Personal: Master Model Railroader #772

I recently completed the requirements for the NMRA’s Master Model Railroader (MMR) in their Achievement Program. This program has been around for something like 50 years, and that over 700 people have fulfilled the requirements before me tells you that it is certainly a doable project for plenty of modelers.

Years ago, when I was the editor of the newsletter for NMRA’s Division 2 of Mid-Central Region (Pittsburgh), I wrote a piece about the Achievement Program. In it, I stated that the MMR is doable with patience and dedication, a little bit like deciding to visit all the National Parks in the United States. Yes, it would take awhile and some resources, but it’s entirely possible if you make the effort.

The program has 11 categories of achievement, of which the modeler has to complete at least seven. I had completed four by 1990, when I still lived in Pittsburgh, but then moving and being without a layout for awhile, I kind of lost momentum in the MMR program. 

Recently, though, I read my friend Seth Neumann’s write-up of his meeting the requirements for one of the certificates, Model Railroad Engineer — Electrical, and I thought, “Heck, I’ve done enough to qualify for that.” 

And so it proved, along with two of the “layout” categories, Master Builder – Structures, and Master Builder — Scenery, as part of progress on my layout. That made seven.

One thing that results from receiving one’s certificate of completion is an article in the NMRA Magazine, with whatever kind of biography one wishes to submit. I wrote one up, but was disappointed they didn’t use one photo I sent them, documenting my pretty nearly life-long interest in trains. It was taken when I was rather small, showing me admiring an International–Great Northern (Mopac) Ten-wheeler at Cotulla, Texas, where my parents lived at the time.

Here is the article as presented in the NMRA Magazine’s November 2024 issue, with this cover:

The first page looked like this. If you click on the image to enlarge it, it’s readable (should you wish to do so). They did use this contemporary photo of me alongside the layout.

The second page, including a listing of the seven certificates I completed, was this:

I am glad to finish something I started so long ago, and despite a little embarrassment about the long gap in my efforts, still feel gratified that it finally all turned out. But just the same, it doesn’t make me one iota different as a modeler or a person than I used to be.

Tony Thompson

Car movements for an operating session

About five years ago, I posted some thoughts about how car movements are directed on my layout, prior to and during an operating session. This was in response to a question about how an op (that is, operating) session is set up. That previous post is at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/07/selecting-cars-for-op-session.html .  

Since that time, I have heard any number of layout owners talk about how they set up op sessions. One commonly mentioned goal is to make the layout “self-resetting,” or “continuously operated.” That usually means that at the end of an operating session, the clock and layout power can be turned off, and at the next session, days, weeks or months later, simply turned back on, and operations can continue. 

To make this happen, train schedules obviously have to continue also, either onward through the “timetable-night,” or automatically the next morning. More importantly, from the viewpoint of the present post, car cards/waybills have to have been turned or changed at some point. 

Sometimes the layout operation includes turning waybills when cars are spotted, while in other cases the layout owner may do that between sessions. But the goal is for car cards/waybills to direct operation in potentially continuous fashion. Cars naturally move from staging onto the layout, and move off again as part of their waybill cycle. Once waybills are cycled in staging, everything can repeat.

But often in practice, this “hands-off” approach doesn’t work well, with industries having too many or too few cars in some sessions, and even local trains that can turn out too big or too small. Part of the problem can simply be too many cars on the layout, or too many waybills for one or more industries. But fine tuning can only go so far in creating a reproducible continuous operation.

Often the answer is more intervention for each session, checking how the waybill numbers look for specific trains and destinations, and altering them to suit. No, this is no longer “automatic,” but it produces more consistent sessions. That was what proved necessary on my late friend Otis McGee’s layout.

My layout emphasizes individual car cycles, including the spotting of empty cars for loading. This gondola is being moved to Jupiter Pump & Compressor in my layout town of Ballard to receive an outbound load. The power is a Key brass model of an SP Class C-10 Consolidation, SP 2829, with its rectangular tender.

On my layout, I usually start my plan for each op session by simply choosing a number of industries set outs or pickups that seem appropriate, based on “walking around” the layout and comparing status of all sidings with the “industry actions” list from the previous session (as I described earlier: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/07/waybills-part-66-car-movement-system.html ).

I originally created the “actions” list, showing what cars were at which industries, which ones were to be switched, and which new cars would be spotted, just as a convenience for the following session. I often pair op sessions over a weekend, Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and with the “actions” list, it is quick and easy to re-stage everything for Sunday, merely returning to Saturday’s starting arrangement.

But since then, the list has proven to have other uses. I can readily check back on previous sessions and see what sequences had been followed, and decide if I want to continue them, or go in different directions. I also have a record of how heavily certain favorite cars have been used, and can make sure to rotate them off the layout so that I can bring into play as many cars of my fleet as possible.

To illustrate the amount of information, I show below the “actions” from the two sessions I hosted last April for the ProRail operating event (for my commentary on it, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/04/prorail-2024.html ). These were my 90th and 91st sessions on the present layout. I don’t mean for readers to examine this image (unless it’s really interesting), but only to show the sheer volume of data represented. Though the main goal originally was the re-set, I’ve found it to be a real tool for session planning. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

Because the list shows me what was set out and picked up in the previous session, often I concentrate on pickups and set-outs at industries that were not switched in the prior session, then fine-tuning the numbers of each local train for the branch, so things will work all right. The goal is interesting and enjoyable sessions for visiting operators, and good sequences of industries served for my vision of the layout.

This also applies to through freight trains. I regularly cycle the cars in these trains to maintain variety, and they rarely or never operate in successive sessions in identical consists. Below is an example of eastward timetable freight No. 916, just reaching Shumala on the layout.

I feel that there is more to say on this, and likely I will return to the topic in future posts.

Tony Thompson

Small project: a Maine Central gondola

In 1939, the Maine Central Railroad received an order of 150 low-side steel gondolas, 40 feet long, numbered 17000–17149. They were evidently durable cars; by the time I model, 1953, all 150 were still in service. A recent discussion of these cars on the Steam Era Freight Cars list (or STMFC) made me think about them.

Do I need a model of one of these cars for a layout set on the West Coast? No, but such a car certainly might appear anywhere in the United States, so it could fit in. I believe it was Tim O’Connor who observed that small railroads, or small car groups like this one, are statistically invisible in the national freight car fleet by themselves, but in total, they add up to well over 5 percent of the fleet. So you do need to have a selected few.

A good prototype photo, shown by Tim O’Connor on STMFC, shows one of these cars at Everett, MA on July 2, 1950. The car has the round “Pine Tree” herald, introduced about 1949, but the as-built cars had the “Box Name” emblem, and many cars continued to carry that paint scheme as late as the 1960s.

This is of interest because years ago, Ertl Models introduced a low-side 40-foot steel gondola model in HO scale. I picked up one in Atlantic Coast Line markings, though the model does not match the ACL cars of this type (which is why it was still in the box). The model was manufactured in China and is ready-to-run, with free-standing grab irons and sill steps. The “wood” floor in this photo needs to be trimmed to fit better.

The models also have quite a nice underbody, with all equipment well presented.

While reading the STMFC discussions, including the point that drawings by Chuck Yungkurth of these MEC gondolas were in the May 1989 Railroad Model Craftsman, it occurred to me I could repaint my model and letter it for MEC. As it happens, Highball Graphics makes a Maine Central set that can letter several different freight cars, including this gondola, set F-218 (see it at: https://highballgraphics.com/product/maine-central-steam-era-freight-equipment/ ). I ordered a set. 

Then I went ahead and repainted the Ertl car body black, while masking the couplers and temporarily replacing the trucks with my “paint shop trucks.”

With that paint in place, I proceeded with the nice Highball Graphics decals. These were straightforward to apply, though possibly a little oversize for the gondola.Here’s the lettered model, still on its “paint shop” trucks.

With lettering completed, I weathered the outside of the car moderately, and the inside considerably more. My method was my usual approach using washes of acrylic tube paints (for more on this, see the “Reference pages” linked at the top right of the present post). This dulls the lettering, along with softening the stark black car color. With that step finished, I added a coat of clear flat, followed by a few chalk marks and route cards.

This simple project, repainting and re-lettering an existing ready-to-run model, has been interesting and, as I always feel when completing f freight car project, definitely fun.

Tony Thompson

SP piggyback, Part 4: progress on the 3D models

In this series of posts about Southern Pacific’s early piggyback operation, I provided historical photo coverage, including the flat car conversions that SP made for the original service. That particular post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/10/sp-piggyback-part-3-piggyback-service.html .) Now I want to turn to modeling of these flat cars and their trailers.

Last fall, I posted about some superb HO scale models 3D-printed and given to me by Andrew J. Chier, models of Pacific Motor Trucking (PMT) piggyback trailers, and two of the Southern Pacific’s original piggyback flat cars. (PMT was an SP subsidiary.) I included in that post a photo of AJ’s own completed models. Since then, I’ve been slowly progressing with completing these models, and that’s the subject of the present post. (You can see that previous post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/11/more-amazing-3-d-printing.html .).

My first step was to free the trailer bodies from their as-printed supports, clean them up with care (because small details are fragile), and then give them a coat of primer. I used Tamiya “Fine Surface Primer (White)” for this. Below are two of the trailers, as primed. The excellent and complete detailing of these models is even more evident with the light color of the primer.

I did the same white primer on the flat cars, and then painted them with the Tamiya “Fine Surface Primer (Oxide Red).” It’s a bit too red for SP freight car color, but when weathered, the difference won’t be very evident. As with the trailers, the remarkable thing about this 3D-printed model is the completeness, with all the trailer support and tie-down equipment in place.

The question can certainly  be raised about the photo above, whether any of the trailer equipment was a different color than the car body. I believe, after reviewing a great many photos, that the answer is “no.” 

The prototype image below will show what I mean. It shows the relatively new piggyback terminal at the site of Los Angeles Shops, with trailer unloading in progress. It’s part of an SP company photo, dated 1955, and the complete photo is in my Volume 3 of the series, Southern Pacific Freight Cars, on pages 284–285. I can see no indication that anything differs from body color.

Next I needed to add weight to the flat car. The design of AJ’s model cleverly allows for this, with a pocket in the underframe. I showed this in the previous post (link in uppermost paragraph of the present post). I cut some 3/8-inch lead sheet from McMaster-Carr to fit, and attached it with canopy glue. Since it will be invisible, I haven’t painted the lead. The remainder of the underframe, not shown here, is a part that fits right on top of this.

In addition to this sheet of lead, there is a 3D-printed frame part that goes over it, and that part has effectively “pockets” that permit adding additional, smaller pieces of lead sheet. Again, I fixed these in place with canopy glue. In this way, the weight can be raised to the vicinity of the NMRA standard for this car length.

From here, the flat car project is ready for the details to be added (grab irons, sill steps, brake staff and wheel) and also lettering. The trailers are primed and are ready for their red and orange paint. I’ll turn to all that in a future post.

Tony Thompson

More distinctive flat car loads

I have always enjoyed making and operating flat cars with distinctive loads, and am always on the lookout for additional opportunities to make them. Almost always, I make them removable, so that loads delivered on my layout can be picked up as empties in a following session. This post begins a series about two more loads, in these cases fairly distinctive ones. 

The first one I’ll describe is a load I’ve owned for some time, a marine boiler. I’m not sure of the source (a reader may know), but it sticks in my mind that it was from Chooch. Anyway, its width will fit on an HO-scale flat car, with the boiler’s long axis parallel to the length of the car, and that is one way to mount it. I prefer removable loads, and this one will be that way too.

I did wonder about what kind of marine boiler this might be, and my friend Ben Hom (a shipboard engineer during his time in the Navy), directed me to some excellent resources. First, the Wikipedia entry for Scotch marine boilers, as this type was known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_marine_boiler . 

In the above model view, the closed opening at the bottom is where fuel enters the combustion chamber, the middle section above that is a fire-tube boiler, and the steam is collected in the top part with the heavier bolts. The inside of this is shown in the side-view cross-section below, from the Royal Navy’s Stoker’s Manual of 1912, which can be found on the Wikimedia page for Scotch boilers. Path of hot gasses is shown by red arrows, movement of water in the water space is in black arrows.

In looking at the numerous photos of loads of this general kind, I always recall a group of Southern Pacific photos taken when their home-built Class F-70-4 depressed-center cars were new. It was during the run-up to World War II, and the photos show marine boilers being delivered on these cars to the shipyard in Richmond, California for use in Liberty ships. Here’s one of them, with the SP car in the foreground; note the light color of the boilers:

For more about the Liberty ships and their boilers and steam engines, I would recommend a really interesting and complete report on the topic (see it at: https://ww2.eagle.org/content/dam/eagle/publications/company-information/workhorse-of-the-fleet-2019.pdf ).

A close-up of the boiler still loaded on the car is also illustrative, because you can see the tie-down method (it looks like cable, but could be steel strapping). Note that the drum-shaped boiler is a bit wider than the car. Incidentally, SP’s notes on the photo state that this boiler weighed 52 tons, so a flat car of 70-ton or more capacity would be needed. Here again, the three combustion chambers are at the bottom, the fire tubes are in the middle, and the steam section is at the top.

Since I had a second model boiler like the one shown at the top of this post, I cut it down so that it could be mounted “cross-wise” like you see on the SP car shown above. It’s shown below after painting, a light color like the boilers shown in the SP photos. This is the “back” of the boiler, compared to the photo above.

I was interested to know more about how this boiler worked, so I did spend some time with a serious book on the topic (Steam: Its Generation and Use, 38th edition, published by Babcock & Wilcox, New York, 1972), but didn’t find much help. Evidently the Scotch marine boiler was not of great interest to Babcock & Wilcox.

I have been exploring simple bracing for securing the boiler. The SP photo above, showing the load on the car, seems to have really minimal bracing, and tie-downs over the top of the boiler, so I will do the same. I’ll continue with that part of the topic in a future post.

Tony Thompson

An old Shake ’n’ Take project, Part 3

This freight car build is the 2015 Shake ’n’ Take project, as they are known, from that year’s “Prototype Rails” meet at Cocoa Beach, Florida. The prototype is a 40-foot double-door box car of the Rock Island; I showed a representative prototype photo in the first post in this series (here’s a link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/an-older-shake-n-take-project.html  ). 

Participants in these projects get a car body, kit parts, and a full set of replacement parts, but I was a late registrant and only got part of the project contents. Thus I am using somewhat different parts and occasionally a different approach, but am trying to follow the original kit directions. Ways to acquire those directions were given in the previous post (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/an-old-shake-n-take-project-part-2.html ).

In the previous post in the series (just cited above), I showed completion of the “heavy” work of cutting the body and replacing the car ends. Now I undertook adding details to the car body. 

I began with ladders, and found in my stash some old Details West ladders with a rung spacing matching what is on the Athearn/Roundhouse car body. These were used on the car ends, and an additional ladder was cut up to make the unusual grab iron arrangement at the left of each car side. I chose not to remove the side ladders, as they are not excessively oversize.

I then added end placard boards from the remnants of a Details West parts set, and used styrene rod for the end grab iron rungs (the end moldings included the attachment points). The A end is shown below. Note that all sill steps are now removed, as the prototype ones were a different shape than those on the project kit body.

The details added to the A end, shown above, were also added to the B end. In addition, the brake gear details were added to the B end of the car. From the prototype photos in kit directions (see second paragraph of the present post for a link), the hand brakes were Ajax, and I used the Kadee wheel, along with an Ajax gear box from my parts stash. 

I continued by adding A-Line sill steps, along with Tichy corner grabs on the lateral running boards. Those grabs were modeled using the same method I showed in a recent post on another project (see my description at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-hendrickson-usra-box-car-conclusion.html ). 

Below is a photo of the model at this point, resting on “paint shop” temporary trucks and ready for primer. I should mention that I don’t always prime models. With some paint, such as TruColor which will not adhere to resin, priming first is essential, but in other cases, it may not be necessary. For the present case, with a variety of materials in the added details, and the prominent GN lettering of the original kit, which I planned to cover rather than strip, primer seemed like a good idea.

For primer, I used the excellent Tamiya “Fine Surface Primer (White)” because I know it gives excellent coverage in a thin coat, and the spray can works very nicely, nothing like cheap “rattle cans” might do. I have now used it for a number of projects, and have always been quite happy with the results. Below is the model with its primer coat (and couplers taped). You will note that the huge GN emblem is still faintly visible, but the darker boxcar red final color will cover this easily.

This concludes all the construction and detailing work on this model. The final steps are paint and lettering and I will take those up in a future post.

Tony Thompson

The peculiar Walthers steel reefer, Part 2

Previously I wrote about the numerous oddities in lettering on the new Walthers “mainline” refrigerator car model, particularly on the version pretending to be a PFE Class R-30-13 car. Since it is a steel car body, this is obviously beyond help, disappointing because the lettering is actually quite accurately rendered — for a wood car. That earlier post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-peculiar-new-walthers-steel-reefer.html . 

To make the lettering accurate, the car needs almost everything re-lettered. But let’s see what can be simply done to make the biggest improvements. To me, the easiest fix on the model is to replace the wrong UP medallion on the side (left side) with the SP emblem toward the B end, with a black and white one. For this you want Microscale set 87-501, but be sure it’s from within a few years of purchase. Microscale continues to apply original numbers to revised and improved sets, of which this is one.

Here’s what it should look like (PFE photo), a repeat from the previous post for clarity.

The repack stencil, the distinctive PFE design with pointed rectangles, just visible at the bottom of the photo above, needs to be added too, and this is in the same Microscale set. Finally, a reweigh date appropriate to your modeling era should replace the “NEW” date on the model. After January 1, 1949, the required reweigh interval was 48 months, so I have to use 1950 or later reweigh dates on my 1953 layout. Here is the re-done left side.

This simple approach can’t be repeated on the other side, the right side, however, because the SP emblem is now away from the B end. For that arrangement, typical of 1946–1948, the UP emblem would be the one without the word “railroad” in the blue field, and like the black-white emblems, these are readily available in the Microscale decal sets. For this, the desired set number is 87-414. It also contains the repack rectangles. Here is the re-done right side.

One easy detail to fix on the “R-40-10” model is the corner sill steps, which on the prototype were orange in the 1948 paint scheme; this is an easy correction. And many Class R-40-10 cars, starting in October 1950, were refurbished and upgraded, visibly receiving steel-grid running boards (like this model) and car fans. One could also apply Preco fan boxes to this model, taken from Details West set RD-215, but given all the other compromises, it doesn’t seem needed.

This leads me to comment that some might contemplate correcting the rest of the model, replacing the incorrect roof, carving off the molded-on ladders and grab irons, and replacing them with free-standing details, and so on. To me, this would be a waste of time. InterMountain makes an excellent R-40-10 model, without any of these issues, while it would be a lot of work on the Walthers body to come close. 

So “saving” this model, to me, means making it acceptable as a “main line” model, all right in a passing train but perhaps not in switching, where it could be scrutinized. I completed the work I want to do by I painting the corner sill steps orange, and the very shiny wheel faces dark gray, then giving the whole model a coat of flat finish, preparatory to weathering.  I followed my typical method, washes using acrylic tube paints, as has been described and explained in my “Reference pages” (see link at top right of this post).

In this photo, you can see that I’ve also added a few chalk marks, and a route card applied where the route card board should be, at the bolster, though Walthers has not molded that detail on this model.

That completes the paint scheme revisions I wanted to do, to at least make the paint scheme(s) of this car credible, suitable for use as a “mainline” car. The shortcomings of the car body will be ignored. I’ve gone as far as I want to with this one.

Tony Thompson

SP piggyback, Part 3: piggyback service begins

In this series of posts, I am presenting a summary of the history of the prototype Southern Pacific piggyback equipment and associated prototype operations, along with modeling issues and opportunities. The present post is about the beginning of SP’s rail service, and as such is a kind of continuation of the first post, which was about Pacific Motor Trucking (PMT) prototype. You can read that first post at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/sp-piggyback-part-1-pacific-motor.html .

There is extensive photographic documentation of the beginnings of SP piggyback, and I will turn to that in a moment, but first I want to summarize the background. For this, the fundamental resource is David DeBoer’s book, Piggyback and Containers (Golden West Books, San Marino, CA, 1992). After working for the New York Central, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), DeBoer moved on to Southern Pacific, advancing to VP of intermodal operations, before leaving to help found Greenbrier Intermodal. One could say that he didn’t just see intermodal happen, he had a role in directing it, and knew everybody who was anybody; that’s evident in the book.

An important point made by DeBoer is the foundation for SP President D.J. Russell deciding to initiate piggyback service. Because SP already owned a trucking subsidiary, PMT, and its busiest route, Los Angeles–San Francisco, was entirely within California, SP would not have to contend with ICC regulation. In addition, reliance on PMT meant that competing truckers could be shut out of SP’s piggyback routes.

The first challenge faced by SP, and other pioneer railroads undertaking piggyback operations, was how to secure the trailers to the flat cars. Railroaders regarded a wheeled vehicle on a flat car with considerable alarm, and wanted it secured as many ways as possible: wheel chocks, tie-down chains or cables tightened with binders, and often a last-resort “disaster cable” or chain in addition to everything else. Much of this was borrowed from the circus world, which had been tying down vehicles on flat cars for decades.

SP was very much of this “belt and suspenders” persuasion, choosing steel cables instead of chains (T&NO did use chains), with two cables and binders at each corner of each trailer. They also chose support stands underneath trailers, one at the front alongside the landing wheels, and one in front of the road wheels at the back.

All this can be seen in this end view of a newly converted Class F-70-7 flat car at Bayshore Shops in 1953 (SP photo). The cars were 53 feet, 6 inches long. Rub rails along the car sides, a bridge plate at each end, wheel chocks alongside the rub rails, and three of the four support stands erected, and some of the cable binders above the coupler and at the center and ends of the rub rail, are all visible. The boxes seen along the car center line contain cables. (There is considerably more photo coverage of the flat cars and trailer tie-downs in Chapter 13, Volume 3 of my series, Southern Pacific Freight Cars, Signature Press, 2004.)

The bridge plates were essential for what was called “circus loading,” derived directly from circus practice. Trailers had to be backed down a string of flat cars to their destination car. Needless to say, this was laborious and took careful work by drivers; and the entire process had to be repeated for unloading, though then at least drivers got to drive forward (SP photo at Los Angeles).

 

When tied down, this was quite an array of cables, two at each trailer corner, as mentioned (SP photo). Each cable had to be looped over a hook on the trailer frame, then tightened with the binders. This of course required a fair crew of groundmen, who attached and tightened all the cables.

SP inaugurated piggyback service first on T&NO on May 4, 1953, and at the end of June that year, inaugurated it also on Pacific Lines, initially only for the Los Angeles–San Francisco route. Many photos were taken of the initial service, such as this one (Joe Strapac collection).

So during the second half of 1953, SP piggyback was indeed operating on the Coast Route, and trailers moved both in some daytime trains, and were also to be inserted in the “Coast Merchandise” or Overnight trains. Here is a photo of two piggyback cars at San Luis Obispo, being switched by Consolidation 2592 (SP photo). Note the short-lived practice of “disaster bars” on rear doors.

I will continue with comments on modeling this early equipment in one or more following posts.

Tony Thompson

Model operation with SP cabooses, Part 2

In the preceding post which began this series, I introduced the topic of caboose assignments for operating sessions on my Southern Pacific layout. As background, I explained how there was a hierarchy of use on the SP, from the newest and best cabooses on the hottest trains, down through drag freights and locals, to what I called the “bottom of the barrel,” temporary cabooses converted from old box cars. That post is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/model-operations-with-sp-cabooses.html .

The next highest use after the boxcar cabooses was the ubiquitous C-30-1 wood caboose, with something like 620 of them built in company shops, mostly at Los Angeles. These soldiered on for many years after the construction in the 1920s, and were still seen in numbers in the 1960s. Both because of their large numbers and their longevity, these could be considered a signature caboose for the SP as late as the early diesel era.

I’ll begin by showing one of my favorite views of a C-30-1 caboose, in an outstanding photo by Stanley Groff (Kalmbach Library collection, courtesy Andy Sperandeo). The photo shows the conductor picking up orders at Burbank Junction, where the Coast and Valley routes outbound from Los Angeles diverge. But I’m using it here for all the detail it shows of the caboose, with side walkways on the original cupola, the distinctive SP ladder tops, and the white outside railings.

The caboose shown above is interesting in that it was built in 1926, as we know from its number, 187. Most of Class C-30-1 had numbers in the 600, 700, and 800 series, but when those were used up, SP began re-using numbers of retired old cabooses. There were 120 of those kinds of numbers, too, like the one you see above. Note also its spelled-out roadname, typical post-1946 caboose appearance. But many cabooses kept the pre-1946 initials for years.

My caboose fleet includes a wide range of wood-sheathed cars. I have several “original” appearance C-30-1 cars, such as SP 793 that you see here on a train approaching Shumala. It has a wood cupola with cupola-top railing and side walkways. This is a Walthers model.

In the late 1930s, as the vulnerability of the complex woodwork of the cupola became evident, SP designed a steel replacement cupola, and by the time I model, 1953, these were often seen on the old C-30 cars. The ancient Balboa brass SP caboose has such a cupola, and I enjoy using one on my layout. You see it here being switched at Shumala.

Finally, I should mention that in 1929, SP made some redesigns to the C-30 car body, and a new class, C-30-3, emerged, now with steel body framing. This is of course inside the car’s sheathing — except at the bottom of the side. That’s evident in the Wilbur Whittaker photo below (taken at Oakland in May, 1948), as is the full-width wood cupola design of these cars. The number is, of course, re-used from a retired caboose, and the photo just pre-dates adoption of the white color for handrails.

There happens to be an HO model of this class, imported in brass by Challenger models. The photo is a repeat of one shown in Part 1 of this series, with the car on the Shumala caboose track. It does have white handrails and old-stye lettering. The roof color is black car cement.

All these wood cabooses may be assigned to the Santa Rosalia Local or to trains like the Guadalupe Turn, that serves Shumala from San Luis Obispo. In a following post, I will take up steel cabooses.

Tony Thompson

The peculiar new Walthers steel reefer

I have seen promotional material for the new Walthers “mainline” refrigerator car in HO scale, and wondered what it might be a model of. Since their ads have shown a Fruit Growers steel car, perhaps that was their goal. But they are also marketing two Pacific Fruit Express paint schemes on this car body, so I wanted to evaluate those models.

I have no idea where they got the ideas for their two paint schemes. Neither one makes any historical sense. But before I get to that, let’s look at the car body itself. The photo below shows that the model has molded-on ladders and grab irons. The rendition of the rivet lines of the steel body are not bad, nor is the door appearance. Ice hatches do resemble the Holland hatch covers used by PFE for a time. The running board represents a steel grid, and it is a see-through grid. 

That’s the good news. But the roof is a late-1920s style flat panel roof, not the prototype’s raised panel roof. And the underframe has no relation to any PFE underframe I know of. Aside from the roof and the relatively invisible underframe, the body is not a bad version of PFE’s first steel reefers, Class R-40-10.

Now to the PFE paint schemes they have chosen. The one shown above is a mish-mash of components from different eras, and one wonders what they thought they were doing on this steel body scheme.  I will come back to it, in favor of beginning with the single-emblem scheme, cars that are lettered as Class R-30-13. It’s shown below in a Walthers photo.

This scheme had a UP “Overland Route” slogan emblem on one side, which you see above, and an SP emblem on the other side. The paint scheme as shown above was in use prior to 1936. That’s because it’s the pre-1936 UP emblem with the word “System” in the blue field. That would be all right for the time the R-30-13 cars were built, as would all of the rest of the lettering. But as mentioned, all this decoration is on a steel body, while the lettering is for a wood-sheathed car.

These single-emblem cars have car numbers beginning with “40,” consistent with Class R-40-10, but they are lettered as Class R-30-13, a car with wood-sheathed sides and ends and an outside-metal roof, wood running board, and K brakes: none of those features are on the model. 

In a way, it’s a shame they went to all the trouble to accurately letter the car this way. If it were just a wood car body, the lettering would be quite nice. For comparison, below is a prototype photo (Pullman for PFE). Incidentally, the deep underframe (whitewashed for the photo) is yet another feature missing from the Walthers representation of Class R-30-13.

Now let me return to the steel car. This second paint scheme has car numbers beginning with “41,” again consistent with Class R-40-10, and for that class the car body makes far better sense, even the lack of placard boards on car sides (but unaccountably, they do have placard boards on the ends). Unfortunately, all the dimensional and capacity lettering and data is copied exactly from the R-30-13 model, entirely wrong in almost every detail for a steel-body Class R-40-10.

But the emblems are a problem, too. The chosen “two-emblem” paint scheme, with both railroad emblems on both sides, essentially a 1946–1950 scheme, is fine, but they have chose to letter a red-white-blue UP emblem with the word “railroad” in the blue field, something never done with that emblem. In fact, the first UP emblem to contain the word “railroad” was the black-white one introduced in 1950.

The PFE photo below shows the black-white UP emblem. Clearly Walthers got the white border and the word “railroad” in the upper field, but chose to stay with red-white-blue, an imaginary scheme (it’s shown in the upper photo in this post). 

Moreover, as is obvious in the model photos above, Walthers painted all side hardware orange (ladders, grab irons, and door hardware), consistent with PFE practice beginning in 1948. From that time until 1950, the all-orange sides co-existed with the color two-herald scheme, as mentioned.

Where can you find all these lettering details as to arrangement and dates of use? An excellent book from the Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society, entitled Southern Pacific Freight Car Painting and Lettering Guide (SPH&S, 2016) contains a thorough and clearly presented description of all the PFE lettering schemes down through the years, organized and written by Dick Harley.

Quite aside from curiosity about how and why Walthers made its peculiar lettering decisions, as a modeler the far more interesting question is, what can be done with this model if you’d like it to be more prototypical? I will turn to that topic in a following post.

Tony Thompson

Southern Pacific’s GE 44-tonners

The General Electric 44-ton diesel switcher was sold to railroads large and small, and to industrial users, all over North America, and many survived 30 years or more in service (and a number have been preserved at various railroad museums). Powered by a pair of Caterpillar 190-horsepower diesels, they were easy to maintain, with Caterpillar parts available everywhere. Over time, Southern Pacific and its subsidiaries owned a full dozen of them.

The earliest three 44-tonners owned by SP arrived in the fall of 1942, only two years after the first 44-ton locomotives had been produced by GE. Numbered 1900–1902, they were mostly used in Oregon during the war, and later were tried many places on the SP system. Like others in the earliest production, these had side radiators, unlike the many post-1942 44-ton engines with end radiator shutters. 

(One of the magisterial Joe Strapac books on SP diesel locomotives, Volume 18 in the series Southern Pacific Historic Diesels, is about Alco and GE diesel switchers. He covers the 44-tonners owned by SP, Pacific Electric, Visalia Electric, and Petaluma & Santa Rosa, along with Pacific Fruit Express. It should be consulted for history of the locomotives on all the subsidiaries.)

Here’s a photo from that book (Gordon Spafford photo, courtesy Joe Strapac), taken at Eugene, Oregon on March 15, 1946, with SP 1901 painted in “Tiger Stripe” colors. The side shutters and plain hood end are clearly shown.

In the photo above, note the prominent rerailing frog over the front truck at right. Photos of these locomotives on the SP after the 1940s no longer show these frogs present, so they were not a permanent feature. 

What might this have to do with SP’s Coast Division and in particular, the San Luis Obispo area (which I model)? In the 1953–54 era, SP tried out a variety of diesel locomotives on different parts of the system, including Coast Division, and specifically at San Luis. 

One of my previous posts, with parts of my interview with Malcolm “Mac” Gaddis who worked there in the early 1950s, mentions trying out GE 70-ton engines, Baldwin and Alco six-axle road switchers, and others (here’s a link to that post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/08/san-luis-obispo-operations-3.html ). He mentioned the 44-tonners in another part of the interview. Neither the 44-ton nor 70-ton locomotives could do the desired job in the yard at San Luis Obispo (which is on a grade), and after short stints, they were sent elsewhere — but they did work there.

This is of current interest because Rapido Trains has just introduced a GE 44-tonner in HO scale, and they offer it in SP paint and lettering. Among the body styles they chose to do is the original design, with side radiators, sometimes called Phase I, correct for the SP numbers they have modeled. Here is a photo of SP 1902 at work on my layout, switching cars at Shumala.

The engine runs nicely, has a realistic diesel sound, and handles switching well. It’s shown below spotting a reefer at the Phelan & Taylor packing shed in East Shumala on my layout.

I’m sure the 44-tonners didn’t serve very long in this area of Coast Division, but the times when they were tested does fit my modeling era, so I will operate this one occasionally.

Tony Thompson