My latest column in _Model Railroad Hobbyist_

In the October issue of the “Running Extra” section of Model Railroad Hobbyist (MRH), I have another column in the continuing series of “Getting Real” columns, written (currently) by four people including me, in rotation. You can find the article on their website, www.mrhmag.com , though if you’re not a subscriber to “Running Extra,” you will need to pay $2.99 for it. (Price per issue is cheaper if you subscribe.)

This latest column is about modeling Southern Pacific lightweight sleeping cars, something I have been describing in this blog in recent months, and it complements my column about modeling heavyweight SP sleeping cars, which was in the January 2023 issue of MRH. The two articles have a few details in common, but largely are the two ends of the same story.

My focus has been on sleeping cars because I have always admired the Lark. It was still steam-powered in my modeling year, 1953, and if I had the layout capability, I would be creating full Lark consists to operate. Maybe I can convey that with the Bill Olson photo shown below, taken in the summer of 1952, at Glendale, the Lark’s last stop before arrival at Los Angeles.

The core of the MRH article, and of the series of blog posts, was the use of Brass Car Sides products to model a couple of cars with less-common floor plans. Shown below is one of the sides, in the process of being glued (with canopy glue) to an AHM coach body from which all areas that showed behind the Brass Car Side had been cut away. Reversed clothes pins are being used as parallel clamps. (See: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/04/modeling-sp-passenger-cars-part-13.html .)

But of course the goal is to produce finished cars that can be operated on the layout. Painting and lettering was naturally a vital part of that; see my post about decals, at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/10/modeling-sp-passenger-cars-part-18.html , and preceding posts in this series. Here’s an example of a result, the bedroom side of the 13 double bedroom car, with its distinctive paired windows. The roof is in place, as are the handrails.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have done this kind of striping for years by masking and airbrushing. Decal stripes on a long car are just not a fun project, as I learned the hard way. Below is a close-up illustration of what can be accomplished, on a car with a full-width diaphragm.

And when the cars are completed, I usually operate them, one or two at a time, in short passenger extra trains, representing deadhead moves, or sometimes in excursion trains. (I described my efforts to operate passenger equipment realistically on my fairly small layout in a post a couple of years ago: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/05/mainline-passenger-cars-on-small-layout.html .)

In the photo above, you see my completed 4-4-2 (4 compartments, 4 double bedrooms, 2 drawing rooms) sleeping car, one of the two cars I constructed using Brass Car Sides, bringing up the rear of a deadhead move. Ahead of the Lark sleeper is a heavyweight Pullman sleeper, an RPO car, and a baggage car. The train is just passing my layout town of Shumala, located on SP’s Coast Division main line.

One part of this latest column that may be of particular value (if you're interested in SP sleeping cars) is that I provided a long series of links at the end of the article, for the relevant blog posts I’ve created over a span of years. Much of that is included in my handout for my talk about this topic, which is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/01/handout-for-sp-passenger-equipment-talk.html .

It was interesting to extract the essence of a number of previous blog posts, and a number of additional model and prototype photos, and create a completed article for MRH. It captures, I think, my approach to representing at least some of the allure of the Lark.

Tony Thompson