A look back: David Weitzman’s steam book

Today I want to say a few words about a wonderful book I’ve admired and treasured for many years, Superpower, by David Weitzman (David R. Godine, Boston, 1977). It’s descriptively sub-titled, “The Making of a Steam Locomotive,” and that is very much what the book contains.

The dust jacket features an illustration that wraps all the way around the book, of the first “superpower” steam locomotive, Lima’s 2 -8-4 for the Boston and Maine, always called “A-1” at Lima. It’s an 11 x 13-inch book, horizontal format, hardbound, containing just 108 pages.  The jacket foretells the illustration style of the book: just the subject of each image, no background, nothing more. 

The story line is that of a young apprentice, just starting out at the Lima Locomotive Works, who is shown the various components for building the A-1. He even meets Will Woodard, the designer of the superpower concept. I will just show a few examples of the 35 drawings, which can only suggest the power of them in the book, as they often run across the gutter of this large-format book.

An early example is the cylinder castings, shown being examined before assembling the pair of them into the cylinder saddle. The right-hand cylinder is on the facing page, its edge just visible here.

Another interesting example is the foundry work for casting the frame halves. The partial image I show below is the sand casting mold, being prepared in the lower area for the molten steel to be poured into the mold, and the upper half of the mold above it. This is most but not all of this large drawing.

Other locomotive parts were forged from steel. The work making one of the main rods is shown, with a typical modest-size forging hammer. Again, this is most but not all of this drawing.

The last drawing I will show is the assembly of the boiler onto the frame and cylinder saddle, when the locomotive parts first begin to all come together. 

What a book! I have been through it  many times, and thoroughly enjoyed it every time. Of course, I’m a steam-era guy and all that, but the illustrations are so well done, and the processes so well shown, that I think anyone with an engineering bent of any kind would like it,

Tony Thompson  

String charts aren’t new

 What’s a string chart? It’s a way of representing schedules, for trains in our case. The idea is pretty well known in model railroading. It is simply a graph of time vs. distance. The distance is the geography of a train’s run and the time span is that of its schedule for that run.

This is very clearly explained, indeed spelled out in detail, in Bruce Chubb’s excellent book, How to Operate Your Model Railroad (Kalmbach, 1977). The example below is for a notional railroad, running from Easton to Weston, and the train is No. 24. The slanting line connects (from bottom) the departure time at Easton with the times of the stops at Frog’s Hollow and Elbow Bend, to the arrival at Weston.

Thus the slope of the line is the average speed. The times in such a chart can come from, or be the basis for, a working timetable. When a complete schedule of trains is represented in this way, the advantage of a string chart is that it visually shows all trains in relation to each other, while showing location and duration of intermediate stops. 

I recently encountered an example of string chart that shows the idea is not new. Here’s the background. The Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland, passing under the very steep St. Gotthard Pass of the Alps to reach Italy, was completed in 1882. It is 15 km (9.3 miles) long, at the time of its construction the longest tunnel in the world (today an even deeper St. Gotthard Base Tunnel is 57 km long.)

In 1982, as part of the centenary of the 1882 tunnel, a commemorative calendar was issued, including photos of the original construction and train photos of various eras. What I found interesting, though was a reproduction of the original schedule through the tunnel, expressed as, you guessed it, a string chart. 

Note at the bottom of the image above that the cover and interior pages of a travelers’ guide, in French and German. It can be seen in the pages at right that there were a lot of trains. For contrast, the 1982 schedule was reproduced also, as you see below. Still lots of trains.

I would just mention in closing that most model railroads with any complexity of train operation can benefit in planning as well as execution if string charts are constructed. My point today is that the idea is far from new, and certainly didn’t originate with model railroaders. 

Tony Thompson 

The new Lines West WP box cars

I just recently learned of some new 3D-printed box cars from Lines West (Richland, WI) in HO scale. You can visit their website for information on all current products, at: https://lineswestproducts.com/ . The new kits I was interested in are for some 1916-built Western Pacific box cars and their descendants. Below I will quote from some of R.J. Dial’s very nice prototype research summary, provided for the kit. 

The prototype cars were built by Pullman in 1916, 1000 40-foot cars numbered 15001–16000. As you see below (Pullman Library), they were 40-ton single-sheathed cars with K brakes, wood doors, and arch-bar trucks. They also had a lumber door in the B end.

In the 1920s, WP converted 200 of these cars to stock cars, and in 1931, added 32 more. In 1936, conversion resumed, with another 200 cars converted and modernized. Thus more than 400 of the 1000 original cars became stock cars by the mid-1930s.

In 1937, WP converted 100 of the cars for bulk gypsum service with roof hatches, renumbering them into the 26001–26100 series. The cars had collapsible internal bulkheads to contain the cargo. In 1942, 25 more were converted. 

Below is a photo (Norman Holmes) of one of the cars in plaster service. Note the large door emblem and the roof hatches near each end, along with  late-style Andrews trucks.

Additionally, in 1936, WP began to convert surviving cars of this series into MOW cars, as their limited capacity made them less suitable for freight service. Many survived in their MOW assignment until the end of the WP. 

The next year, 1938, WP began converting some of these cars into cabooses, the first 38 with cupolas, then 61 more with bay windows instead of cupolas. By 1940, with the arch-bar trucks about to be banned, surviving box cars were stored, out of service, on line.

Lastly, after World War II, there were 35 of the original box cars in existence, and all were converted in 1947 to company stores service. With those conversion completed, none of the original 1000 cars remained as box cars in revenue service. Lines West has done kits for all but the cabooses.

I purchased the kit for the box cars that WP converted to plaster service, since by my 1953 modeling year, all the revenue-service box cars of this group had been scrapped or converted to other use.

When the kit arrives, it has no instructions in the box, but a very nice and complete set of instructions, along with a good prototype history, is available on the Lines West side as a PDF you can download (at: https://lineswestproducts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Kit-Instructions-WP-Pullman-Boxcar-Stockcar_V6.pdf ). There is also a pretty good YouTube video covering boxcar assembly; it can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9TNVrBRFJE .

The parts are extremely nice. The photo below shows the car body (note the several internal bulkheads, avoiding a problem which can occur with 3D-printed models: warpage. At lower left is the very nice underframe, with all brake gear and piping installed (the modeler will need to add brake rodding). The floor is slightly warped, as you can see, but is flexible and when snapped into place in the body, not only fits perfectly but also straightens.

At right middle are the car doors, below them the scale couple boxes (suitable for Kadee #158 couplers) and at bottom center, the roof hatches. All parts are quite nice; for example, the Z-bar braces on the car body are in fact Z braces. A nice touch is the inclusion of threaded brass inserts for bolster and coupler box screws, since many printed resins don’t seem to like being threaded.  

My first step, as it often is, was to place the car weights. As I usually do, I used two steel 5/8-11 nuts. But as you can see above, the interior bulkheads mean that the weights can’t be simply glued flat on the inside of the floor. Instead, they have to glued in an “upright” position between the bulkheads, where they just fit.

Next I began working on the body by starting to place the many grab irons that need to be installed. Starter holes are in the body at all such locations, making this work much more convenient. But I’ll continue with this project in a future post.

Tony Thompson 

Route cards, Part 31: Grading box cars

I have posted previously about this topic, grading the condition of box car interiors so they are suitable for particular commodities. I was recently given a copy by Michael Litant of a Union Pacific employee document for this work, which forms the subject of today’s post. My previous posts contained quite a few examples of the cards attached to cars to indicate their grade, usually to route card boards, thus the series topic above. I list five of these below. 

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/07/route-cards-part-19-grading-freight-cars.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/08/route-cards-part-20-more-grading-cards.html 

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/09/route-cards-part-23-varieties-of.html 

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/09/route-cards-part-25-still-more-grading.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/10/route-cards-part-27-back-to-grading.html 

Below at left is the cover of this screw-post UP book, 4.5 x 7 inches in size. At right is the first page, describing the contents. I will be posting the entire contents on Google Docs, but will show a few pages here to indicate the scope. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

Then pages 4 and 5 give a verbal description of the inspection process, referring to the UP grading card, Form 4151-1, which I will show blow. 

Both sides of the card itself, probably reproduced full size at 3.25 x 5 inches in dimensions, are shown  below, pages 6 and 7.   

Lastly for now, I show here a bit more of the instructions including grading specifics (page 9), referring to car interior photos on following pages. The photos are washed out and pretty uninformative, so not presented here.  

The instructions essentially state that the card should be attached to the car with the uppermost side being the type of grade.  Below is an example used card (Litant collection), slightly different in format and listing different commodities than the ones shown above, dated July 12, 1968 and stamped by the inspector, A. Lish, at Pocatello. 

I continue to find car grading an interesting topic, even though it is rarely applied in model railroading. Good to see all kinds of prototype practices, even if we don’t use this particular one. 

Tony Thompson 

A new armor load

Almost ten years back, I upgraded an HO scale Roco “Army” flat car, improving details, repairing the deck, replacing the undersize trucks, and repainting and re-lettering. Here’s a link to the concluding post in that series: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/12/upgrading-roco-flat-car-part-3.html . 

I then wrote a lengthy series of posts about a wide variety of military loads, mostly armored vehicles, that could move on that flat car, posts starting with the term “Roco flat car,” though loads weren’t restricted to that flat car. If you want to search for those posts, use “Roco flat cars” as the search term in the search box at right. Here's the concluding post in that series: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/10/roco-flat-car-part-10-still-more-loads.html .

On thing missing from my series was a more modern tank. I had used the various World War II vehicles from Roco, appropriate since older vehicles very much remained in use stateside for training during and after the Korean War. But I thought a more modern tank, such as served in Korea, would be good too. 

An excellent reference, discussing in detail the evolution of tank design from World War II’s M26, through the M46, to the M47, is contained in Jim Mesko’s book, M48 Patton in Action (Squadron/Signal Publications, Carrollton, TX 1984). That historical material, of course, is presented as background for the M48 tank.

There aren’t too many good photos of the M47 in the U.S. (many were transferred to U.S. allies). Here is a view of one in German service during winter maneuvers in Germany (U.S. Army photo). The hull, suspension, and turret show the extensive differences from the Sherman family of tanks.  

Though these have been available in HO scale as ready-to-run models, none seemed available when I wanted one. Instead, I located a Roco kit (their number 5086) for an M47 Patton tank.

The kit is quite simple, a body in two halves, the treads and suspension for each side, and a turret with main gun and commander’s hatch. There are no kit directions, but the location of all parts is pretty obvious. It also comes with a machine gun for the turret top, but these weren’t installed during shipping. I glued the parts together with styrene cement.

Then to make the tank into a load, I needed to add tread chocks from the Heiser set of resin parts, which I’ve shown in a previous post (see that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/07/more-about-vehicles-on-flat-cars.html ). That post also shows the boards applied along the side of the tracks.

Most photos I have been able to find of these tanks in the U.S. show minimal lettering, most visibly the absence of the distinctive white star on the turret sides. So I left mine unlettered. The as-built model above is pretty shiny, and was next given a coat of flat finish.  

Finally, I experimented with the new load. The M47 weighed about 48 tons, so could be accommodated on 50-ton or 70-ton flat cars. It’s shown below carried on a 70-ton flat car, ATSF 93459, representing a General Steel Castings one-piece body (Walthers kit), on the SP main line, passing the caboose track at the engine terminal in my layout town of Shumala. 

Like a number of armor loads I have assembled before, I enjoyed both the modeling and the chance to learn more about armored vehicles. Previous posts have listed many of the prototype publications in which this history can be found, in addition to the Mesko book listed above. Military loads like the M47 continue to be seen in mainline trains during my layout operating sessions.

Tony Thompson 

My latest operating session

Last weekend, the Bay Area enjoyed a visit from Bob Hanmer, well-known layout owner and operator from Chicago. He joined  the monthly operating session at Paul Weiss’s Central Vermont layout on Saturday, and on Sunday he operated on my layout, along with Seth Neumann, Jason Schoenmann, and Jim Radkey. This was session no. 108 on my present layout.

In some ways, this was an entirely ordinary session, in other ways much less so. For one thing, the long-running “trackwork wars” on the segment of my track between the towns of Ballard and Santa Rosalia (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/12/trackwork-wars-part-17.html ) was again tested, and though certainly not problem-free, largely performed well with locomotives at slow speeds. 

The problem was confined to the area between the switches to Jupiter, and to Track 7 in Ballard. More there yet to do, but a considerable improvement over certain past sessions. Here is that area, right above the valley between the two roofs of the MOW sheds. Rail right there seems to have freed itself from the ties, allowing locomotive wheels to shift it out of gauge. This will be fixed. 

Another aspect of the session was the renewal of something Bob Hanmer and I have been doing back and forth.  I had discovered that a source of printing paper from my online printing plant could be a mill on Bob’s layout (see the description at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/10/another-visit-to-bob-hanmers-layout.html ) For this session, a new waybill in this story was included, which of course Bob discovered, as was intended. The routing even obeys Car Service Rules.

The crews started out with Jim Radkey (left) and Seth Neumann at Ballard, with Seth conducting. What Seth is reaching for in the photo, I don’t know.

Meanwhile, Bob Hanmer and Jason Schoenmann were working at Shumala, In the photo below, Bob (left) is discussing a couple of moves with Jason; Bob was the conductor. After these shifts were completed, the two crews switched sides and assignments.

The session as a whole went well, with crews finishing in less than the average time span. More importantly, it seemed that a good time was had by everyone. That’s what all this is for, after all.

Tony Thompson 

An excellent new book

A really excellent railroad-experience book has just been published. Entitled Life Along the Tracks, it’s published by Basalt Books (an imprint of Washington State University Press). The dust jacket is shown below. The career stories are those of the Mike McLaughlin (1937–2012), assembled and brought to press by Jim Providenza. Jim also coordinated the outstanding map efforts of Dave Clemens. 

The cover photo, one of many in the book from the talented camera work of Phil Hastings, is revealing: it’s not the Overnight Express roaring down the track, or even the dispatcher, king of all he surveys. It’s ordinary railroaders, probably doing track inspection. Very much in tune with this book. 

It’s an 8.5 x 11-inch hardbound book, 242 pages long. with both a glossary and index. It’s nicely produced. I was a little disappointed that the publisher chose to use uncoated instead of coated paper, but it doesn’t greatly matter here, as the photos are really illustrations, not reference material. And about the photos: considerable effort, mostly of Jim Providenza, located and selected the many fine photos in the book, since Mike’s own photos disappeared.

Some of us in model railroading have experienced what it takes to manage a large yard. I enjoyed Mike’s comment (page 157) about how it was, back in the day: “Yard offices were a madhouse, with clerks trying to decipher train lists and yard checks made in the rain, yardmasters screaming for the train list to make up their switch lists, crew callers, janitors, and a lonely cry from the corner: “Where IS that damn car . . .’ ”  

The content is especially interesting to me because although it’s a rich variety of railroader recollections, it's not the Operating Department. Mike worked on track and signals, and late in his career even in traffic management, spread over seven railroads, including Great Northern, Denver & Rio Grande Western, and Rock Island. But to me, all of it is good reading.

I have to say a little about the superb maps by Dave Clemens. Many railroading situations involve kinda complicated geography, most of it not particularly evident to the general public. Dave has created map after map which brilliantly show exactly what the reader of the book needs to know, and little more. I will illustrate with his two maps of the railroad lines around Bellingham, Washington. First, the local tracks:

Here we see the GN passing through the area, the NP just reaching it, and the Milwaukee having a ferry slip to serve their “island branch” trackage. How does this connect to what’s a little farther out of town? Dave has shown us that too:

All in all, really a well-done, well-illustrated, fun book to read. I’m sure many modelers will have the same reaction, even if they might not get excited by the book before looking inside. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Tony Thompson