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,, agian 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 

Completing a ship’s boiler load

I have long wanted to duplicate a particular load for a depressed-center flat car that is documented in Southern Pacific photographs. The cars in the photos are home-built SP 70-ton flat cars, Class F-70-4, but of course such a load could ride on any suitable AAR Class FD car. The previous post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/10/more-distinctive-flat-car-loads.html . In that post, I described  how a “Scotch” marine boiler like this works.  

For clarity, I’ll repeat an SP photo from that post, showing one of the 105,000-pound boilers on one of the Class F-70-4 cars. This photo was taken at Richmond, California, and the boilers were destined for Liberty ships. You can just see chocks underneath, and what looks like cable or steel rod over the top.  

 

I showed in the previous post what may be a Chooch HO scale boiler, which I cut down as described in that post. I had the idea to use some of the Heiser Models resin chocks, intended for armored vehicles, for this boiler (for info on the chocks, see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/07/more-about-vehicles-on-flat-cars.html ).

I looked at the AAR booklet Rules Governing the Loading of Miscellaneous Commodities on Open Top Cars, Pamphlet No. MD-5, July 1, 1951. For boilers, chocks are shown, and directed to be nailed to the deck with 60-penny nails, toe-nailed with 30-penny nails, or bolted to the deck (for steel decks). Chocks are to backed up with 4 x 4-inch or larger cross-wise timber. 

Steel banding of various widths is shown as overall hold-downs, as is steel rod. Chart-Pak tape, which I have used on other loads as steel banding, would be about right for 2-inch prototype steel banding if the 1/32-inch tape width is chosen. But if my load is removable, as I intend, the rod hold-downs would be more durable. For larger and heavier loads, two 3/4-inch steel rods are specified, consistent with the photo above.

This kind of rod hold-down might be secured in several ways. I decided to make it run through part of the blocking of the boiler. I chose to use 0.015-inch brass wire, somewhat oversize but I want it to be visible. I painted a length of it black, then threaded it through the holes I drilled in the blocking. Here is the load at this point. 

A coat of flat finish was next, since the black wire turned out a little glossy. The load could then be tried on a depressed-center flat car, NYC 499056 (my upgrade of this Walthers model is presented here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/12/small-modeling-project-nyc-drop-center.html ). 

I also wanted to try one of the Chooch boiler moldings in its entirety, loaded lengthwise on a flat car. I had another one of these boilers, painted a kind of red primer color. Here is how that looked, again with stripwood chocks and blocking, on the same NYC car. 

Both these loads would also be suitable for use in a 70-ton gondola, and likely I will prepare waybills for them to be moved that way also.

These are fairly distinctive loads, especially the drum-shaped one as seen in the prototype photo at the top of this post. I look forward to seeing these on my layout in future operating sessions.

Tony Thompson 

Waybills, Part 128: more weight stamps

I  have written before about weight agreements, but not recently, so here is a summary. Railroad cargoes were mostly billed by weight (there was also a carload category, covering, for example, a full hopper of coal). But the considerable majority of weight-billed loads were not weighed on a scale. Instead, weight agreements were in force. 

For example, a shipper of floor wax might know that a case of wax bottles weighed 48 pounds. Then the number of cases in a load could simply be counted and multiplied by 48 to get total weight. This was all certified by a regional Weighing and Inspection Bureau or WIB.

North America was divided up into regions, under the authority of Freight Associations or groups of associations. The map below shows the associations, some of which supervised a single WIB, but in other areas, several associations might cooperate to supervise one WIB. I have previously discussed the WIB territories (see the post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/05/waybillls-part-85-more-on-weight.html ).

Superimposed on the map below in green is a single WIB, the Western WIB, the territory of which matched that of the Western Trunk Line Committee (freight association). The map is a 1925 version, taken from page 28 of a book of that date (Grover G. Huebner, The Fundamentals of Traffic, Traffic Service Corp, Chicago, 1925). In addition to several complete states, included in the green area are the eastern third of Colorado, the upper third of Illinois, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

When a shipment weight was certified as part of a weight agreement, the shipper could stamp the waybill with the appropriate WIB stamp, including their agreement number, or oftentimes would simply type the WIB initials and agreement number of their waybill. This avoided a trip to the scale.

Just the other day, my friend Bill Jolitz sent me a WIB stamp he found on eBay, stating that he “knew with whom it belonged.” Thank you, Bill! The stamp is shown below, a typical design for these large stamps, about 3 inches tall.You can see it was made in Chicago.

As is common on rubber stamps, the legend of the stamp is placed on the top of the stamp; in this case, the stamp has a round opening in the center, convenient for the handle.  

Below I show the stamp image, about 1.5 inches square, flipped in Photoshop so you can read it (naturally the stamp is made in reverse, so it will stamp reading correctly). This stamp is unusual in that it does not have an agreement number in the center; I assume it could be written in, and an authorized person then initial it. 

Using a fresh ink pad, here is the image as it stamps now (showing some wear, which is great for our purposes). Note the generous center space for an agreement number.

If one used large enough waybill forms for one’s layout, this stamp could be used on them as-is. But my waybills are quite a lot smaller. I take a scan of the stamp image, remove the background so it is transparent, and set it to a size that will look all right on my small waybills, usually 3/4 inch diameter. (This takes a couple of minutes in Photoshop.) Then it’s easily added to waybills. Here’s an example, pending initialing the stamp and adding other scribbles.

This was a kind gesture of Bill’s, to send me this stamp, and I will be using it on future waybills.

Tony Thompson 

Kit appreciation: Speedwitch 50-foot NP box car

 I have written a number of kit appreciation posts for freight car kits that I have especially enjoyed. This one is about a Speedwitch Media kit for a Northern Pacific 50-foot single-sheathed automobile car, kit K103. 

The prototype is a group of 1000 cars purchased by NP in 1926, the first 500 from Pressed Steel Car Co. (cars 5000–5499) and 500 more from Standard Steel Car Co. (cars 5500–5999). They had a ten-foot, six-inch door opening, 5-5-5 Murphy corrugated steel ends, and a traditional NP radial roof. Below is a builder photo (Haskell & Barker, Smithsonian Institution neg. 5073, Richard Hendrickson collection). The fishbelly underframe is evident.

The NP monad on the door was only applied to cars from Standard Steel Car. Note NP’s typical lettering of the 1920s, with reporting marks, number and capacity data to the right of the door. In the 1930s, NP would revise its lettering to conform to ARA standard locations. By the late 1940s, the monad was no longer applied to these cars, and the word “automobile” was omitted as well. 

By January of 1953, my modeling year, there were 935 of these cars still in service. Here is a 1954 photo taken on the Embarcadero at San Francisco (Wilbur C. Whittaker).

An interesting detail of these cars, barely visible in the builder view above, was the application of the Miner “Ideal” lever-type handbrake. It is shown more clearly in a photo of the model (taken from kit directions). Here you can also see the lumber door, applied only to this end.

In building the car, I chose to apply AB brakes, as would be appropriate for my modeling year. These were retrofitted to these cars in the early and mid-1940s. Here’s a view of the completed and painted underframe. The train line was omitted. 

Here’s a photo of the completed model, showing the car lettering and number matching the Whittaker photo above. 

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 The roof is nicely rendered as shown here, along with the corrugated ends. 

This model is a nice re-creation of a distinctive freight car. It often runs in my layout operating sessions, both in mainline trains and for local switching on my branch line. I enjoy seeing it at work.

Tony Thompson