The shortest day comes ’round again

In many of the years of this blog, I have posted today about its being the shortest day of the year. Those of us who love daylight, as my dad did and I do, are delighted that now the days will start getting longer. This is doubtless an ancient human emotion, and long before people knew enough astronomy to know why the days change length as they do in an annual cycle, there were celebrations of this day for what it meant.

In many of my past posts, I have quoted (with permission from the author) a poem about this day that I like very much.  That it resonates with me may not mean it does the same for you, but give it a read and see if you too enjoy it. 

The author is Susan Cooper, author of a wonderful young-adult book called Over Sea, Under Stone, and later a fine five-book quest fantasy series, The Dark is Rising. In the 1970s, she became associated with the holiday celebrations called Revels, and wrote this poem as their closing piece for the each year’s event. (That’s whee I first heard it.) You can find it all over the web, often with changed punctuation and even substituted words! Imagine the gall!

As it happens, during the time I was a grad student in metallurgy at M.I.T., she was married to a faculty member in the department whom I knew, Prof. Nick Grant. Sometimes it does feel like a small world. I can remember attending some departmental social events where faculty and wives were present, but I don’t know whether any of them included Ms. Cooper.

She sent me a copy of the poem as she wrote it, so that it could be presented correctly. (If you’d like to know more about her, please visit her web site: http://www.thelostland.com/ .) She also mentioned that she was happy to give permission for use in this blog, as she is descended from three generations of English railwaymen!

THE SHORTEST DAY

By Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen,
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing, behind us -- listen!
All the long echoes sing the same delight
This shortest day
As promise wakens in the sleeping land.
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends, and hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year, and every year.
Welcome Yule!

 A far more eloquent presentation of our traditions than I could ever have written. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Tony Thompson 

Passenger trains on my branch line

My layout is very freight-car oriented; nearly all car movements on my fictitious branch line to Santa Rosalia, and most mainline action, are exclusively freight. When passenger equipment is operated, it is ordinarily on the main line, often a “deadhead” move balancing passenger equipment between Los Angeles and Sank Francisco. I’ve discussed this several times (for an example, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/05/mainline-passenger-cars-on-small-layout.html ). 

But there are exceptions. Regular passenger service on a branch like this would have been abandoned in the 1930s. But a passenger movement that happens occasionally on my layout is the operation of a passenger extra train, presumably an excursion and perhaps a  railfan event (though such trains were still rare in my modeling year of 1953). An example of this kind of passenger extra is the train that ran up and down the length of several branch lines, allowing fans to “collect miles,” as it was called. 

Such an excursion might operate, for example, from Los Angeles or Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo, along the way running the length of the Lompoc Branch and return, and, why not, the Santa Rosalia Branch, before connecting with passenger schedules at San Luis for the passengers to return home northward or southward.

Approaching Shumala, then, from the south, the train might make a station stop at the Shumala depot, as you see below in a train using a former RPO as a baggage car (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/06/small-project-old-brass-sp-baggage-car.html ), trailed by a 60-foot coach. Power here is Southern Pacific Ten-wheeler 2344. 

The train has stopped with its consist clear of Chamisal Road at right, because the locomotive will cut off and run around the train on the siding. Below we see the run-around in progress, as 2344 backs down the siding past the depot. 

Then with 2344 behind the consist, the train is ready to be pushed up the branch to its destination. When it’s time to return, the locomotive would then be leading, though tender-first. The 60-foot coach here is Golden Gate Depot’s SP 1972, Class 60-C-5.

But railroaders usually preferred to have the locomotive leading the train at all times if possible. If the passenger excursion heads up the Santa Rosalia Branch with the locomotive at the front of the train, there will then have to be a run-around somewhere up on the branch, given the lack of locomotive turning facilities on the branch.

The photo below shows 2344 starting its run-around in front of the Santa Rosalia depot. In this instance, the train is coach SP 1581 (a kit-bashed Roundhouse model), Class 60-C-4, and postal storage car SP 4263, pressed into service as a baggage car for the excursion (modeling SP 4263 was described in a blot post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/07/modeling-sp-head-end-cars-part-7a.html ). 

In one instance, the excursion train had two coaches, and only ran as far as the Ballard depot, as you see below, before performing the run-around and returning to the main line at Shumala. Power again is Ten-wheeler 2344 (Precision Scale brass). 

Since ordinarily the Santa Rosalia Local freight train is alone on the branch, any such passenger train requires a whole bunch of train orders to arrange a meet at either Ballard or Santa Rosalia, and for the excursion train to return to Shumala.  

Whether the operation of such an excursion train requires turning back at Ballard, or at Santa Rosalia, the important point is the lack of turning facilities. That in turn means that turning back involves the locomotive running around the train and pulling it back to Shumala with the tender leading. This has been an interesting complication for the normally unhindered local freight train operating in the same territory. Usually that increases the fun of an operating session.

Tony Thompson 

My wholesale food warehouse at Ballard

One of the first industries I wanted to add to my original HO layout in Pittsburgh, PA was a warehouse for a wholesale grocer. This is a great industry for inbound loads, because everything from fruits and vegetables, to meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products would arrive in refrigerator cars, and canned goods, other packaged foodstuffs, and dry goods could arrive in box cars, all logically to be delivered by rail. The possible waybills are practically innumerable.

My warehouse was scratchbuilt from heavy artist’s cardstock (walls are Bristol board) over a stripwood frame (mostly wood, some balsa). I made the frame heavy to ensure that the cardstock would remain flat. That’s shown below, looking into the interior. The building is 24 inches long and about 5 inches wide. The part nearest my hand is the “front,” that faces the siding, and the back wall, just visible here,  is blank because it can’t be seen from any angle, but does provide a view block.

I used a scriber to groove the Bristol board to look like sheathing planks. You can see above that one corner is cut off (lower right in the photo above) to fit the space on my previous layout. There is some additional description in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/05/survival-from-my-old-layout-2.html . 

The “business” side of the building has four numbered sliding doors, which can lead to requirements for “sure spots” by switch crews. (For background on that topic, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2017/12/operating-with-sure-spots-part-3.html ). Doors are scratchbuilt, as is the inset loading dock; windows are Grandt Line. 

In the photo above you can see the business sign at the roof peak. It’s shown more clearly below. This lettering was printed with an “open” typeface, then hand colored. 

A view of this from one end (at a high angle, not accessible when standing on the floor of the layout room, shows the roofing and the distance from the backdrop. That’s the Zaca Mesa winery at right (for background, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/11/my-zaca-mesa-winery.html ). 

Normally much of the the Peerless building is partly concealed by foreground structures, but getting up on a step stool allows a view like this, so that you can see the whole siding serving Peerless. The large reefer is from PFE’s first class of mechanicals (described in my RMC article in January 1988 and of course in the PFE book).

In-service views include ones like this, with a switcher spotting an MDT reefer. Note that one of the cars on spot is a box car, as mentioned in the introductory comments, above.

This has been a great industry for the layout, with lots of traffic inbound, involving a wide variety of foods and grocery staples, coming from all over the country. It’s wonderfully flexible and to me, endlessly interesting.

Tony Thompson 

15th anniversary of this blog

It seems hard to believe, but yesterday, December 11, marks the completion of the 15th year I have been writing this blog, with over 300 posts per year. In fact the post you’re reading is number 1852 in the series. It seems like an impossible number to me, but since this is something that my host, Google, keeps track of, I know it must be true!

At this point, I’d also like to mention that a few years ago, I posted a summary of my goals and intentions for this blog, and anyone relatively new to reading it might benefit from seeing what I have set out to do (see that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-purpose-and-uses-of-this-blog.html ) 

As I often do in these annual reflections, I reviewed the page view data provided by Google. In the first five years or so of the blog, my posts typically received 150,000 to 200,000 page views a year. More recently that has moved above 300,000 a year, in some years approaching 400,000 page views. That itself is amazing to me.

But there’s more. Last year on this anniversary my total for all the preceding 14 years was just above 3 million page views. This year it’s risen to well over 4 million. Yes, over a million page views last year, for a single year. 

I well understand that “page views” include web crawlers and other internet denizens visiting a web address, though without any actual interest in the content, And to be sure, taking 15 years to get to 4 million page views, even if it’s mostly non-content visitors,  is nothing compared to an internet “influencer,” but still, it seems like a fair amount for a model railroading blog. 

As has been true almost since this blog began, I receive comments and questions about the content, some of them via the comment function that Google provides, so that other visitors can see those inputs and my response (if any), but also, increasingly, by personal emails from people who I suppose don’t want to make questions or comments public. That’s fine, and many times I realize I hadn’t been clear or didn’t go far enough in a description. These interactions are interesting and welcome to me. 

My layout continues to host operating sessions. I am among the considerable number of layout owners who do host such sessions, and like many of them, I feel like the main reason I brought the layout near to completion was to host such sessions. When visitors operate the layout and all its equipment, the layout is functioning as I envisioned it years ago when I was still in the planning stage. You can’t ask for more than that from a hobby.

I can’t resist showing a scene fairly typical of my operating sessions, from a couple of years ago. Shown below are Dave Falkenburg (left) and Bob Hanmer (visiting from Chicago), operating at Shumala. Here Bob is serving as the engineer while Dave is the conductor in carrying out the switching work in this part of the session. This session was back in 2023; you can read about it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/10/layout-operating-session-no-85.html .

I continue to find operation to be a really interesting part of model railroading. Partly for that reason, I strongly welcomed the introduction of the new Achievement Program in operation created by the Operations Special Interest Group (SIG) of NMRA. I wrote a post describing that program (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/08/a-new-achievement-program.html ). 

The foundation of such operation by modelers is, of course the prototype. So photographs like this one (Conductor Charles Martin in Southern Pacific caboose 684, Class C-30-1, in the 1950s: Stan Kistler photo) continue to intrigue me. When we modelers act as conductors in an op session, we aren’t provided with the captain’s chair or a desk, but we work our waybills very much like Mr. Martin is doing here.

Beyond those considerations, I must admit upon reflection that I continue to enjoy and even relish nearly every aspect of this hobby of ours. Except maybe wiring. My several posts entitled “Electrical wars” probably bear witness to that. (You can use “electrical wars” as a search term in the search box at the top right corner of this post, if you’d like to read a few.)

On that topic, I well remember a cartoon that once ran in Model Railroader, showing two guys with halos over their heads and little wings on their backs, looking at a small layout floating on clouds. One is saying, “Wiring? What wiring? This is heaven, remember?”

Tony Thompson 

 

Operating sessions #106, 107

The latest two operating sessions on my layout were on December 7 and 8. By and large, they followed my usual format and content, with only a few changes in the program, though with extensive changes in car locations and car movements (which of course were directed by waybills).

On Sunday, Dec. 7, I hosted four operators and an observer. Most of that crew is shown below, with, from left, Robert Bowdidge, Leo Pesce, Alex Craghead (nominally the observer), and Miles Callan. They are standing at Shumala getting organized to begin the session; Leo and Miles are holding throttles. 

The other crew member was Jason Schoenmann. He and Leo began work at Ballard, with Jason conducting, but later in the session Robert took Leo’s place when the crews switched places. Here Robert is conducting, with Jason at right, operating at Shumala.

 A feature of this session was the inclusion of one of Southern Pacific’s new piggyback flat cars (service began in June 1953). From the earliest days of that service, trailer flats were mostly inserted into the “Overnight” trains of black box cars, but for some months occasional “extra” movements did occur in scheduled freight trains. That's what I depict here, in scheduled eastward train 916, passing Shumala.

Both the flat car and the trailers were 3D-printed by AJ Chier, as I mentioned in describing my modeling work on this car in a series of posts (see the final post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/06/sp-piggyback-part-7-finishing-flat-cars.html  ). 

The following day I hosted another session, essentially a repeat of the previous day’s car movements, with a few exceptions. One crew was Jim Radkey (left) and Bryn Ekroot, who you see here at Shumala . I enjoyed watching these two work together. 

The other crew was Seth Neuman (left), here conducting at Ballard, and Lawrence Crowl. Seth is such an experienced conductor, that it’s always worth watching how he organizes and carries out this kind of assignment. 

These were fun sessions, with crews quite busy. Being that many of the visitors are experienced operators, I did set up pretty full workloads, and all was done in good season, with few errors. Nice work, and of course fun for me, mostly in seeing the layout come alive to be operated as I intended it to be.

Tony Thompson 

My brass foundry in Ballard

From time to time, I post short descriptions of the industries on my layout, what they do, and how they form part of operating sequences. Today my subject is the Union Brass foundry in my layout town of Ballard. As a physical metallurgist before retirement, and who did thesis research on copper and brass, this is an industry I understand.

The building itself is built without much change from a Classic Miniatures kit, including the signage on the building front. But because the building front is oriented perpendicular to the layout edge and thus a little hard to read, I added the larger sign over the loading dock. This dock, by the way, was enlarged from the rather narrow one in the original kit. The model of the building represents a wood false front made to look like stone, something common in the century preceding the one I model. 

From the other side, you can see the furnace room addition. Also evident below is the near proximity on the right of the Jupiter Pump & Compressor facility. The idea here is that the brass foundry came into existence to supply brass plumbing parts for Jupiter.  

Part of what’s interesting about this building is the loads that are shipped in and out of it. Inbound may be bulk copper (and the foundry makes up the brass composition by adding zinc) or brass bar stock. Plumbing fixtures are shipped out, not only to Jupiter but to customers elsewhere. Sample waybills are shown below.

At left you see an inbound load of copper bar, shipped from Cananea in Mexico. As often happened at the Southern Pacific’s port of entry at Nogales, Arizona, Spanish language waybills were replaced by SP ones and the previous SP de Mexico waybill number shown (you can click to enlarge). The bill also shows that the car cleared customs at Nogales. At right is an outbound shipment bill, with a Transcontinental Freight Bureau weight agreement stamp on it.

Many loads arrive and depart in ordinary box cars, but an option is an occasional foreign box car, and I mean lierally foreign, from Mexico. The waybill shown above for an ASX car is the result of a custom decorated model years ago by Bev-Bel for a car owned by American Smelting & Refining (Asarco) in Mexico, and accordingly with dimensional and other data in metric as well as English units. 

I shouldn’t leave the impression that raw materials for this foundry come only from Mexico; the heart of the copper and brass businss in the 1950s, which I model, was in Connecticut, and this foundry more commonly receives loads from Bridgeport Brass (in Bridgeport) or Chase Brass & Copper (in Waterbury). 

This industry is different from others on the layout, in part because though it is a small structure, it also produces small parts in a simple casting process, and thus can realistically output carloads of product. So often on layouts (including my own) our models of industries are far too small to do the work we imagine them doing. This one is at least a little better in that regard.

Tony Thompson 

 

Trackwork wars, Part 17

The ongoing saga of the track replacement at the lead to my town of Santa Rosalia continues. In the previous installment, I was satisfied with my new track right at Santa Rosalia. You can read that account at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/11/trackwork-wars-part-16.html .

With some careful adjustments of the gauge in a few places, I was able to successfully operate one of my diesel switchers back and forth, which of course is what happens in an op session. This operation was essential to verify before doing any more work on the track (note the areas with missing ties below). 

As isn’t visible above, both the MP1 switch motors were now disconnected, and since the throw bars of the new switches are located differently, obviously new “trenches” would be needed for their linkages, along with the MP1s being relocated to have the throw rods perpendicular to the track. You can see this pretty clearly below. Both motors have been “unmoored” from their previous locations. 

But before restoring the linkages, I needed to do more painting of rails, as I mentioned in the previous post (see first paragraph, above for link), and I did so, completing work on both new switches on the main line to Santa Rosalia. I also added ties where they were missing, using old surplus tie strip or individual wood ties. 

The next step was to restore the more important of the two linkages, the one at right in the photo above, which controls  the Walthers curved switch. That’s because when structures are put back in place, it is behind the storage tanks of my Richfield oil dealer, thus not accessible for manual operation. In the photo below, the new trenches are cut. 

Finally, the linkage was reconnected and the correct motion of the throwbar verified, for the Walthers switch. This may have to suffice for the upcoming op session, unless I find time to fix the scenery surfaces. But at least this part is now working.

It is frustrating to continue to work the same problems in the same area of track. Hopefully this time it will yield a more permanent result. Thanks again to Jim Providenza for his help with a major part of this effort.

Tony Thompson