The new Rapido SP dome car

Among SP modelers, there had been a buzz for some time about the forthcoming HO scale model of the Sacramento-built full-length dome cars from Rapido Trains. During 1954 and 1955, SP shop forces used some pre-war Daylight cars for underframe and some body parts, and the dome structure was purchased from Budd as a kit. The rest of the car was essentially new construction. There was one prototype built first, then six production cars. 

For a full background on these cars, see Volume 5 of Southern Pacific Passenger Cars (Lounge, Dome & Parlor Cars), by Jeff Cauthen and Don Munger, SPH&TS, Upland, CA, 2012).

Here’s an example of a car in service on the San Joaquin Daylight (SP photo), taken just above Caliente in 1955. It was usual to operate the car with the short roof to the rear, as here, so that dome seats faced forward. The bar-lounge on the lower level was relatively small, and SP provided beverage service to the lounge end (nearest the bar) of the upper level. The cars operated rarely on the Coast Daylight  until later years, because adding it to the consist, along with the usual tavern car,  would require removal of a coach, with corresponding revenue loss.

The reason Rapido has produced it, no doubt, is because one of the cars survived long enough to be purchased by Canadian Pacific and rebuilt by them for their Heritage Fleet, operating as the car “Selkirk.” But they offered the model in both full Daylight paint (red and orange), and in SP’s post-1958 simulated stainless steel with red letterboard.

In later years all the cars had their fluted sides replaced with flat stainless panels, and some cars operated in yellow paint to match the City of San Francisco. A few cars survived to operate in Amtrak paint (Phase 1). All these schemes were offered by Rapido, along with CP deep maroon. But every single scheme is now shown on the Rapido site as “out of stock” (see: https://rapidotrains.com/ho-scale/passenger-car/sp-dome-lounge-cars.html ). The strong response to these models may well cause them to be re-run at some point.

These models are really beautiful. The full interior is readily viewed through the expansive dome windows, including the lower-level lounge with its fully equipped and detailed bar.  

I was glad to see that a quite accurate diaphragm is on the car end, along with other often-omitted details like the pair of grab iron steps on the side skirt at the corner. The underbody is also well done, showing all of what should be visible from the side of the model.

Since I model 1953, and the first car was built in 1954 (and used for the rest of that year in test service around the system), with the additional six cars built in 1955, it might seem that I have no use for this model. But of course the traditional modeler’s license contains a provision for small time warps, and I plan to include the car in an occasional deadhead move of passenger equipment, such as shown below at Shumala, sandwiched between a couple of Lark sleepers.

Another view from above the model, posed on the layout, allows at least an impression of the superb interior. Luckily, since I will only be deadheading the car, not operating it in a regular train, I don’t have the challenge of filling the seats with passengers. 

All in all, this is really a nice model of a distinctive SP prototype, very well executed. Rapido Trains and its people are very much to be congratulated.

Tony Thompson 

My latest column in Model Railroad Hobbyist

In the current September issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist, there is the latest column by me in the multi-author series, “Getting Real” (you can find it at: www.mrhmag.com ). It’s about modeling Southern Pacific automobile cars, but it’s also intended to provide prototype information on those cars, because Volume 3 in my series, Southern Pacific Freight Cars, about automobile and flat cars, is out of print and a little hard to find.  

I showed both prototype and model photos of relevant SP automobile car classes for the era I model, 1953. The models are from resin kits in several cases, primarily Sunshine Models, but I included a brass model and some styrene commercial models. 

I also repeated parts of an article I wrote a few years ago, about modeling the Class A-50-17 automobile cars. It was published back in 2015 in the SP Historical & Technical Society magazine, Trainline (issue 122), but I have gotten occasional complaints that it is not easy to obtain, thus this repetition.

Here’s the basic framework that I followed for each car class covered. I began with a prototype photo, often a builder photo like this one for the 40-foot automobile Class A-50-13, 600 cars built in 1937 by the Mt. Vernon Car Co. (Mt. Vernon photo). The 7-foot doors are distinctive, and the white door stripe indicates the presence of Evans auto loaders.

I then showed the HO scale model, and if the model fell short of accuracy in any aspect, I tried to explain how. For this particular class, though, there was no such issue; Sunshine Models issued an excellent and accurate kit for this class. 

My Sunshine model is below. I numbered the model to fall among the 350 cars in the class without auto loaders, thus no door stripe. Note that lettering features have been swapped end for end, compared to the builder photo, above. SP did this after 1946, when introduction of the spelled-out road name would not have fit at the left of the doors.

I also illustrated that there has long been a styrene model that stands in for this class, the 40-foot double-door car from Red Caboose (nowadays, InterMountain). It’s shown below. It’s a nice model in most ways, but its 6-foot doors stand out as inaccurate for the SP class. It can of course serve as a stand-in model, or as I would term it, a “mainline” model. 

To go beyond just showing completed models, I also included a section about one of my efforts to create an accurate model of an SP class that is otherwise unavailable. I did that by making the necessary corrections to a commercial model.

My example, as I mentioned above, was the 1951-built Class A-50-17 cars.  I used a Branchline Trains postwar 50-foot automobile car kit for the project, by removing all the side rivets and replacing them with correct-pattern Archer resin rivets, also creating the correct numbers of side sheets. I repeat below one of the model photos, showing the freshly-applied Archer rivets which create 4 side sheets to the left of the doors, and 6 to the right, called a 4–6 pattern.  

The resulting car uses the kit doors, ends, and roof,  which are correct for the SP cars. When completed, the model went into service on my layout, as you see below.

I hope the MRH article helps a few who haven’t been able to acquire my Volume 3 in the freight car series, through its covering several parts of the section of that book on automobile cars.

Tony Thompson 

Yes, we had an earthquake

Last Monday, we experienced an earthquake here in Berkeley, with an epicenter just blocks from our home, stated to be intensity 4.3. This is no surprise; we live a few hundred yards from the Hayward Fault, a major part of the San Francisco Bay area fault system. In the following days, we had some aftershocks, located similarly nearby. These events remind me that over the years, I have met people who are shocked that we are willing to live in earthquake country.

The reality is that earthquakes are not frequent (nothing like hurricanes or tornadoes), and in any case, we actually live in the (relatively) right place: our location uphill from the Bay means that what is underneath us is rock. We get short, sharp jolts in earthquakes. People living on top of sediment or fill can instead experience extended shaking, and it’s that kind of earthquake motion that damages structures the most.

Still, after a quake, I always go around the house and check on things, including the layout. This kind of quake, at 4.3, mostly jiggles picture frames off vertical. On the layout, it usually does little, though of course anything delicately balanced may fall over. In a bigger quake, that could include rolling stock and structures, but not in a quake like the one we just had.

A typical outcome in a lesser earthquake like this one is that figures of people tip over. This can be noticed all over the layout. Here’s an example at the Shumala engine terminal.  Note that the ladders are standing, as is a figure in the background.

Another vulnerable scenic item is my billboards. These are built from the Walthers kits, and though they are fine ordinarily, they turn out to be “tippy” in an earthquake. This one has fallen onto the “Bob’s Hot Dogs” stand, and so has a patron at Bobs, and the workman on the tank car loading platform; but a figure in the road in the distance remains standing..

Anything else that’s tippy, along with a billboard, can also fall, as in the Union 76 service station sign in this view at East Shumala. Note here that the figures in the gas station scene are all still standing.

So these are all minor effects, easily picked up in a few minutes. Now to be sure, it may be different when “the big one” hits; but for these little quakes, it’s pretty minor. Having lived with this sort of thing for much of my life, I’m certainly not bothered. 

Tony Thompson 

Operating session #105

Last Sunday I conducted operating session #105 on my layout. It was in most ways a typical session, though with some restrictions on track usage on account of the recent track rebuilding between Ballard and Santa Rosalia (see my post. at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/09/trackwork-wars-part-15.html ). Because I knew the crews were pretty experienced operators, I did schedule a few more car moves than usual.They did just fine, finishing pretty much in line with average crew times or better.

Because this is September, and on my layout, we operate as on the day in 1953 that corresponds to the calendar day of our operation, thus it was September 21, 1953. A very visible feature of my operations in this season is the variety of foreign reefers that are in use, compared to most of the year when reefers to be loaded are almost exclusively PFE (for background, you can consult this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/08/operations-for-peak-harvest-season.html ). 

That meant that we had scenes like this one, with the Santa Rosalia Local picking up loaded FGEX and BAR reefers. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

My crew this time comprised Mark Schutzer, Mike Steward, Steve Van Meter and John Wiley. All handled their jobs well. The two teams were Mark and John , and Steve and Mike. Mark and John began at Shumala. Meanwhile, Steve and Mike were busy at Ballard, and here Mike was conducting (that’s him at left), 

As usual, once each crew had completed work where they were, the branch train returned to Shumala, and the former Shumala crew took a new train to Ballard for a second set of switching, while the new crew at Shumala handled the returned cars, along with cars set out by the passing Guadalupe Local. 

That second crew taking the Local to Ballard was Mark (at left) and John, and in this view, it’s Mark who was conducting. 

Meanwhile at Shumala, Steve took over conducting while Mike took over engineer duties. Steve is matching waybills to cars in this view.

All in all, the session went well despite the inability to switch at Santa Rosalia this time (that trackwork issue), and in spite of a broken feeder wire discovered too late to fix. Experienced operators, particularly those with layouts of their own, know well that “things happen,” and they can deal with the need to work around difficulties. That’s what this session did too.

Tony Thompson

Trackwork wars: Part 15

In this long-running series about the combat between me and some of my trackwork, we have looked at several different parts of my layout. But more recent reports have concentrated on the track between my towns of Ballard and Santa Rosalia. The last post described some significant improvements accomplished by the efforts of Jim Providenza (you can read it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/05/trackwork-wars-part-14.html ). 

After the work described in that post, I could operate even my long-wheelbase Consolidation steam locos over that trackage. But in fact, this only worked at a slow crawl. Any speed increase toward what any experienced operator would choose, and bingo! off the track. That was even true for 4-axle diesel switchers. Jim and I knew that further work would be needed at some point.

Recently, testing this yet again, and still seeing derailments, I set about examining individual rail lengths carefully, and discovered that some were still bent, in ways not easy to correct, both in, and out of the plane of the track. I suppose this may have been done while correcting other faults. But I finally faced up to the fact that this just wasn’t going to get fixed. Here is how the work area looked at that point, with all structures moved out of the way.

Jim and I discussed it, and we agreed that the simplest way forward was simply to buy two new switches to replace the two now in place (a Peco #6 left hand “Unifrog,” and a Walthers curved right-hand 20–24"), and start over. This is, in a way, pretty discouraging, since both he and I had invested a lot of time and effort in the trackage you see above. But a fresh start seemed best. 

I patiently un-soldered all the feeders and whichever rail joiners were soldered, for these two switches, then removed both of them. I also un-linked both switch machines. It was discouraging to be back to this point again, but it seemed like the best option here.

Some long-time readers will be feeling that I have been through this before. Right you are, I already tried replacing those two switches, but ran into a series of problems that rendered that solution less successful that I hoped (the previous saga is at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/04/trackwork-wars-part-12.html ). 

The other day, Jim kindly came over, with complete tool box, and set to work. The need to connect track at both ends of the area (as you see it above) is definitely constraining, and called for a few mods to both of the new switches. Below is Jim, starting the effort, with his coffee mug in the foreground (with a label for his Santa Cruz Northern layout, and its slogan: “50 years of occasional service”). You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.

As work progressed, including some modification of both commercial switches to align correctly, the new trackage emerged (shown below not quite all attached). Also revealed, unfortunately, was a problem at far right with a Peco switch that is part of Santa Rosalia.

Close examination and attempts to correct that Peco leading into Santa Rosalia (SR) revealed instead some bent rail and gauge problems. We decided that that one had to go also. Removing it and cleaning up a couple of short track segments, left the area looking like this. SR entry via the lower track in this view is intact, but obviously not the upper track.

For the time being, I can only operate into part of Santa Rosalia, until that entry switch gets replaced. The switch machines need to be re-linked, too. But more important is that the overall track connection between Ballard and SR is re-established, track which also serves as the tail track for Ballard switching. So there is definitely good news, but of course, there remains more to do!

Tony Thompson 

Cleaning an NCE throttle

In my recent post about my preparation actions for upcoming operating sessions on my layout, I mentioned cleaning my NCE throttles (you can find that post at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/09/an-op-session-check-list.html ).

I promptly received an email, asking “what the heck do you mean about cleaning throttles?” or words to that effect. So I will show briefly what is involved, an easy maintenance task but one which is very definitely necessary from time to time.

Let’s begin with the back of a dogbone NCE throttle. The arrow indicates the three screws at the bottom of the throttle — don’t remove these. Remove the other seven. (I added the Velcro at the top.)

When these 7 screws are out, you can gently turn the throttle over and lift off the top of the case. It’s shown below at left, next to the circuit board and the rest of the bottom half. Don’t disassemble the part on the right any further! 

Now examine the gold-colored rectangles that underlie buttons that are used the most (usually the forward-reverse button). If it’s been balky, it probably has a round dirty spot on it, as you see below at upper left. This is the image of the button that presses on it. Several other of these rectangles or pads have some dirt; might as well clean all the pads while the throttle is open.

At this point I make a bowl of soapy water (more on that in a moment) and used a Q-tip wetted with the water to scrub each pad clean.

Next I clean the rubber “keypad” (NCE calls this a “membrane keypad”). This is the shaped rubber piece that fills the inside of the lid of the case, as you see below. The round black things touch the pads you just cleaned.  

This is simply plunged into the soapy water and washed with your fingers. I mean, really put that pad into the water and use your fingers to vigorously wipe all surfaces. Here’s the pad, wet and in the process of cleaning. When that’s done, rinse with clean water.

Let the pad dry well (I like to put it outside in the sun, this time of year), and then reassemble your throttle. You will find that those buttons that were balky before now work fine. Just repeat this process next time the throttle isn’t performing as it should.

Tony Thompson 

An op session check list

I was looking through some past emails that were sent to me about this blog, and found one interesting one to which I apparently never replied. It had to do with what things I do before an operating (or “op”) session. I have posted several times about one aspect of this question, car choice and movements during an op session, and how those are set up (see for example, this: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/10/car-movements-for-operating-session.html ).

But my topic today is not the car movement part, it’s the layout part. I am sure the list I follow is pretty common to all layout owners’ procedures, but I will show it anyway. I don’t really need a “to do” list because I’ve had a layout for years, and have entirely internalized the things that need to be done to operate. But some years ago, when I was busy with other things, I did make up a list to make sure that in the press of everything else, I did get the essentials all done.

You may note that some of what is on my list is normal layout maintenance, but it’s maintenance that needs to be updated before an op session to make sure performance is dependable. 

The list is below. Some parts are obvious, such as cleaning track and locomotive wheels. My DCC system is NCE, and the throttle key pads do get dirty with use; the throttles can be opened up and the dirt removed with soap and water. I check for throttle buttons which are as responsive as they should be, and clean them if not.

I run every train that is expected to operate, and make sure everything is okay; ditto for checking every track switch to make sure it functions correctly electrically. This latter point is rarely a problem, but annoying if occurring in a session. Ordinarily all freight cars on the layout are veterans, but if a new one, or a newly modified one, is scheduled in the upcoming session, I check its operation in my “rookie test” (described in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-rookie-test.html ).

There are several paperwork parts to this. Because nearly all my freight cars have multiple waybills on file, I need to check that the waybill for each car that is part of the intended action in the upcoming session is correct and complete. The car may have had a different industry service in the previous session, so the waybill needs to be current. An example is this load of cement (a Richard Hendrickson weathering job).

I write a new train order and clearance card for the branchline train from Shumala to Santa Rosalia and return, and also do a fresh line-up for the mainline trains that will operate in the session (for background on that, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/01/line-ups-for-operating.html ). I continue to find line-ups a very useful tool for sessions. 

For some sessions, I also issue a Bulletin, as I’ve described in a previous post (you can read it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/11/more-operating-sessions.html ). To repeat an example, if a ballast train is to be run, I might issue this: 

Something that isn’t on the list, but which I think is important to do, is to send an email to the operators who are signed up for a session, about a week beforehand, giving them a layout description if they haven’t visited lately, and also reminding them of anything especially relevant. For my upcoming session, for example, being in September, I will send them a link to a recent post about operating the layout during peak harvest season (that post is at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/08/operations-for-peak-harvest-season.html ).

As I mentioned above, normally before op sessions I do most or all of these tasks from embedded memory, but from time to time I have printed it out again to make sure I get everything done for the session. I always want the layout to operate as well as it can, following the vision I have of how it ought to perform.

Tony Thompson 

Modeling operating practices

We modelers are used to the challenge of modeling particular locomotives, particular cars, or particular structures. We assemble fleets of rolling stock and built entire layouts of track and scenery. But then comes the question of how we are going to operate it all. It seems obvious to me that here again, we should be striving to model the prototype.  

Now some readers are thinking, “Of course, we do that already.” But do we? Many operating schemes are fairly generic and at best approximating to the prototype. Naturally, many layout owners aren’t interested in whether their sessions reflect the prototype. But what if you are? What’s the foundation?

I have come to firmly believe that the foundation for any prototype-related operating session is a timetable. By that, I don’t just mean the schedule, but all the ancillary things that are in employee timetables, and/or in accompanying Special Instructions. Even a switching layout will have some rules that operators need to know, and those are realistically presented in a timetable document. I illustrate this point below.

My own layout is set in the Southern Pacific’s Coast Division in 1953, more specifically in the Guadalupe Subdivision, which lies between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. Creating a timetable to reflect how SP operated this subdivision was an early goal, so I’ll begin with the prototype.

An example is below (I chose 1955 documents for variety). Each division timetable in the 1950s was issued twice a year, on the occasion of Daylight Savings either being instituted or removed (and therefore schedules being offset by one hour each time). Note on the cover of the Special Instructions that this document constitutes part of the Timetable.  

The Special Instructions document is quite interesting. It contains division-wide special instructions, along with considerable detail for each subdivision. Because this document forms part of the Timetable, every operating employee had to have timetable, special instructions, and rule book on hand when on duty. 

Below is an example page from the document shown above (you can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish). In addition to the kind of rules shown below, there were ratings, in tons, of engines by class, both steam and diesel; restrictions of engines from some tracks in the subdivision; and also identification of yard limits, and detailed speed limits by milepost or fraction thereof.

I took advantage of the look of these documents to create my own layout timetable (shamelessly scanning not only the cover, but relevant pages inside, thereby capturing the font and layout of the prototype). I wrote a detailed description of how I made my timetable in Model Railroad Hobbyist (the issue for October 2014, still available for free, to read online or download, at www.mrhmag.com ). A description of it is in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/10/my-column-on-timetable-construction.html .

Among other things, this allows one to insert relevant rules for the layout. Below are pages 9 and 10 of my layout timetable. 

Of course there is nothing unique in my own examples above. Many layout owners have done the same, for much the same reason: to create a foundation for realistic-looking operation. Below are two examples, Rich Remiarz’s very prototypical Great Northern layout, and Al Daumann’s freelance BR&W. Both have a timetable number, an effective date, and names of officials. 

I think this is an important starting point in creating a prototype approach to operating a layout. I will continue the topic in future posts.

Tony Thompson 

Dealing with a short tail track

Some readers will remember that when I built my layout town of Santa Rosalia, I ended up with a pretty short tail track for switching the industries at the front of the layout. I had no real choice at the time, as the wall of the room was an immovable object. You can see this is the “plan view” below. The wall of the room is at right. 

From the three-way switch at lower left, the tail track is just the length of a 40-foot car and a single locomotive, such as the Southern Pacific Consolidation usually assigned to the local on this branch. Even a 50-foot car would not be workable here, if destined to the industries along the track at lower left.

Here is a level view, showing how the area looks, with the door frame to the right. 

More than once, during operating sessions, visiting operators have said, “Hey, this is simple to fix, just bore through the wall.” There is an adjoining room to the right, which was the kitchen when the layout space was a small apartment. Usually I laughed off the suggestion. But over time, I did think about doing it, and what I could accomplish on the other side of the wall. 

On the other side is the kitchen counter, with shelves above. On that counter, right next to the wall in question, is a microwave oven. The track could indeed be brought through the wall and extended across the top of the microwave. 

For some time, I had had thoughts of not only the extended tail track in the kitchen, but also of adding a new industrial spur, such as perhaps a shipyard. I have long had a casting of an industrial building, which I envisioned as a possible shipyard building on the extension of the branch trackage. It’s shown below on top of the microwave.

Completely coincidentally, the top of the microwave oven is almost exactly at the level of the track board on the other side of the wall. I attempted to photograph that, with the door partly open (and evident edge-on in the photograph below). You can see the two levels on each side. So there is a definite possibility that an extension through the wall could work. 

Just recently, I happened to look at it with a fresh eye, and thought that maybe I should consider the idea further. But my son, who does a lot of construction, checked the wall and determined that the door framing is double at this location, and that the track might not quite clear that framing. That could require some serious modifications to this doorway framing as part of a simple track extension. 

Not wanting to undertake all that, I decided to stand down. It’s too bad in a way, losing my vision of a shipyard industry to switch, along with the extended tail track, but no dice. Wish there was a happier outcome to report, but not on this one. The wall will remain whole.

 Tony Thompson 

SP steam passenger power

I have not posted many comments about Southern Pacific passenger power, steam or otherwise. I did offer an introduction to the topic a few years ago (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/06/choosing-passenger-locomotive.html ). In that post, I showed my Westside brass model of a Class P-4 Pacific, a class rebuilt in the late 1920s from elderly Class P-1 Pacifics. I also pointed out that though it is a fairly light Pacific, it would be suitable for shorter or less important trains.

I subsequently placed in service a model of much larger Pacific (the heavy Pacific was an engine type developed in part by SP, and purchased in numerous examples). The final SP class of Pacifics was Class P-10, an engine with  almost 44,000 pounds of tractive effort, compare to the 31,000 pounds of the P-4 locomotives. 

The P-10s were built by Baldwin in 1923–24; there were 14 of them, numbered 2478–2491. By the fall of 1941, all of the last 8 of the class had skyline casings. Here is an example at Oakland in March, 1953 (Grady Robarts photo, Steve Peery collection). The front ladders show that it is one of three P-10s that had been streamlined in prior years.

 

The locomotive number above, SP 2485, is what I chose for my model locomotive. This particular model is a Precision Scale product and happens to have Glide Drive, a feature loathed by some modelers, but loved by others, including me. It’s shown passing the depot at Shumala on my layout, trailed by baggage car SP 6337, built from a Southern Car & Foundry kit.

But as many know, Pacifics were superseded as mainline power in the mid-1920s on the SP by Mountains. In my article in Model Railroad Hobbyist in February 2019, I described a little about my model locomotive selection (for more, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/02/my-column-in-february-model-railroad.html ). The goal was to duplicate the look of these handsome engines, long-lived after their introduction, because they survived in the San Francisco Peninsula commute pool to the end of steam. 

Below is a view of one of these locomotives in action on the Coast Division, just south of Paso Robles, with eastward Train 72 depicted. The power is SP 4340, a Mountain with a skyline casing, as all SP Mountains had by 1950. This particular engine has a 16,000-gallon tender, though many Mountains served out their lives with 12,000-gallon tenders. The date was not recorded, but the photographer believed it was 1951. (Wilbur C. Whittaker photo)

 Modeling the distinctive SP Mountain classes used to require brass, but in recent years Athearn Genesis has offered a superb rendition of these locomotives with a plastic body. I have simply added flat finish and some light weathering to the model as it comes from the box. For more, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-sp-4-8-2-from-athearn.html . That post has a photo of my model.

The amazing scheme used on some of these engines was the “half-Daylight,” as it’s sometimes called, just the cab and tender receiving Daylight paint, applied to the Class Mt-4 engines in the helper pool for the San Joaquin Daylight over Tehachapi. First painted in May, 1946, soon after wartime restrictions on special paint schemes were lifted, it continued until 1951 or 1952. A dramatic view below shows double-headed Mt-4s on the San Joaquin Daylight in 1946 (R.G. Denechaud photo, Bob Church collection).

As need for the engines as helpers declined, they were occasionally used on other passenger trains, largely on the Coast Division.  That’s my basis for using one of the Athearn models in this paint scheme, as you see below. Eastward SP 4352 is just crossing Chamisal Road in Shumala, with 70-foot baggage SP 6448, Class 70-B-9, trailing (kitbashed from an Athearn baggage; the latter project was described in some detail for Prototype Modeler magazine, Vol. 7, No. 6, March-April 1984, pages 39–44).

Of course the queens of SP steam passenger power were the GS class 4-8-4s, and their presence is nearly obligatory on an SP layout set in the steam era. I do have one of them in all black paint, as was the fate of most surviving engines by 1953, the year I model. But that’s a topic for a future post.

Tony Thompson 

Mundane models

 In a recent conversation with an acqaintance, the topic of my blog came up, and during the discussion he asked, essentially, “Are all your model projects complicated ones, like the Hendrickson one?’ (He was remembering the Santa Fe automobile car of Richard’s that I had completed; the concluding post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/11/hendrickson-auto-car-part-6.html ). 

Like most modelers, my answer was “no.” I do lots of projects that can only be called “mundane,” thus the title of this blog. But reflecting on this point, I thought I would show some examples of such projects, always remembering, of course, that I am definitely a “freight car guy.” (For background on that term, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/10/whats-freight-car-guy.html .) 

The topic of mundane models returns me to something I’ve often mentioned, usually just in passing. It’s my idea to separate mentally, what I call “mainline models,” by which I mean cars that will look all right in a passing train, but might not look so good up close during switching, from better models. I talked about the philosophy of all that in a previous post, too (it can be found here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/08/layout-models-and-all-that.html ).

But today’s post is to illustrate a few models, and perhaps clarify what a mundane model is. It need not be a “mainline model,” but may be quite a nice freight car, just not anywhere approaching contest quality or even worthy of a detailed description of its construction in this blog. I have felt from the beginning that following kit directions needn’t be posted here, but some models so built can turn out quite well.

I’ll begin with a automobile car finished recently. This was kind of a silk purse affair, in that I started with a C&BT Shops kit, kits known for their poor detail sprues. But replacing most of them, and in particular adding wire corner grab irons on the roof, and an etched metal running board, can make a pretty decent final result. There was a distant view of this car in a post last year (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/forty-foot-automobile-cars.html ).

 A second box car in work is more mundane than the car above; it is simply a Branchline kit for a postwar 40-foot box car. I happen to have won it as a door prize at a Prairie Rail operating weekend, and so far it has its internal steel nuts for weight added, underframe complete, and starting to add body details. Roof not yet attached; it will receive an etched metal running board. Shouldn’t be long till it’s done.

Awhile back, as part of purchasing several of the very nice Broadway Limited 6000-gallon high-pressure tank cars, I received one lettered for the Ethyl Corporation. The car came with a dome platform and railings, but a prototype photo I have shows an EBAX  car with only short dome walkways, no platform. I removed the platform and ladders (used them on another project), and am preparing to add the walkways and new ladders. A small project, to be sure.

This car will likely only operate in mainline trains, because I have no industries on my layout that would either ship or receive Ethyl Corp. cargoes, but such a restriction won’t be on account of model shortcomings.  

Finally, I’ve just completed an Accurail box car, chosen in honor of Paul Weiss’s Central Vermont layout (and could be used to receive cargoes from industries on his layout). This is of course an extremely simple kit, with minimal number of parts, though I added A-Line sill steps and a Cal-Scale brass brake wheel soldered to the brake staff. It hasn’t yet been weathered.

All these cars are mundane in construction, but all have roles to play, and in fact none of them would be relegated to the “mainline” category because of quality shortcomings. Cars like this can be the majority of any freight car fleet, as they are in mine. 

Tony Thompson 

State of the hobby

Lots of us have been and still are prone to sitting around, say over lunch, or in a bar, slinging gloom about how model railroading is fading away as the old guys pass on — everyone at meetings has white hair — there are practically no more hobby shops — you never see young guys —modern railroads are boring — and so forth. I would bet that most if not all readers of this blog can cite memories of events exactly like this.  

Well, is any of that (aside from the judgement on modern railroads) true? It’s true you don’t see that many young guys at meets; it’s the retired who have the time and money to do that part of the hobby. But are young guys even in the hobby? Sure they are, and I’ll come back to that point in a moment. 

First, an overview of attendees at the Cocoa Beach meeting in January, 2020. Plenty of older men, but middle-aged ones too — and a few young men.

Some of the grumbling you sometimes hear is about the attitudes of younger modelers. How amazing, they don’t think exactly like those who are two generations older. 

I could remind you that at least as far back as ancient Greece, elders have been bemoaning the younger generation, who have no respect for anything, don’t understand how things ought to be done, and are clearly going to destroy civilization in one generation. Really, it’s practically one of the duties of every older generation to complain about the young ones coming behind them — or believed not to be coming forward at all.

But aside from that, what about our hobby? The complaint I mentioned above, about the loss of hobby shops, is quite real, and we all know why: commerce in all standard products (things that you know exactly what they are, and can be bought anywhere) is continuing to move onto the internet. Really, that just means you buy stuff from a different source. And it’s been noted for a couple of decades that model railroad manufacturers are producing and selling as much or more than ever.

For some years now, Joe Fugate, editor of the online magazine Model Railroad Hobbyist (full disclosure: for which I write) has been offering editorials from time to time on this exact topic. This month, he placed another one, in the August issue. You can read it for free in on-line version at http://mrhmg.com .

Joe made several points. He began with the surprising (to many) fact that membership in the NMRA now comprises 30 percent people under 40. It’s long been the case that men tended to enter model railroading when their kids began to be grown up, and they were looking for a hobby — in the past, often in their 40s. This younger NMRA membership suggests that that may be changing. 

Another point is that younger modelers, with home ownership getting ever harder, are turning more and more to modules or switching layouts in the space they do have. The visibility of younger builders of Free-Mo modules illustrates this (for more on Free-Mo, you can visit https://free-mo.org/ ).

The most striking thing in Joe’s editorial for me is that many younger modelers are choosing to model the transition era, though it’s a lot of decades in the past. Why? It’s regarded as the most interesting time in railroad history, much as World War II continues to be the dominant period in military modeling.

So is our hobby fading away? In my opinion, not at all. I often quote an editorial in Model Railroader from the early 1950s, when MR conducted annual surveys of its readers. The editorial observed that the average age of surveyed modelers increased about one year in each successive survey, and therefore that the hobby was on its last legs. Seventy-five years later, it’s still the wrong conclusion.

Tony Thompson 

Handling MOW equipment

I’m sure it’s no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I find maintenance of way (MOW) equipment interesting and worth modeling. In fact, I’ve written a Model Railroad Hobbyist column about modeling MOW equipment of the railroad I model, Southern Pacific. You can read about it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/04/my-latest-column-in-mrh.html .

I do like to use such equipment in my layout operations, and have described how  I accomplish this for various equipment used in MOW work. That goes beyond what SP lettered as SPMW cars per se, such as ballast cars; that post can be found at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/02/operating-mow-equipment.html .

On my layout, most activity of MW cars (SP lettered them as SPMW) centers around the outfit track, which was the SP term, in my layout town of Ballard. For background, I’ve written previously about the role of an outfit track; the post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-role-of-outfit-track.html .

Though sometimes it’s empty, I usually arrange that my outfit track contains a boarding bunk car and a kitchen-commissary or dining car, to both house and feed MW forces. Sometimes there is also a domestic water car there, for crew use. Here’s an example, with the boarding bunk car in the center and the kitchen-diner, converted from an open-platform head-end car, at left. Water car at right.

The specific cars vary from time to time, for example with a different kitchen-commissary car and a more modern water car. 

But other times, some additional car type may be spotted on the outfit track, for the use of track maintenance forces, such as a  car of ballast, as you see below.

In the two photos above, the bunk cars are both converted from box cars. But as I described in a couple of earlier posts (concluding with this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/11/small-project-sp-boarding-bunk-car-pt-2.html ), after 1950 SP began converting old 12-1 Pullman sleepers to boarding bunk cars, and such bunk cars are sometimes found on my outfit track. 

It may sound like the SPMW cars I am showing are just passive scenery. But in fact cars do move to and from the outfit track in many sessions. When these are cars like ballast cars, it’s fairly obvious how they may move. In fact I wrote an entire post about the waybills associated with these kinds of movements: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/03/waybills-part-119-operating-mow.html . 

When a boarding car is moved, however, SP had rules associated with how that might be done. So something like a bunk car being delivered at the junction of the Santa Rosalia Branch, to move to the Ballard outfit track, might look like this, on the Coast Division main line approaching Shumala:

The SP company rule for this was Rule 831 in 1953. Here is how it reads (this rule is included in the Special Instructions section of the timetable that my layout operators use): 

Operations including MW cars can be interesting, and are usually a contrast to conventional commercial shipments to or from industries on the layout. I find them a valuable enlargement of operating possibilities.

Tony Thompson