Yet another Tony Koester book

I recently received a question about my book reviews, asking why I hadn’t reviewed Tony Koester’s 2019 Kalmbach book, Time-Saving Techniques for Building Model Railroads. I do own the book, and have enjoyed browsing in it, but probably because my own layout is already built, and fairly complete at this point, I didn’t feel an impulse to review it. But here goes. 

Tony K. has always advocated a number of specific approaches for layout building, and this book pulls a number of them together. I enjoyed seeing Doug Tagsold on the cover, renowned among operating people for his rapid and impressive layout building. He’s shown in the early days of at least his third (and present) layout.

The book, as was usual with Kalmbach Media books, is 8.5 x 11 inches in size, softbound, with 112 pages. As with all of Tony’s books, it is handsomely illustrated with informative photos.

The scope of the book is well demonstrated by names of the chapters. Here is the Contents page:

An interesting and certainly simplified approach to upper decks on double-deck layouts is to use shelving systems. Koester himself has done this, as you see below. Note that the steel brackets for the upper level are already painted sky blue. The backdrop will be notched to fit around them.

One interesting time-saving method described for a couple of layout is foam-base scenery. You see that in the book cover photo, at top. Here is another view of Doug Tagsold’s 1:72 layout, showing at left the fairly complete scenery contours accomplished with foam, and at right the scene when the usual materials are added.

Another person who has used this approach is Bill Darnaby. He has emphasized narrow track boards, and likes the flexibility of the foam (easily modified). At top is the 2-inch blue foam that is the foundation, being applied to wall brackets. Next below is trackwork being placed atop the foam, with easily-added ditches alongside, and at bottom we see a completed area.

I like this book, and have enjoyed reading and re-reading it. If I had to offer a criticism, it might be that there are too many photos of a finished layout (the author’s) and not enough in-progress views or views of more and different layouts. But it’s not a “step-by-step” book, it’s an idea book, and the points made about time-saving approaches are quite valid and clearly presented. That’s why I believe the book does what it was intended to do.

Tony Thompson

Cocoa Beach 2025

Yes, it’s a new year, and for freight car enthusiasts like myself, the year begins on a high note with the annual Prototype Rails meeting in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Originated and long directed by the late Mike Brock, it’s now ably directed by Mike’s long-time second in command, Marty Magregian. 

And as has always been the case, the meeting was well organized and ran smoothly throughout. This year the heavy snows in the Midwest and Northeast did lead to a whole bunch of last-minute cancellations for obvious reasons, but otherwise attendance was typical of this meeting at around 200, and every one appeared to be having a great time.

I always focus on the clinic program at a meeting like this. There is rarely a clinic time slot when I’m not sitting in one, and have presented one or more clinics at every one of these meetings I’ve attended (out of 24 of these meetings, I’ve just missed two). 

This year’s program, organized by Jeff Aley, was as usual, nicely varied and of uniform high quality. My talk this year was entitled “Creating Realistic Operation on a Small Layout,” and you can view the handout if you wish (it‘s at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/01/handout-for-realistic-operation-clinic.html ).

One clinic I enjoyed was Mont Switzer’s talk about freight cars associated with Muncie, Indiana. He opened his talk with a variation on a slide he often uses at this meeting, which includes an HO scale surf board:

For those not familiar with Cocoa Beach, the huge Ron Jon surf shop is a local landmark. Mont also brought along all the freight cars described in the clinic, and exhibited them in the ballroom’s display area.

Speaking of the ballroom, as always it was the location for model displays, manufacturer's tables, and hobby sellers, with many interesting things on view. Here’s an overall photo:

As he always does, Eric Thur brought some interesting freight cars, including several with very well-done loads. I will just show a single example, a load of Allis-Chalmers transformers. The loads are S scale transformers 3D-printed by Multi-Scale Digital. They were shown loaded on a hybrid model, a Funaro & Camerlengo Pennsylvania Class FM flat car body with Sunshine resin sides. A prototype photo of a very similar load of transformers was also displayed. 

For John Armstrong fans, it was fun to see exhibited a 3D-printed, O scale model of his “imagineered” 200-ton articulated cement car, called a “Cementipede,” built by Jim King of Smoky Mountain Model Works for David Vaughn’s Wit & Wisdom LLC (I understand kits are available; you can email to witandwisdommodels@gmail.com ). As you see below, there was also exhibited an O scale version of Armstrong’s famous re-creation of the diner in the Edward Hopper painting, Nighthawks.

There weren’t large numbers of relatively modern models exhibited, but I liked a Canadian National aluminum-ingot flat car by Bob De Stefano. The car, CN 618226, is from the early 2000s, as shown in the upper photo, and as evident in the model photo below, the load is removable. Impressive modeling.

Lastly, I liked a model that Fenton Wells displayed. To some passers-by, it may have looked like “simply” an Accurail 8500-series plug-door reefer, with a 1953 reweigh date and almost-new paint. But look again, and note the upgrades: the free-standing grab irons, sill steps, ladder, ice hatch latch bars, roof corner grabs, and door hardware. This is nice work.

All in all, another typically enjoyable and fun Cocoa Beach meeting. I always look forward to each one, and invariably find it just as good as I expected. Reminders for it are already blocked in on my calendar for the event in 2026.

Tony Thompson

Refining Scenery, Part 4

In this series of posts, I am describing some quite minor refinements to my layout scenery, not because they are noteworthy projects, but to illustrate that even a nearly complete layout like mine still has some needs for scenery repair, upgrade or completion. The second of these was a good example, simply moving  two trackside details farther from a ground throw; it can be found at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/12/refining-layout-scenery-part-2.html . (It also contains a link to the first in the series.)  

In the present post, I don’t describe a correction to layout scenery, as I did in the first two of these posts; instead, I describe completing an area that has been “bare ground” (actually, brown-painted Homasote) for years. In the photo below, it is the area against the backdrop, identified with the arrow, to the left of the long, low gray building (Pismo Marine Service). The small yellow shed was a candidate for this area, but will be used elsewhere. There’s really nothing there but a tie pile (you can click to enlarge the image).

What I decided to do was to add some kind of a (different) shed in this area, along with some terrain character that would look as much like dirt piles as anything. I made a couple of low piles using Sculptamold paper mache, as you see below. Note also the distinctive texture of the Homasote “ground” in the area (you can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish). What used to occupy this area was the foreground stack of ties.

Obviously we don’t want to be presenting snow piles, located mere yards from the Pacific Ocean in central California, so these were promptly painted brown.

Then the same scenic technique described in the previous posts in this series was used to cover the piles in dirt and a little grass, leaving the space between the piles open. The area is now prepared for the next step.

The intent for the gap between the two dirt piles was to accommodate a shed of some kind, whether a railroad-owned shed or something associated with the warehouse business to the right, in the scenes above. The real purpose is to fill the empty area that you see above, which can’t accommodate an industry to be switched because it is alongside a turnout. My choice was the Tichy kit for a handcar shed, which follows a C&O prototype, though I won’t be representing a handcar facility, just a shed. But that will be the topic of a future post.

Tony Thompson

Handout for “Realistic Operation” clinic

The clinic is aimed at describing and illustrating my ideas of what it means to conduct realistic operations on a layout, whether large or small. In the clinic, I show numerous examples of realistic layouts; a number of examples of prototypical paperwork as developed for use by model railroaders; and show a number of real railroad jobs that an serve as prototypes for layout operating jobs. As a single example, one might think about the yard office clerk, chalking switching directions (not graffiti!) on a freight car. This photo is from the Richard Hendrickson collection.

For layout appearance, few would disagree with a choice of a view of operations at Caliente on the La Mesa Club’s famous Tehachapi layout.

I wrapped up my recommendations with several illustrations of how I have followed these ideas in developing the operating procedures on my own layout. Shown below are links to some blog posts of mine, with background about all this. In addition, I have included below a number of background links to internet resources, as well as a complete list of published material shown or mentioned in the clinic. As I usually do nowadays,  this handout is on-line only, so that the numerous internet resources are readily accessed.  

I will begin with links to three posts to my blog, which touch on the three principles I mentioned for realistic operation.

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/11/realistic-layout-operation.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/12/realistic-layout-operation-part-2.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/01/realistic-layout-operation-part-3.html

Next is a listing of books and articles shown or mentioned in the clinic.

Armstrong, John H., The Railroad – What It Is, What It Does (Chapter 8, Railroad Operations), Simmons-Boardman Publishing, Omaha, 1982. [there are several subsequent editions with updates; the original is closest in time to the era I model] 

Bedwell, Harry, The Boomer, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2006.

“Boomer Pete,”see under Kalmbach, A.C.

Chubb, Bruce, How to Operate Your Model Railroad, Kalmbach Books, Milwaukee, 1977.

_______, Compendium of Model Railroad Operations, Operations Special Interest Group, Downingtown, PA, 2017.

Coughlin, E.W., Freight Car Distribution and Handling in the United States, Car Service Division, Association of American Railroads, Washington, 1956.

Ellison, Frank, “The Art of Model Railroading,” six-part series in Model Railroader, 1944; reprinted in 1964, August to January 1965.

Ellison, Frank, Frank Ellison on Model Railroads, Fawcett Books, Greenwich, CT, 1954.

Fisher, Ralph E., Vanishing Markers, Stephen Greene Press, Brattleboro, VT, 1976.

Kalmbach, A.C. (writing as “Boomer Pete”), “Realistic Operation,” Model Railroader, March 1939, pp. 127–130.

Kalmbach, A.C. (writing as “Boomer Pete”), How to Run a Model Railroad, Kalmbach, Milwaukee, 1944 (revision of earlier book, Operating a Model Railroad, 1942).

Koester, Tony, “In search of the perfect waybill,” Model Railroader, February 2012, p. 82.

Koester, Tony, Realistic Model Railroad Operation, Kalmbach, Waukesha, WI, 2003 (2nd edition, 2013).

Morgenstern, Wes (Ed.), Working on the Western Maryland, Western Maryland Historical Society, Union Bridge. MD, 1999.

Morgenstern, Wes,and Leo Armentrout (Eds.), Working on the Western Maryland, Volume II, Western Maryland Historical Society, Union Bridge. MD, 2011. 

Niemann, Linda, Boomer, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990.

_______, Railway Accounting Rules, Accounting Division, Association of American Railroads, Washington, 1950. [numerous editions exist; this one suits my era]

Rehwalt, Dan, Westsider, Grizzly Press, Oakridge, OR, 2004.

Roxbury, L.E., Let’s Operate a Railroad, High-Iron Publishers, Warwick, VA, 1957.

Smith, Doug, “The latest word on card operations,” Model Railroader, December 1961, pp. 52–62.

Sprau, David, and Steven King, 19 East, Copy Three, Operations Special Interest Group, WoodDale, IL, 2013, 

Thompson, Anthony, “Prototypical waybills for car card operation,” Railroad Model Craftsman, December 2009, pp. 71–77.  

Thompson, Tony, “Getting Real: A More Prototypical Waybill for Model Railroads,” Model Railroad Hobbyist, pp. 31–46, May 2012. 

Thompson, Tony, ”Getting Real: Operating with Prototypical Waybills,” Model Railroad Hobbyist, January 2018.  

Finally, several on-line articles by me, touching on the topics of the clinic.

Thompson, Anthony, “Contents of a Waybill,” The Dispatcher’s Office, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 17–24, April 2010.
[corrected version available at: modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/01/waybills-2.html ]

Thompson, Anthony, “Freight Car Handling and Distribution,” The Dispatcher’s Office, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 28–31, October 2011.
[corrected version available at: modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-article-in-dispatchers-office.html ]

Thompson, Anthony, “Progress with Prototypical Waybills for Modelers,” The Dispatcher’s Office, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 26–33, October 2016.
[corrected version available at: modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2017/11/yet-another-correction-of-dispatchers.html ]

Thompson, Tony, “Choosing and Modeling an Era,” https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/04/choosing-and-modeling-era.html

Thompson, Tony, “Handout: Operating like the Prototype,” https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/05/handout-operating-like-prototype.html

I hope presenting these resources on-line in this way will be at least as helpful as a paper handout, and in my opinion more convenient to use.

Tony Thompson

A Richard Hendrickson freight car

After Richard passed away in 2014, I inherited most of his modeling projects and materials, along with all his unbuilt kits and existing freight car fleet. As some readers may remember, I conducted on-line auctions to sell the kits and some brass freight cars, while the Santa Fe Society handled an auction of his Santa Fe brass locomotives and passenger cars. I also handled gifting over 100 of Richard’s freight cars to many of his friends and associates.

[For anyone who does not know, or has forgotten, who Richard Hendrickson was, it might be of interest to read the memorial essay of tribute I wrote after he passed away in June 2014. That essay can be found here: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/07/in-memoriam-richard-hendrickson.html .]  

A couple of his unfinished freight car projects could be completed with a reasonable amount of effort, such as his very interesting Santa Fe Class FE-25 automobile car (the concluding post in my description of that project is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/11/hendrickson-auto-car-part-6.html ). More recently, I completed his model of a Georgia Railroad USRA box car that had been rebuilt (read my description here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/07/another-hendrickson-project.html ).

Another project to come to light was his partly converted gondola to be a C&O car. I know what he intended, because both a photo and decals were with the model. Here is the photo Richard had with this project. Evidence that I mention below indicates that this is an AC&F builder photo.

What was the prototype background? From 1930 to 1937, the Chesapeake & Ohio purchased 5000 new steel gondolas, with steel solid floors and fixed ends, numbered 40000–44999. The last 1000, built by AC&F, had different ends, changing from an angled heap shield to an oval one, as you see above. These were remarkably durable cars. In 1953, the year I model, the Official Railway Equipment Register or ORER shows 3974 out of 4000 cars with the angled heap shields, and 996 of the 1000 with oval shields. Only 30 out of 5000 cars had left the roster in the intervening 20 or so years. 

Below is a Cycopedia builder photo (again, by AC&F). These 40-foot, 70-ton gondolas with 9 side ribs have a distinctive appearance.

One way these cars can readily be modeled is the way Richard was doing, using the old Roundhouse metal high-side gondola. It was a cast white-metal kit. His model has at least the Roundhouse sides and floor, held together with small screws. He modified the Dreadnaught ends, and added the distinctive rounded C&O “heap shields” with styrene. The sides have the correct rivet rows inside to match the rib locations. Richard had added brass drop grab irons to the B end.

He also had built a fairly complete underbody, re-locating the brake gear from the Roundhouse original positions (you can see the scars below) and adding all rodding and also the lever carrier hangers. However, he chose to omit most of the piping, something I usually do too. The one thing he had not done on the underbody was to replace the Roundhouse narrow coupler boxes.Here you can clearly see the characteristic Roundhouse screw attachment of sides to floor, at each corner.

The B end of the car needs a brake platform and brake wheel, along with grab irons. I will continue with this project and complete the model, including a decision about the coupler boxes, then attend to paint and decals, followed by weathering.

Tony Thompson

Realistic layout operation, Part 3

This is the third and final post in a series about what constitutes realistic layout operation. I doubt I am introducing any new ideas here, but rather offering a summary of my own views. To sum up: my core position is that realistic layout operation means following the prototype. 

In the first post in this series, I talked about layout appearance as one component of realistic layout operation. Of course the layout itself is passive, but provides what Frank Ellison called the stage on which the performance takes place. I pointed out that proto-freelanced layouts can readily be, and have proven to be, every bit as realistic in appearance as layout built with great fidelity to a particular railroad, place, and time. That post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/11/realistic-layout-operation.html .

In the second post, I described some of the essential tools to achieve realistic operation, which are items of paperwork, again following the prototype. And for the proto-freelanced railroad as much as for the prototypical one, the many prototype examples of relevant paperwork provide us with the models for what we use. That post can be found at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/12/realistic-layout-operation-part-2.html .

This concluding post is still about following the prototype, but now I want to turn to the topic of actual layout operations. I will summarize this point as procedures. Here a common point that is made is that we can add realism if we mimic the jobs that people did on the prototype. And as with so much in modeling, we are of course selective in this. We certainly can’t or don’t want to include jobs such as boilermaker, secretary to the division superintendent, supply clerk, redcap, or even locomotive fireman.

But it’s important that we know at least a little about what the jobs actually comprised that we do model, and how people went about them in the era we model. This is not easy to find out, particularly as a chosen model era is more and more distant from the present. If you model the 1920s, there are certainly no surviving railroaders to be interviewed.

But a great deal has been published, in magazines and books, about prototype railroad jobs. For example, we know a great deal about operators out on the line, like the Frisco operator shown below (Kalmbach Library) with the tools of his trade in 1939: headset, scissor-mounted telephone, telegraph key and sounder in the background, while he copies a train order.

By procedure I mean how things are done on the layout: how trains are run, how switching is conducted, and so on. Here following the prototype, unlike the case of layout appearance, enters a realm known by us as modelers, and not known to other observers. Of course the knowledge of individual modelers varies greatly, but all of us can aspire to learn more about how railroads actually work, or did work back in the day we have chosen to model.

Sometimes when I make this point, I can see some faces fall in the audience, and I know what at least some of them are thinking: “Oh no, more research to do.” As a person who enjoys learning things (as long as I’m interested in them), I only have a general understanding of this reaction. But yes, this is the area where you need always to learn more.

I can remember a time when visiting a layout for an operating session would involve the layout owner saying, “Okay, Tom, you run the coal train around the layout, and when it gets back, Joe, you run the passenger train in the other direction. And as soon as he finishes, Ed, you run the reefer block.” Let us gently pull a curtain over that era. This was not, shall we say, exactly what the prototype did or does.

Instead, trains have schedules and more specific tasks, including local trains doing switching along the line, and such other complications as helpers, or changing locomotives at intermediate terminals, and of course meets between opposing or overtaking trains. Each of those changes makes operation more complex and more realistic. So yes, you have to learn prototype operations, and in particular, you need to learn the operations of the specific prototype you model.

I would add that it’s also valuable to get some flavor of what it was like to do the jobs. Though such reminiscences have not been extensively published, there are certainly a number of good examples. One I often quote, because I have repeatedly enjoyed re-reading it, is Vanishing Markers (by Ralph E. Fisher, Stephen Greene Press, 1976) , and the excellent Dan Rehwalt and Linda Niemann books (see my initial post about such books, at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/06/railroad-stories.html and additional books following up at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/06/more-railroad-stories.html ).

I should mention the two volumes of Working on the Western Maryland, WM Historical Society, 1999 and 2011). I show the cover of Volume I below, and next to it the Contents page of Vol. II, typical of both volumes in the variety of job categories that are represented. Most of these are individuals’ summaries of their job histories, but many insights into railroad work are included. (You can click on the image to enlarge it.)

So to sum up what I’ve tried to say in these three posts, realistic operation of layouts large and small rests on three foundations: realistic appearance, use of prototype-style documents and paperwork, and following prototypical job procedures. And common to all three foundations is the principal point: follow the prototype.

Tony Thompson

Those high brake wheels

Not long ago I received an interesting question at an operating session on someone else’s layout. One of the visitors came up to me and asked, with a smile, “You’re a freight car guy, right?” As long-time readers of this blog will know, that is indeed something I’ve been called before. (You can read some background at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/10/whats-freight-car-guy.html .) 

When I acknowledged that I was such a guy, he posed his question: “How did brakemen operate those vertical-staff handbrakes with the wheels close to the roof?” What he meant, I believe, is shown below on a model of one of Southern Pacific’s temporary cabooses, converted from a box car, shown on the caboose track in my layout town of Shumala.

I began my answer by going back to the early history, when such brake staffs were a lot longer, intended for men working on the roof itself. As an example, below is an Ensign company photo (Cyril Durrenberger collection) of T&NO 1192, a car built in 1888, showing its B end. The grab iron row in this case is at the left edge of the end (about as many cars had them on the right edge), and clearly there is no brake step. A brakeman might have to operate this from the roof. 

(The photo above, and the car photos below, can be found in my book “Box Cars,” Volume 4 in the series, Southern Pacific Freight Cars, Signature Press, 2nd edition, 2014). Below is a famous illustration from the 19th century, dramatically showing men applying handbrakes in a snowstorm.

As the illustration shows, at that time, before air brakes, brakemen had to move along the roofs of cars, setting the brakes by hand. This was perilous and obviously could and did lead to injury or death. I should emphasize, however, that at least as early as 1869, some cars did have brake steps, as shown in the Promontory, Utah view below (detail of A.J. Russell photo, Oakland Museum). It was up to the car buyer to make this choice in those days. Note that the brake staff and the grab irons are on the right.

By the end of the 19th century, it became common (and later was required) to provide a step on the car end, for a brakeman to use when setting hand brakes. The brake location on the left of the car center line also became standard. But as you see in the 1902 photo below (Steve Peery collection), the grab iron row might not be there at all, and brakemen had to use the grab irons on the car side.

It wasn’t until the Third Safety Appliance Act of 1910 that mandatory locations of safety appliances came into being (previous Acts were in 1893 and 1903). The photo below is on the hump at SP’s Taylor Yard in Los Angeles (SP photo). This clearly shows how a brakeman operated the hand brake with the wheel close to the roof surface.

This arrangement continued on house cars as long as there were vertical-staff hand brakes. But starting in the late 1920s, geared hand brakes became more and more common. This provided a considerable mechanical advantage for the brakeman applying the hand brake. The brake wheel was then attached to a gearbox, and thus had a horizontal instead of a vertical shaft. It was operated from not too different a position than shown in the photo above; this image is from a Cyclopedia advertisement.

One message from these photos is that the brake step was a very important part of a freight car for brakemen. After 1966, it was moved much lower on the car side, thereby avoiding the obvious risk of having to work at the car’s top. But the method of operation remained quite similar.

So those vertical-staff hand brakes, for any time substantially into the 20th century, should not be too tall, and of course should have a brake step. Brakemen certainly counted on the brake step when they had to apply hand brakes with that equipment.

Tony Thompson