Modeling Monarch Mining

Since the earliest days of my layout I have envisioned handling ore shipments. (Probably a side effect of my professional life as a metallurgist.) There isn’t space on my layout for the mines themselves, but I can duplicate what often happened with small mines that would not justify a spur track to the mine. Instead, the ore was trucked to the nearest rail line, and dumped from trucks into rail cars.

Such dumps naturally varied widely, from the simplest platform above the rails for dump trucks to dump from, to more elaborate arrangements in which coal could be screened, waste rock removed, or simply stored awaiting a rail car. 

The simplest kind, the overhead platform for direct dumping, has been available for years in HO scale from Blair Line. Here is their photo of a completed kit: 

Beyond the simple overhead platform, varying degrees of complexity can be found. Here is an interesting prototype view of Dyco #1 Tipple in southern Ohio (Harrison County Coal Museum).  

The trucks arrive along the elevated roadway at left, and dump into a bin. A conveyor then elevates the coal to a minimal structure above the rails, which may be nothing more than a storage bin. A hopper car is spotted under the building in this photo.

So what would the loads be on my layout? I have written two previous blog posts about a specific ore that was mined in the area I model: chromite. Here’s the first article, with background on the geology and local history: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/10/modeling-mining-in-your-locale.html . I went into more detail specifically about this kind of ore in the second article, including making chromite loads for ore cars: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/10/modeling-mining-part-2.html .

The loads I’ve made are intended to represent low-grade or “disseminated” chromite ore, much different from high-grade or concentrated ore, which is dark brown or black. These distinctions are explored in the second post just cited.

 I showed my ore cars in that second post, cited above; I have used old Model Die Casting white metal kits for some of the cars, along with a Grandt Line O-scale kit for a Gilpin Tram ore car, simply with details like brake wheel, grab irons and trucks in HO scale. This looks fine in HO, though it has no prototype that I know of at this size. Comparing the two kinds of cars, it looks like the volume of the Gilpin-type cars may be around half that of the conventional 70-ton ore car.

My choice was to build a ramp for dump trucks alongside Bromela Road in my layout town of Ballard, add a portable conveyor, and then all you need is ore cars. In the photo below, today’s road engine on the Santa Rosalia Local, Alco S-4 no. 1474, is picking up a load of chromite ore.

One thing I haven’t really discussed before is the destination of such loads. Certainly the chromite of the low-grade type, which I’m modeling, was processed for use in high-temperature refractories. One possible destination, then, was Kaiser’s plant making such products. This low-grade ore was less desirable in making ferroalloys, but was used when the price was right. These two kinds of destination are shown in the examples below. 

It is fun for me to have actual mining shipments on my layout, even if it is kind of a marginal product and I didn’t get to model a mine. The chromite choice does fit the locale and the period.

Tony Thompson 

Another weathering project

I recently undertook to weather some mid-1970s freight cars for a friend. His layout is set in 1975, thus prior to the graffiti era. The models happen to have built dates within a year or two of the layout’s era, and thus will not be heavily weathered. 

(For those who are interested in graffiti, you might like to look at my article in Model Railroad Hobbyist. My post linking to that article, including a brief description of my method of paper overlays for graffiti, is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/01/my-latest-column-in-mrh.html , and could also delve into my long-running series on techniques of graffiti application, culminating in no. 25 in the series: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/04/freight-car-graffiti-part-25-more.html .)

Several of the models to be weathered are the recent Rapido models of Pacific Car & Foundry 50-foot double-door box cars for Southern Pacific and subsidiary Cotton Belt, classes B-70-69, B-70-71, and B-70-75. All were produced between 1972 and 1975, and all had Hydra-Cushion underframes. Below is a view of a nearly-new car, SP 245723 (Class B-70-75), seen at Indio, CA on June 15, 1975 (Steve Vincent photo). Only three months old, it has Youngstown doors, as did most of these cars.

Here is a photo of a Class B-70-69 car, all of which class was assigned to the Cotton Belt, 820 cars numbered 66529–67349. These cars also had Youngstown doors. This prototype photo, from Jim Eager, shows the overall appearance, but having been taken in 1984, shows a level of weathering not appropriate for 1975.  

 Below is an image of one of the Rapido cars, right out of the box. It is well detailed and all aspects match the prototype, as far as I know. 

An important issue for me in completing weathering was to deal with all the changes in car maintenance lettering over the years after my own 1950s modeling. Cars had to be reweighed periodically until the 1970s; brake gear had to be oiled and tested; and in the late 1960s there were ACI labels applied. 

The ACI (Automatic Car Identification) labels were introduced in 1967, and it was mandatory for all railcar owners to apply them, although as late as 1975 only 90 percent of all cars had the labels. But by that time, it was already evident that the system could not continue. Dirt accumulation on the labels caused false readings, as did physical damage like scrapes. Railcar owners were supposed to have an active maintenance program for the labels, but that didn’t really happen, and the system was abandoned in 1977.

In 1972, a  consolidated stencil was introduced by the AAR for air brake maintenance, and was called a COTS label (Clean, Oil, Test, Stencil) to record work that was done. This was a single black box, and was adopted slowly. In 1974, a two-box label that added lubrication information for the wheel bearings was introduced, and the Federal Railroad Administration made it mandatory for all cars. Because the prototypes of some of the Rapido cars were built before 1974 (like the model shown above), they have the single-box COTS version.

Finally, cars had been required for decades to be reweighed periodically to determine light or tare or empty weight, but as all-steel cars became predominant, weight variations essentially disappeared, and later in the 1970s the reweigh requirement was eliminated. But all the Rapido models are new enough in 1975 that none wold yet have been reweighed.

I gave the models coats of flat finish, then weathered them with my usual procedure, using washes of acrylic tube paints (for process description and illustrations, see my “Reference pages” linked at the top right of this post). Here are the Cotton Belt model shown above, in the foreground, weathered, and in the background, an unweathered SP car of Class B-70-71.

I have five of these cars altogether, and am proceeding with the balance of the group. I will return to them, along with two quite different tank car models, in a future post.

Tony Thompson 

An excellent new freight car book

As regular readers will know, I’m sometimes called a “freight car guy,” and there’s certainly some truth in that. In that capacity, I was delighted to receive a brand-new book with a breathtaking collection of builder photos of freight cars.

The book is called Canadian Car & Foundry, subtitled “Freight Cars 1900–1960.” It’s by John Riddell, long-time noted Canadian modeler. It’s an 8.5 x 11-inch book, softbound, containing 200 pages with some 370 photos. Here is the cover:

It is published by the Bytown Railway Society, Inc., and is available from them for $64.95 (U.S. dollars). You can order it online at their site, which is https://www.bytownrailwaysociety.ca .

A striking feature of the book is the excellent photographs, which are very well reproduced on coated paper. The company photographers undoubtedly took large-format negatives, and the results really are stunning. I will show just a few examples here.  

 To begin, here is CN 503565, a 40-foot single-sheathed box car with two-piece Dreadnaught steel ends. It’s one of 1600 cars built in spring 1929, number series 503500–505099. This is just one of many very large orders built for CN and CP by CC&F. 

Built at almost the same time was an all-steel box car group for Canadian Pacific, the famed “Mini-box” steel box cars. They were just 8 feet, 7 inches high inside, giving them a 3000 cubic foot capacity. The car shown was the first of a 1500-car series, 24000–241499, and has a recessed two-piece Dreadnaught end.

I was intrigued with the variety and number of tank cars produced. Shown here is an interesting one, part of an order of eight cars built in 1930. It’s an acid tank car, AAR Class TA, as the dome appearance immediately suggests. Its capacity was 7000 U.S. gallons, and was intended for sulfuric acid. All eight of these cars remained in service until 1970, when they were sold to Union Tank Car.

 

And yes, they built cabooses too. This one obviously built for Canadian National, one of 50 cars built in August 1924, numbered CN 77850–77899.

This really is a delightful book to page through, and it definitely adds to our knowledge of North American freight cars. Of course only a tiny fraction of CC&F production could be shown. Some of us will be hoping that there is a Volume 2 some day.

Tony Thompson 

Layout instructions and all that

What do I mean by “layout instructions?” I mean the kind of information provided by a layout owner to prospective visitors or operators of the layout. Over the years, I have received or seen a great many of these, and wanted to offer a few comments. 

Now of course  a brief layout description, often identifying the area modeled, the era modeled, and the railroad(s) modeled, can be most informative for a visitor. The writer may indulge in considerable detail about these choices, or simply state them. Sometimes these are offered in advance of visits, and often they are available as hand-outs during layout visits. My own version of this kind of hand-out has been the subject of a blog post (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-layout-description.html .)

But by the term “instructions,” I mean the kind of document intended for visiting operators.  I have written comments on this before: see https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/04/what-makes-good-layout-description.html . Over the years, I have received everything from half-page summaries to 18- or 20-page documents. An 18-pager is shown below, upside down to not reveal the perpetrator.

What should be in a document like this, however large or small?

I think either a track plan, or a schematic of how the layout works, is very helpful. It certainly can be valuable to study a track plan in advance, but a schematic of the track plan is in some ways better, because it shows you how the layout will work. That isn’t always obvious in a track plan.

Some kind of description of the operating scheme ought to be provided, though it doesn’t have to be terribly detailed if you are expecting experienced visitors. Pages and pages of procedures and copies of multiple forms that are used aren’t essential. I have occasionally gone back after a session on a layout which provided all that paperwork in advance, and found I could understand it far better in retrospect, where in advance it was bewildering. 

It can also be useful to summarize what the layout jobs comprise. I’m sure many experienced readers will recall being at a layout, and the host says, “Who wants the Beanfield Local?” and a bunch of hands go up — but not yours, because you never heard of it before. Or no hands go up, so you figure it’s not a great job, and you don’t volunteer either. Saying that it’s a long job, or a short job; involves lots of switching off the main line, or is right on the main and you have to keep out of the way of lots of trains; is entirely tank cars, or cement cars, or whatever; or it’s a yard job switching industries in town — you get the idea. 

Is there anything that I think ought not to be in such instructions? Many such documents include remarks about the builder’s background, or about the layout’s history (I’m guilty of this, too). But though such information is interesting, it doesn’t contribute to understanding the operating challenges that will be encountered. My suggestion is to keep this kind of content brief.

Of course what we layout owners hope will happen, and often enough does not happen, is the visitor carefully reading the instructions he’s been given. But here’s photo of John Goodrich doing just that with the instructions for a train, at Dave Loveless’s layout (Loveless photo).

I should be quick to state that I don’t have the perfect solution to these problems, as I have sometimes learned when a new operator comes to one of my sessions and tells me that they couldn’t figure out part of my description. But I think it’s useful to keep trying to do better.Your next visitors will appreciate it.

Tony Thompson

Rapido’s new 1937 AAR box cars

A long-awaited arrival for Rapido is the 1937 AAR box cars in HO scale. I was impressed with the original announcement, because they intended to supply a range of roofs and ends to match specific prototypes. More on the models in a moment.

This landmark car design, in all its many variations, cannot be better presented than in Patrick C. Wider’s monumental 384-page opus, Railway Prototype Cyclopedia, Volume 35 (Silverlake Images, 2020). He presents all the railroad ownerships of some 94,000 AAR 1937-design cars manufactured, with very complete presentation of many specialties and distinctive design aspects of these cars. 

Canadian railroads happen to have been major purchasers of these cars, more than 28,000 of the total.  They were led by Canadian National, who received 18,315 cars between May 1937 and July 1945. 

The car shown below (Library and Archives Canada photo) was part of 1350 cars built by National Steel Car in 1944 (CNR 484165–485514). You may note the eight-rung ladder with integral sill step. The white “Serves All Canada” emblem shown was first applied in 1943. 

Canadian Pacific was second only to CNR in its purchases of the 1937-design box cars, receiving 9947 cars between June 1937 and November 1946. The car shown below (Library and Archives Canada photo) was one of 1700 cars built by Canadian Car and Foundry in 1937 (CPR 226000–227699). It has seven-rung integral-sill-step ladders. At the time of their construction, CPR was not applying emblems, as you see here. 

The CPR car had a flat panel roof, unlike the familiar style of roof with raised rectangular sections in each roof panel. Below is a photo of such a roof (actually for a later CNR car, with steel running board).  

I have to confess I chose the individual cars that I did because of the paint schemes, neither of which I already owned. I photographed the models as they arrived from Rapido. They will receive coats of flat finish, be weathered, and receive fresh reweigh and repack stencils, route cards and chalk marks. Here is the CNR car: 

And here is the CPR model, with its distinctive flat-panel roof. It depicts a repainted car, because it has the “Spans the World” logo, first applied in 1947, well after the car was built. Like the CNR car above, it has the correct ladders. 

I look forward to getting these weathered and otherwise ready for service on the layout.

Tony Thompson 

 

My lemon packing house

My layout is set in coastal California, and in the southern half of the state, such areas are suitable for lemon cultivation. Accordingly, I wanted to have a packing house for lemons. 

 In addition to the geographic suitability, there is an attractive traffic consequence, because lemons are harvested all year long. It is a commonplace observation that during most of the year, one can find blossoms, tiny green baby lemons, and ripe yellow lemons on lemon trees. Thus lemons are shipped year-round, rather than seasonally, as for most crops.

I described recently how I made my Zaca Mesa winery from a Magnuson kit structure (see the post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/11/my-zaca-mesa-winery.html ). I show the kit box photos below for clarity. The major part of the structure became the winery, as described in the post cited, but the smaller receiving building, at right in the upper view below, became the lemon packing building. 

This brick structure had large arch openings at each end for hopper cars of coal. Since these made no sense in my intended use, I filled both arches with doors, first filling the curved part of the arch with brick paper. Below is the east end of the building as I modified it, which faces on Corralitos Lane. Note the smear of epoxy glue from the previous owner, which I tried and failed to remove.

At the west end, facing Laguna Street in my coastal town of Santa Rosalia, I instead modeled the doorway as a roll-up door, using corrugated metal and a half-round shape for the mechanism at top. 

A view of just the building on the layout shows a side view. I again added a roll-up door in the center, perhaps as a replacement for a deteriorated wooden door. I filled one window with brick, and the doorway at the right end is open, with some field boxes visible inside, containing lemons. I also added a couple of lemons on the ground, using craft beads.  At right is a truck picking up empty field boxes.

The building is on the small side for a packing house, but lemons require little work in packing, really only washing and grading, and putting into shipping boxes. Thus I believe that the building, though small, is just about big enough for credibility. I lettered it with dry transfers.

In use, you can see the two streets on either side of the building, as well as the layout surroundings, and a reefer being loaded. Street names are shown on the fascia. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

I enjoy having a citrus packing house on the layout, both for California flavor and for its year-round traffic. It exchanges loaded and empty reefers in nearly every operating session on the layout, regardless of the month of the session, just as it should.

Tony Thompson

What about “mundane” freight car kits?

Following my lengthy saga about kitbashing an Erie 50-foot automobile car from a Branchline kit, with replaced roof and ends, and a detour considering it as a C&NW car (about which I put up five posts, concluding with this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/07/my-erie-50-ft-auto-car-conclusion.html ), I received a question. I’ll paraphrase it like this: “These big, complicated projects are fine, but do you ever do a plain old simple kit?” As a matter of fact, I do, and so I’ll show one. 

I think most modelers would agree that Accurail kits qualify as simple kits. Recently I built one of their USRA double-sheathed box car kits, a Great Northern car that models one of the 1500 box cars of this design that GN received in 1919. They were numbered in the 23494–24993 series, and were GN’s first box cars with a steel underframe instead of truss rods. Below is a GN photo of one of these cars, freshly repainted at St. Cloud shops in March 1925 (GNRHS collection).  

These cars were very durable. By my own modeling date of 1953, there were still 1222 of the original 1500 cars in service. and they continued in use through the 1950s. Below is a photo of one in 1958 (Virl Davis photo, Richard Hendrickson collection), with the original USRA Andrews trucks and 5-5-5 corrugated end visible.

(For a condensed history of the GN box car fleet, along with the rest of the GN freight cars, I recommend the chapter by Richard Hendrickson and Staffan Ehnbom in Patrick Dorin’s book, Great Northern Lines East, Second Edition, Signature Press, 2001) .

The Accurail kit is, of course, straightforward. It could be upgraded by replacing the molded grab irons with wire ones, but for me this is a layout model, and can serve in original condition. However, there are a few changes to the kit as supplied that I do make. 

To begin, I cut the steel weight in half, glued the two halves together with canopy glue, and glued the pair in the center of the floor. This leaves truck screw holes completely open, and I tapped them 2-56. Mechanically, I put InterMountain wheelsets in the kit sideframes, and Kadee #158 whisker couplers in the kit coupler boxes. Here is that weight application.

Next, I replaced the vulnerable plastic brake wheel with a Cal-Scale brass one, soldered to a brass wire staff. And third, I added roof corner grab irons with the Tichy wire parts. 

Then, after a protective coat of flat finish, I weathered with acrylic tube paint, in the form of washes (see “Reference pages” linked at the top right of this post). The GN emblem here is the 1941–48 version. Finally, I added decal paint patches for fresh reweigh and repack stencils, along with route cards and chalk marks.

This kind of straightforward freight car kit is fun to build and quickly gives a layout-quality result. It will go into service on my layout right away.

Tony Thompson