Chateau Martin car, and replacing it with a second one.

I have always found the Chateau Martin wine cars and wine business interesting (see, for example, this post about the wine business: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/02/wine-as-industrial-commodity.html ), and these two cars add to that. I look forward to seeing them in an operating session.

Tony Thompson