Reminders of John Allen’s modeling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tony Thompson