Desert Ops 2026

 Last week I attended the biannual Desert Ops event in the Phoenix, Arizona area. This is a delightful time of year there, with mild, sunny days, and I think everyone enjoyed the weekend. As I understood from meet organizers, this was the twelfth edition of this event (to see my comments on previous Desert Op weekends, use those words as the search term in the search box at right).

This year I was assigned four layouts, the first of them as an “outlaw” layout visit (not meaning “illegal” but outside the regular program, usually the day prior to the start of the event). This time it was Rick Watson’s compact but intense Exeter Branch layout, where I had operated several times before and always found to be great fun. This time I switched Reedley-Dinuba, which certainly holds one’s attention.

 Note above Rick’s remarkably effective scenic technique: all relevant buildings are present, but terrain is simply painted brown, with roads indicated. It is simple, durable, and impressively convincing.

That evening, I operated at David Doiron’s huge Arizona layout, the “Lost Dutchman,” where, again, I had operated several times before and always enjoyed it. It is located in a basement like no other in size, and gradually the layout is inhabiting all of it. Below at left is my 18-car train to Peterson leaving Tempe yard.

The following day I operated again at Rick Watson’s, but this time on his relatively new and immense Los Angeles Division of the SP, set in 1979–1984. The sheer size and scope of it is close to overwhelming, with three decks in places (staging is either above or below). Here’s an overview of one side. That’s Michael Mang and Scott Chatfield in the distance. You can see the lower-deck staging at left. 

I got to work the Burbank Local, a train I rode (in the caboose) as a teenager — not in the ’80s. It is all by SP SPINS numbers, a very prototypical style. Shown below are just two of the spots, the Glendale house track and team track. My train is beyond, including a Skybox for Lockheed in Burbank.

I loved this; as a teenager, I often rode my bike to the Glendale depot to watch trains, and climb on box cars on the team track. The only time an employee noticed, he just said, ”Be careful up there.” Another age.

Returning from the job, my train terminated in Taylor Yard. Rick has created a large and credible version of this iconic SP yard, as you see below.  My just-yarded train is the one at lower right, with the orange-door box car. Coast staging is above. You can see here the remarkably light-looking steel benchwork.

On the last day, I operated at the model railroad club in Gilbert, Arizona. It is an high-quality layout, as clubs go, and their operating scheme was pretty good and very workable. Shown below is Mesa yard, which was my job in this session. 

This was a typically fun, interesting, and engaging weekend. If you have never been to an event like this, I urge you to seek one out. The easiest way to do so is to consult the calendar of these events on the OpSIG site (at: https://www.opsig.org/files/event_calendar.pdf ; you do need to be an OpSIG member, only ten bucks), which will also tell you if it’s open to all, or invitational, and if the former, you can request a slot. I believe you would find it a lot of fun.

Tony Thompson 

 

Perishable shipping, one more time

I am asked from time to time to summarize the process of perishable shipping during the “ice age.” I usually reply that I have written several lengthy and, I think, complete posts on the subject, but am still asked for a “summary.” So this post is such a summary; a few connections to earlier ones are listed below. You can also use “perishables” as the search term in the search box at right.

I won’t identify all my previous posts about perishables here, but there are a few core ones, and here are some  links to them. For example, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/07/few-words-on-packing-houses-and-produce_25.html . For a more general consideration of perishable shipping, you might like this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/12/reflections-on-ice-refrigeration.html . 

Another issue is terminology. Of course you can use whatever terminology you like, but I always recommend that you simply use the prototype language that the railroad would have used. I’ve summarized this in a previous post (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/12/refrigerator-car-service-terminology.html ). 

Now to the concepts. Produce is harvested at a stage of ripeness that takes into account shipping time, from nearly ripe to well short of full ripeness. The produce from the field or orchard, after cleaning, sorting and culling out sub-standard pieces, needs to be chilled to shipping temperature. “Field heat,” comprising both heating due to warm air, and the heat of biological processes, needs to be removed so ripening falls to a very low rate. 

Below is a packing house interior near Ventura, Calif., in 1928 (Keystone photo for Sunkist). 

 Before about World War II, most produce was simply loaded warm into the car, and then the subsequent initial icing was intended to cool the cargo en route to the first 24-hour interval icing. But after World War II, more and more packing houses began to pre-cool produce, which could much more rapidly reduce it to shipping temperature, improving quality.

For solid vegetables or fruit like the lemons above, such as melons, apples, celery, carrots, cauliflower, and so forth, hydro-cooling was effective. This meant cooling the produce in chilled running water for ten minutes or so. With leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach or celery, vacuum pre-cooling was used. The produce was lightly sprayed with water, then subjected to an environment of reduced atmospheric pressure. This rapidly evaporated the water, taking with it the heat of evaporation.

With pre-cooling, the produce was already near shipping temperature, and could be loaded directly into a refrigerator car. Depending on the shipper’s choice, the car could have been pre-iced, meaning with ice in the bunkers when it arrived at the packing house, or if an un-iced but  loaded car would go fairly directly to an ice deck, the initial icing before departure would be sufficient.

Below are men loading a PFE car with Bartlett pears (PFE photo, CSRM). Note that ice is visible in the end bunker, so this car has been pre-iced. Crates are stacked with spaces between; for air circulation.

 

One issue that is often misunderstood is the use of salt. The minimum temperature achievable, with a lot of salt, is around 10 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to 32 degrees with water ice only. Heavy salt like that was used for frozen food, and lesser amounts for meat, where the desirable shipping temperature was in the twenties of degrees. For produce, even less salt was used, to avoid sub-32-degree temperature, but it did give more rapid cooling, as the temperature would drop faster.

But this could actually be a problem, as was described in one of my interviews with Pete Holst, who was PFE’s Car Service manage for many years (see more: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/09/pfe-operations-from-pete-holst.html ). Shippers of produce were ordering their pre-iced cars  to receive salt also, increasing the switching needs. As Pete related it, he met with the shippers:

“So I went in there and I told ’em, ‘Now you fellows are just spending your money and losing it. You’re ordering these cars initially salted, and as soon as that salt hits the ice in there, that water starts pouring out. Then it gets to your shed, you open the doors, and it stands open for two hours while you load the car. You’ve used up half of your tank of ice, and you haven’t got any [cooling] use for it. If you’ll just load in a regular iced car, and say initial icing with two per cent salt, and bill it that way, then you’ll get the full refrigeration that you’re entitled to.’ 

“Well, they could see that they were just wasting their money, see. So I got ’em all to either decide on two per cent or three per cent [in initial icing] when they billed the car, then when it got to the ice deck we could take care of it. Salt was put in after the car was loaded, at initial icing. Then you really start doing a cooling job.”

When modelers have space to include an ice deck, it adds interest and additional car movement, whether at a big deck or a small one. Here’s an image I’ve always liked (Don Sims photo, El Centro Calif.), with two-man crews at each end of each car, filling ice bunkers, and on the ground, a clerk with a clipboard, chalking switching directions on the cars.

For more background on both icing and perishables, you could consult the PFE book (Pacific Fruit Express, 2nd Edition, Thompson, Church and Jones, Signature Press, 2000) — which also contains a chart of desired shipping temperatures for a wide variety of produce — that’s in addition to the blog posts cited at the top of this post. These provide in-depth background on how perishables were shipped in the era of ice refrigeration.

Tony Thompson 

Pismo Marine, Martinez & Sons Engine

Two of my layout industries at Santa Rosalia, housed in a single building, have not really been described as to origins or for the cargoes they receive. This post addresses that.

My town of Santa Rosalia, at the end of an SP branch line, faces the Pacific Ocean. Thus it is both natural and inevitable that marine-oriented industries are located there. One of these is a fish cannery, the kitbashing of which has been described ( https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/05/kitbashing-santa-rosalia-cannery.html ).

I thought that there should be some marine service kinds of businesses, too.  The obvious example is a ship chandler, that is, a purveyor of a variety of marine equipment and supplies for boats and ships. Another possibility is some kind of ship repair; for this, I chose marine engine service and repair. It was a simple matter to make signs for both, as I’ll show below.

The structure was made from one of the buildings in a KingMill Enterprises background flat, their “Commerce Street No. 9,” just one of a series of superb products. That same flat was the source from which I created my Caslon Printing Company, which you can view at this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/02/background-flats-2-kitbashing.html . Unfortunately, these fine products are no longer available new, though one sees them on eBay and elsewhere occasionally. 

This particular KingMill flat had partial building sides and a rusted sheet-metal roof, so I simply assembled it by gluing the flat segments to Foam Core Board pieces, and then adding internal reinforcements of 1/4-inch-square basswood in all corners. Add a few ventilators of different kinds from the structure details stash and it’s done. The rust along the bottom edge of the corrugated metal at right was that way on the KingMill flat. The loading dock and its roof are not three-dimensional, they were on the flat also.

The Pismo Marine Service ship chandler evidently occupies the left side of the building, above, while Martinez & Son marine engine repair is on the right. You can click on the image to enlarge if you wish.

I thought the business should look a little bigger, so I added a Tichy shed, foreground below (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/01/refining-scenery-part-5.html ). This is also a better view of the fuel oil storage tank I added. 

Cargoes can be quite varied, considering all the possibilities. I do have a pair of industrial-size diesel engines as flat car loads, which can appropriately arrive at Martinez & Son. Two waybills for boxcar loads inbound to these two businesses are shown below.

This has been a nice addition to my industries on the layout, since the kinds of loads received differ considerably from everything else. I’ve been happy with these choices. 

Tony Thompson 

The 2026 Naperville meeting

 Last week the 32nd Naperville meeting, essentially a Railroad Prototype Modelers meeting or RPM, was convened at Naperville, Illinois. Founded by Martin Lofton and conducted by him and his wife Patricia for 16 years, the meetings since have been managed by several different people. It now seems established at the very nice convention facility of Northern Illinois University, still in Naperville.

As has become standard at these meetings, the Mod-U-Trak groups in HO and N scales each set up large sectional layouts. These are two separate clubs, one in each scale, and they really are not “modular” layouts; instead, they have chosen to have sections that mate with each other and thus make scenic sense as a whole. In the building lobby was the HO layout, seen here from the second floor balcony. 

 In one of the large display rooms the N scale layout was assembled, even larger than the HO layout. It was hard to photograph it to show its size, but here is a view from one corner. Beyond the layout were numerous vendor tables.

There was, as always, a model display, and this year it required a separate room. I chose a moment when not too many observers were present, and photographed about a third of the room. It was disappointing, though, that tables were not elevated for better viewing.

The clinic programs at Naperville have always been very good, particularly this year, when I never had a time slot without something I wanted to see, and often hard choices between two desirable talks. Just to choose a single example, Steve Hile gave another of his excellent freight car talks, this time about Armour reefers. That’s Steve at left, and yes, he’s wearing a “Friends of the Freight Car” shirt.

One of the clinics I enjoyed was Clark Propst describing making 1920s-style 50-foot automobile cars, starting from Roundhouse and Walthers cars. l was especially interested in an SP version, for which Clark removed the original model sides, replaced them with sheet styrene, and then built a representation of Z-bar posts and braces with two styrene strips for each rib, a wider one on top to make the flange. 

Below is a photo of the good-looking SP car, which, with a relatively short under-door stiffener and no end doors, has to be Class A-50-11. Alas, the car number lies outside that number series (SP 69380–69529), but if I know Clark, he will just correct it and move on.

All in all, a really enjoyable meeting and of course the opportunity to renew acquaintances with many long-time friends. I very much enjoyed it. And if it sounds good to you, there will be another one next year.

Tony Thompson 

Reminders of John Allen’s modeling

John Allen, as even younger modelers must know, built and publicized his Gorre & Daphetid Railroad layout (the name meant to be read as “Gory & Defeated,” a name he later regretted). It was often shown in the Model Railroader (MR) of the day, most notably in the back-cover ads for Varney products (about which more in a moment). And after John passed away, Linn Westcott of MR put together an excellent tribute book, Model Railroading with John Allen.

Awhile back, I wrote two posts about John Allen, hopefully with thoughtful considerations of his strong and weak points (one of them is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/07/what-can-you-say-about-john-allen.html ); and a second post to follow up can be found here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/07/thoughts-on-john-allen-part-2.html ). 

I’ll briefly repeat the points I made in those posts: John was a pioneer in many ways, from weathering to realistic operating practices to realistic photography (John was a professional photographer) to fully detailed scenes on the layout, when all those things were rare. Just look at layout  articles or “Trackside Photos” in MR issues in those days, for confirmation. For an example, I’ll use one his Varney ads, which began to run on the back cover of MR in June of 1952. This one is from February 1954.

This kind of photo was utterly stunning in that era. The scene is detailed, and has figures in working poses, at a time when Campbell and other figures were mostly in very wooden positions. John made them himself with wax over wire armatures. The two Varney plastic box cars were not actually in John’s operating fleet, they are just there for the ad. Modelers in those days would pore over these ads and marvel at John’s modeling.

I’ve mentioned before, in the second of the two posts linked above, that I made a model to match one of John’s stock cars that was visible in a Varney ad, the relevant portion of which is shown below. 

This GD stock car is a Varney product, little changed by John. I chose to start from a Train Miniatures kit (a better model than the Varney, and having a wood running board). This model does show up occasionally in one of my operating sessions. 

Among John’s well-known “whimsy” models was a box car with lettering intended to be amusing, in the Allen mold. John’s model was built from a Central Valley 34-ft. box car kit, and hand lettered for the Superior Detritus Company. Decals for it are available today from SPD Train (see their site at: https://3dptrain.com/products/gbc-b011 . 

I am thinking of getting a set of these decals and lettering a box car, again for those occasional appearances in an operating session. I’d also have to devise a waybill or two . . . hmm, I’m getting some ideas . . .

Tony Thompson 

The 46th annual convention of the SP Historical & Technical Society

Last weekend the SP Historical & Technical Society had its annual convention at Visalia, California. Like all organizations post-Covid, attendance was well below what it once was, but the 120-person attendance was better than last year and certainly an encouraging sign. I definitely enjoyed the meeting, but then again, I almost always do. Here’s the convention logo, with Visalia Electric power shown.

There was a good clinic program, with a number of excellent presentations. I especially enjoyed Mike Osborne’s talk about switching Gemco yard. Whether my own talk would qualify, I don’t know, but it was a repeat of a talk that I’ve given before, on modeling SP operating practices (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/01/handout-for-modeling-sp-operations.html ).  

As always at these meets, there was a large and active vendor room, thronged with browsers between talks every day. Below is a view of the room. 

The most stunning display in the model room, and the talk of the convention, was Larry Saslaw’s HO scale model of the Oakland Mole. It was difficult even to get an overall photograph of it, but this will convey some of the impact. 

In the model contest, I liked Tom Cockle’s model of an SP automat car, made from a 6-6-4 sleeper, just like the prototype, by filling multiple windows. And as was the case on the prototype, you can see indentations at each former window location. (You can click to enlarge.)

Thursday afternoon, we had a guided tour of the beautifully restored Kingsburg SP depot, superbly re-done, even to the agent’s quarters upstairs. Here is a view of the office area, with the ticket window in the distance. (See my recent post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-business-side-of-depot.html .)

Another thing the Kingsburg people have accomplished is to rescue the SP switcher, Class S-10 1238 and its 4700-gallon “sausage” tender, that had been sitting in the dirt at Fresno for years. How far they intend to go with restoration, I don’t know, but it is nice to at least see it on rails again. 

All in all, a lot of interesting things at this meeting, and I for one certainly found it fun. Whatever your prototype railroad, you might find it worthwhile to attend one of its historical societies’ conventions someday.

Tony Thompson 

 

 

The business side of the depot

At most railroad depots, several kinds of business might be done, from selling passenger tickets and checking baggage, to working with shippers and consignees regarding cars being loaded or delivered. In this post, I want to address the latter part, the freight side.

Most SP enthusiasts will know the very informative film the company made, This Is My Railroad. At one point in the film, the narrator mentions that a local agent was the railroad’s face in that town. In brief clips, the film shows an agent in shirtsleeves selling a ticket to a passenger (upper view below), and working with a freight customer (who appears to be signing a freight bill), lower view. 

We all know the passenger side, with the waiting room and ticket counter. But where is that other counter? Below is a floor plan of this part of a standard SP depot interior (from a Jean Guy Dube drawing). 

In the drawing, the waiting room and passenger ticket counter are at right. At the left side of the office, with its own outside door, is the long counter for freight business. The operator’s desk is in the bay window at drawing bottom. 

The outside of such a depot, in this case Common Standard 22, is shown in a photo from Goleta, California (Clark Bauer collection). Next to the office door is the bill box, indicated with the arrow, where waybills and other paperwork could be exchanged with crews when the agent was not on duty. 

I don’t have an interior view of a freight counter in an SP depot, but below is a good version from a Chicago & North Western depot. 

Probably the fellow with the bow tie is the agent, and the man in the background is the operator. The others are freight clerks with their ledgers. At far left is likely a customer.

This is where those Bills of Lading were signed, and waybills typed, and it’s where waybills for arriving loads supplied the information to began the writing of freight bills. And this is whee a local train crew would come to talk to the agent and find out what work they had in town.

This is what I meant in referring to the “business side” of the depot. Certainly from the Depression onward, this was the side that made significant money for the railroad. I often feel that we as modelers don’t do enough to represent how this side of railroading worked. But I keep writing, and presenting talks, to try and remedy that.

Tony Thompson