Cars on the layout for op sessions

This is an apparently evergreen topic, as I have posted about it a couple of times, but continue to get inquiries about it. My most recent post on the subject is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/08/cars-on-layout-for-op-session.html , from five years ago. But let me re-visit the area one more time. 

Most expressions of interest have been about choices of cars, and the related topic, how the layout car population changes or continues from session to session. There is a general pattern, that a car coming onto the layout via delivery by the Guadalupe Local is then switched to its destination industry, in that session or the following one. It then may be picked up and taken outbound in the next or next following session. 

But there are also cars that get added to the layout before a particular session, maybe by being placed directly at an industry, and then picked up in that or a subsequent session. And on occasion a car that has resided at an industry for a couple of sessions may be removed by “0-5-0” before the next session. Thus there is not a rigid or unchanging rhythm to car movements.

So what’s going on? Don’t I have a plan or a system? Well, if you have read this blog very often, you know that I would be bound to have a system. It’s just not inflexible. I always cringe a little bit at the term “play value,” but this is a good example of what we mean by it. I want each session to be interesting and varied, and to include a wide variety of freight cars. 

So if we look at the photo below, just taken today at Shumala on my layout, showing an assortment of cars being readied for an upcoming operating session, what do we see? I will come back to the details, but these seven cars include a pair of SP gondolas at right, an Associated Oil Co. tank car and a New York Central box car to their left, and behind them, box cars owned by the Rock Island, Buffalo Creek Flour, and the Cotton Belt. This does reflect an aspect of the variety I want.

Now what do I mean by “variety?” I mean prototypical variations in the car population by railroad. To me, there are two parts to this aspect. First is home-road cars; second is what railroaders call “foreign” cars, those owned by all railroads other than the home road.

There are extensive data for any railroad about home-road cars, in the form of yard and train photographs. Ideally, one hopes to also find less “snapshot” kinds of evidence, in the form of conductors’ time books, yard lists or wheel reports, though disappointingly few such documents survive. For the railroad I model, the Southern Pacific, data show home-road cars to be around 25 to 35 percent of all cars (for example, see the analysis here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/03/modeling-freight-traffic-coast-line_11.html ).

For foreign cars, we have the benefit of a very interesting idea, the Gilbert-Nelson hypothesis (which I’ve described in detail previously: see https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2010/12/choosing-model-car-fleet-2.html ). This hypothesis, well supported with data for trunk line or long-haul railroads, is that freight cars appear in proportion to their percentage in the national freight car fleet. Thus our main tool for choosing foreign cars is data for that national fleet.

My most-used version of this tool is the graph below. What it shows is fleet size for the “top 15” railroads.  This graph is for 1950, one that I have shown previously in several places, showing the size of car fleets, minus coal and ore hoppers. (For a defense of that adjustment, see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/05/proportions-of-freight-car-fleet.html , or my article in Model Railroad Hobbyist for  December 2011).   

A few things to point about this graph. First, the five biggest fleets (other than SP) are the PRR, NYC, ATSF, Milwaukee and B&O. I try to make sure that cars from three to five of these roads participate in every operating session. Second, notice that PFE shows up here because of its fleet size; I do indeed operate a considerable number of PFE reefers, as they provided SP with its reefer needs. Rock island, with a car contained in the photo at the top of this post, is well down in this graph but obviously one of the largest freight car fleets in the U.S., and also an interchange partner with SP.

What about that Buffalo Creek car? In my era, the Buffalo Creek Railroad owned exactly 500 box cars, all leased to Buffalo Creek Flour. Isn’t that far too small a railroad for me to have one of their cars, after looking at the graph above? Here I like to quote a comment from my friend Tim O’Connor, that each “tiny” car owner individually is invisible, but collectively they rostered over 5 percent of the national fleet. So a car of a some tiny railroad really should show up occasionally. 

Beyond the intent to include about 30 percent of an operating session in SP cars, and to include cars of the “Big Five” shown above, everything else depends on the needs of shippers. I have documented previously my overall framework for determining these needs. (See that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/11/operations-demand-based-car-flow-2.html .) This forms the background for choosing car movements in any one session. If all this isn’t clear, please contact me with questions.

Tony Thompson 

SoundRail 2026

Last week was another fine return of the SoundRail operating weekend in the Seattle area (it’s named for Puget Sound). I have attended five previous SoundRails, and enjoyed every one. They continue to use their iconic logo, with Seattle’s landmark Space Needle featured. 

We began the week, as several of us from the Bay Area often do, in a “bonus session” at Joe Green’ excellent C&O layout in Sequim, Washington. It is set in 1974, is beautifully scenicked and runs perfectly. Below I show the crewman I was paired with, Mark Schutzer, with Joe standing in the background, moving our “road job” train to its destination, where we would do local switching.

The first formal session of the event found me at Bill Sornsin’s outstanding HO scale Great Northern layout, set in 1955. I landed a job I like on this layout, in the large Interbay Yard at Seattle. It’s shown below, with my fellow switchman, Seth Neumann, in the distance. The yard is large enough to have ample space for switching work, a feature not always found on model railroads. 

The second layout of the regular program that I drew was Bill Messecar’s Santa Fe layout, set on Santa Fe’s 3rd District in Southern California, involving Riverside, Corona, and Placentia, with lots of local switching. I was especially impressed with Bill’s many handsome structures. Here is just one of them, the Exchange Citrus plant at Corona. 

Finally, we wrapped up the weekend at Dale Kreutzer’s beautiful Rio Grande Southern layout, set in 1926 when the railroad had a lot of business. At one point, I was the engineer on a train with Mike Chandler conducting, and when we had a meet at Hesperus, the only siding (the house track), was quite full, necessitating a saw-by. Here you see, at left, Mike, Cal Sexsmith, and Jim Providenza watching the moves (Cal and Jim were the crew of the train we were meeting, which is passing the depot).  

As it has been for every SoundRail I have attended, it was a wonderful weekend. Lots of camaraderie, excellent layouts, and plenty of good operation. I look forward to SoundRail in every even-numbered year. 

But the real reason I report like this on an operating weekend is to encourage those who haven’t, or haven’t recently, attended one. They are a lot of fun, and I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t tried one, to seek out an event of this kind, and jump on the next chance you get.

Tony Thompson 

The Yarmouth GN box car, Part 2

In the preceding post on this topic, I showed the Great Northern 50-foot single-door box car kit from Yarmouth Models that I had agreed to build for a friend (Yarmouth kit no. 140). In that post, I had completed the underbody detailing and begun work on the car body. You can read that initial description at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/01/building-yarmouth-model-works-kit.html  ).  

The attachment of detail parts to car sides and ends was much like any box car, since I had decided not build the beautiful but fussy Yarmouth ladders. The placard boards were some resin ones I had on hand. I used A-Line sill steps, bent to match the shape of the GN ones. They were  attached, as were all these details, with canopy glue. Below is a photo of the model at this point. 

At this point I like to paint the underbody, since later when everything is complete one may not want to rest the car on its roof. I used Tamiya “Red Brown,” TS-1. Following that I attached the etched stainless running board (using canopy glue) and other final details. 

Having washed the body when it was received, I could now paint the entire car, also TS-1. As I usually do, I attached “paint shop trucks,” trucks used only for this purpose, and that is what you see below. 

Next came the decals. The kit decals are quite nice, and I chose the lettering applied when these cars were first rebuilt in 1954. My only grumble was applying the 14 individual small circles, representing reflective material, along the each side sill. But it wasn’t difficult, just tedious. 

Next I wanted to weather the model. I used my usual method with acrylic tube paint, applied as washes (for detailed description of the method and illustrations, see the Reference pages linked at the top right of this post). In addition, a few chalk marks and route cards were added. The car is shown below resting on its kit sideframes; the recipient of this model wanted to add his own wheelsets and couplers.  

At this point, it my be of interest to show the photo of a completed model in this scheme that was provided initially by Yarmouth Models.

I have now delivered the model to its owner. It was an interesting model to build, and I’ll repeat my sentiment at the beginning of these posts, that Pierre Oliver and Yarmouth Models are already very much being missed in our hobby.

Tony Thompson 

My latest column in Model Railroad Hobbyist

My most recent column in the on-line magazine, Model Railroad Hobbyist, has just appeared in the March issue. It is entitled “Military Loads,” and as readers of this blog will know, I have posted numerous descriptions of a variety of such loads over the years. A full set of live links to those posts is in the article.

This happens to be my 31st column in the magazine, a series dating back to my first column in the December 2011 issue. I sometimes think I am going to run out of ideas for this series, but they do seem to crop up every tine.

The current column is primarily about military vehicles, most of them fighting vehicles. I decide not to get into the very large variety of loads for military uses, which could be an entire additional column.s I always do, I attempted to provide a solid list of prototype information sources for the topic of the column. 

I was also able to contribute a few photos from my own collection. The example below was taken at San Luis Obispo by a Southern Pacific photographer, depicting M3 half-tracks being prepared for unloading at Camp San Luis Obispo, a training camp just north of the city. Blocking of the vehicles for shipment is clearly shown. The tank cars at right are loads of locomotive fuel for the engine terminal.

I used the blocking arrangements visible above for my Roco model half-tracks. Two of them are shown below (one has a tarpaulin cover, like some of the ones above). They are riding on an upgraded Roco “Army” flat car; see my posts ending in:  https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/12/upgrading-roco-flat-car-part-3.html . 

I also enjoyed a number of other fighting vehicles, and since my modeling era is the Korean War period, I can model older vehicles that we know were used in training units for Korea. An example is the two shown below, an M4 Sherman tank, and an M7 105-mm howitzer mounted on a Sherman hull, again shown on the Roco flat car.

Of course numerous other military vehicles were also being shipped in this period, and I included a model inherited from Richard Hendrickson, a pair of army trucks on an Illinois Terminal flat car. Richard modeled the blocking ant tie-downs very nicely. As with all my military loads, this is shown in. a train on the SP Main line passing my town of Shumala, since there would be no credible reasons for these vehicles to operate on my Santa Rosalia Branch.

Lastly, I showed some examples of the waybills used to move these loads on my layout. Like prototype examples I have seen, they are U.S. Government waybills, not railroad ones, and are filled out with a Teletype font. I researched which West Coast training facilities housed which armored divisions, information readily found on line. 

I have enjoyed learning about military vehicles of my modeling period, and have also enjoyed seeking out HO scale models of them and making them into removable loads for flat cars in my operating sessions. All that is covered in much more detail in the MRH article, if you wish to read it.

Tony Thompson 

Still more on shipping of tanks

I apologize for the sort of “real time” back and forth on this topic, but information I thought I knew and understood is getting changed in every bit as much real time. The comments by Jim Eager to my previous post on this topic (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/02/a-note-on-shipping-of-tanks.html ) led me to re-examine the information I had, and to update it. 

First of all, in that previous post, I showed a page from the 1953 AAR loading rules pamphlet MD-7, and I misinterpreted the drawing shown (as Jim pointed out, it is not actually the outline of an M47 tank). The accompanying text directions do state that the gun barrel should face forward, in contradiction to the drawing, but as Jim mentioned, it may be that this text was erroneously carried over from a previous edition of the pamphlet. 

Jim mentioned a recent book about this tank, by David Doyle, the cover of which is shown below. This is one of a considerable number of fine books on armor subjects, and stands out because it contains some excellent photos of shipping arrangements.

This is a large-format book, 8.25 x 11 inches in size, with 94 pages. It is copiously illustrated with. historic photos, and contains 167 of them. Publisher is Guideline Publications Books, which also publishes the military modeling magazine, Military Modelcraft International. They are a UK company, but market in the U.S. (see the site at: https://www.guidelinepublicationsusa.com/index.php?INNERWIDTH=1220&RET=1 ).

The book contains numerous excellent images of M47 tanks, including the portrait below (Patton Museum), of an M47 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, in August of 1951, undergoing test and inspection. The forward position of the turret on the tank body is evident.

As mentioned above, there are also several photos of M47s being readied for shipment. The one below (Stellantis Historical archive) is especially interesting. It shows M47s being loaded onto railroad flat cars at the Detroit Tank Arsenal, operated at that time by the Chrysler Corporation. 

In the photo, the foreground Milwaukee Road flat car is part of a 750-car group numbered 650000–650749, 50-foot cars of 100,000-pound capacity. The 46-ton M47 was appropriately loaded on such cars. Note that the nearest tank being loaded, and those in the distance, all have turrets turned to the rear.

For this and other reasons, already discussed, I re-photographed my Roco model of an M47, and turned its turret to the rear for shipping, as you see in this view on my layout at Shumala.

This little discussion of shipping details for tanks reminds us that shipping arrangements were era-dependent. One should not generalize from any one era, what was done in another.

Tony Thompson 

The old L&C: Part 2

From time to time in this blog, I’ve posted historical images of my layout as it once was, construction photos and early operations. (These can be found by using “L&C” as the search term in the search box at right.) The previous post on this topic is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/01/a-look-back-at-lompoc-cuyama.html . As I’ve often stated, L&C stood for Lompoc & Cuyama.

There was a comment to that previous post, asking if the mainline tunnel on my layout represented the actual Tunnel 12 near Sudden on the Coast Line. Yes, it does, and here’s a photo on the layout, including the typical SP tunnel number in white on a black background. The concrete portal is typical of SP practice on the Coast; it’s a commercial part.

I mentioned using USGS topographic maps to devise a route for the L&C. I still use one of the old USGS’s molded plastic versions of quadrangles, in this case the Santa Maria map. The town of Santa Maria is at the top center of the map. You can readily see the much more mountainous terrain at the upper right corner, which is the edge of the Sierra Madre range.  

In addition to what was mentioned before, my goals for the layout were to include a fair amount of the canonical California countryside, golden grass with oak trees, both on modeled scenery and on the backdrops. Here’s a photo of the prototype landscape: 

I chose to use Harriman Consolidations as the foundation of the L&C’s power, both SP and UP brass engine models. Here, for example, is L&C No. 12 switching at what was then Jalama, with a reefer being iced at the foreground icing deck. This area on today’s layout, now called Shumala, is otherwise much the same as this. 

I’ll close with a photo shown before but which I’ve always liked, in part because it vividly shows how the town of Ballard once looked. This is L&C Consolidation No. 10 arriving with a short freight. Some of the buildings you see here are in the identical positions today: the depot, the winery in the distance, and the wholesale grocer and Nocturnal Aviation against the backdrop at right. The other two industries, middle distance, have been relocated, and additional structures have been added. 

After the move from Pittsburgh to Berkeley, that hill in the distance above had to be entirely rebuilt (as I described in a series of posts, culminating with this one: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/01/repairing-ballard-hill-conclusion.html ). But of course that’s only one of many examples of how time marches on.

Tony Thompson 

Designing a switching layout

Recently a long-time friend, someone even older than me, asked advice about designing a switching layout he could build. He had limited space, didn’t want to do too much carpentry, but wanted some scope to do switching operations.

Now I’m really not a layout design guy, having only limited talent for visualizing how something would work. I admit my first thought, therefore, was to recollect one of the small layouts that I admired when it was first published, and which I’ve thought about it many times since. It is Model Railroader’s Beer Line layout, published as a layout construction article in the magazine issues from January to April 2009, with a follow-up article in May 2009 about operating schemes for the layout. 

An interesting aspect of this layout is that it was designed so it could be configured in several ways. As a layout with an oval of “mainline” track, it was 4 x 12 feet in size. But it was effectively made up of individual 2 x 4-foot sections, designed so they could be arranged in a variety of ways, such as a “J” shape or simply linear. As I recalled, some of the sections were able to be used in several ways. 

I went back to the MR articles and scanned in the track plan, then rearranged four of the two-foot-wide sections in what seemed like it would have a lot of switching. It’s shown below; you can click on the image to enlarge it, if you wish. (All MR images in this post used with permission.)

The industries shown on the drawing are the Milwaukee ones of the original design, but of course these can be changed to whatever is desired. The layout also has the Milwaukee River along the lower edge of the drawing, which can of course be omitted. Roads need not be located as shown, but could be relocated as desired. A nice feature is that there is a yard at one end. 

I have taken advantage of something in the original articles, tail tracks that can be removed, or hinged to fold down. These allow staging in those tracks, or in one case (at left edge in the drawing above), enough tail track to constitute a run-around. Below is a photo from the fifth article showing one of these in use. They could of course be as long as desired. 

Another point to recognize is that the original MR design was made so that the layout sections, however arranged, could be accessed from both sides. But a layout based on these ideas could well be located against a wall, making building flats on that side an attractive option to save space. If the upper edge of the drawing above were against the wall, several building flats could be served by an added track along the back.

The original MR article described building conventional legs and braces as support for the sections, as show roughly below. But my friend had two bookcases that he could put the layout on top of, each a little more than six feet long, so my 16-foot design shown above could simply by screwed or clamped to the top of the bookcases.  

My friend had also asked for some ideas of industries he should have. I promptly sent him the kind of list I personally have found effective, starting with the “universal industry,” the team track. Other very versatile industries are a wholesale grocer, a freight house, or a warehouse. Each can receive a wide variety of cargoes and freight car types. Freight houses can be long and narrow, as was the case on the Beer Line layout (below), or even as flats on the backdrop.

Beyond those choices, a beer and wine distributor is a possibility, along with a printer, a fuel dealer, and perhaps a cannery (fruit and/or vegetable). A chemical or pharmaceutical repackager could also be considered. Of course, any kind of manufacturing building, modeled only as a flat against the backdrop, could easily be added. These make possible a wide variety of car types to be switched to and from the industries. 

Tony Thompson