More on open-car loads

In this blog, I have written numerous times about building loads and adapting commercial loads for use on my layout. I like to have both mainline movements, and also cars destined on my branch line, that are era- and locale-appropriate. 

A constantly used and continuing load type is lumber, destined to team tracks in any of my towns, because in the 1950s lumber was being shipped in prodigious quantities for the nationwide building boom of the period. Of course rough lumber, used widely in construction, usually traveled on flat cars, but when flat cars were not available, the Southern Pacific used gondolas. Accordingly, I enjoy operating loads of that kind. (To view past blog posts about this topic, you can use “lumber loads” as the search term in the search box at upper right.)

As I’ve reviewed, the Owl Mountain Models kit no. 3004, intended for narrower loads that will fit into gondolas, makes a very nice load. (See the review at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/04/lumber-owl-mountains-recent-kit.html ; for availability and price of this kit, you can visit Owl Mountain Models at: http://owlmtmodels.com/ ). 

Below you see SP Ten-wheeler 2344, having just run around the gondola, preparing to switch SP 95068 with its lumber load to the team track in Santa Rosalia. The gondola was built from a Detail Associates kit.

A load I have enjoyed operating for over 40 years is a Euclid scraper. I built it from a Stewart white metal kit, and the hard part was mixing paint for Euclid’s distinctive green. I showed the AAR loading diagram for this vehicle previously (available at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/05/vehicle-loading-on-flat-cars.html ). Here it’s ready to be switched at Shumala on my layout, riding today on 53-foot SP 140558 (a Red Caboose kit).

Another kind of load that is good for lots of destinations an op session is electrical equipment. I have a several small models of such equipment, and usually move them in a gondola, with different kinds of blocking. 

In the view below, switcher 1423 has run around its train, and is about to spot the gondola, C&O 44917, on the team track at Ballard. (I described this car in an earlier post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-richard-hendrickson-gondola-part-2.html .) 

Another load that gets used fairly regularly is a shipment of four heavy I-beams, painted with red lead and steel-banded, with intermediate wood spacers. I didn’t build this, it’s a commercial load. You see it below spotted on the team track in my town of East Shumala, loaded in 53-foot Erie gondola 14506, a kitbashed model by Richard Hendrickson, on which he experimented with suggesting denting of side panels with blobs of CA cement, which I’d call an only somewhat successful idea.

Lastly, like most modelers, I enjoy the loads carried on depressed-center flat cars. Below in a train passing Shumala is a General Electric transformer (from Multi-Scale Digital) loaded on Erie 7265, a ClassOne Model Works product (see my review at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-new-class-one-flat-car.html ), sandwiched between SFRD 35719, a Class RR-32 reefer built by Richard Hendrickson, and caboose SP 1253, a 1947-built Class C-30-4 caboose with its as-delivered vermilion ends (a Precision Scale brass model)

All these are just examples of open-car loads, but they do illustrate the kinds of loads I have enjoyed creating, and the ways they can be operated

Tony Thompson 

Waybills, Part 126: More routing books

Not long ago I posted a discussion about Routing Guides, as they were called, an official document (in multiple volumes) that every railroad maintained, back in the day. That discussion happened to center on one such book I had, A Nickel Plate guide of 1945. (To see that discussion, go to this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/11/waybills-part-125-routing.html .) In the present post, I want to go further.

I’ll begin with the Nickel Plate 1951 guide, issued on May 15 of that year. Its cover is shown below. As before, it is an 8.5 x 11-inch volume, this tine of 480 pages, 1-1/8-inches thick. The 1945 guide shown previously was 1008 pages and was 1-3/4 inches thick.  

What changed to make the size so much smaller? It still covers routes from the same six states as before, and to the same 11 destination states (including the District of Columbia) as before. Most of the interior pages look very much like the previous volume, so there is not an evident reduction in numbers of approved routes. Possibly some routes were moved to a different guide, as this one’s full title is Eastbound Routing Guide No. 1. We know there were several others. 

In some ways a more interesting example of such a guide is one for a smaller railroad, the Western Maryland. This happens to be West-Bound Routing Guide No. 10. Also an 8.5 x 11-inch volume, it comprises only 269 pages, only 9/16-inch thick.  

It includes routing from origins on not only the WM, but also the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad, via several roads, including the Pittsburgh & West Virginia. Basically, it is westbound routing to mid-America, specifically the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Oho, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin. 

This particular routing guide  differs in some ways from what I’ve shown for the Nickel Plate example. First, it contains multiple pages of “exceptions” to existing tariffs, nearly all on cement and related products. Below is page 19, one of several pages of such material. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

 The second exception is that stations are listed alphabetically in addition to numerically (the NKP Guide had them only by number). Below is an example of this kind of listing, from page 150 in the Guide. (My apologies for not getting the book quite flat for scanning.) 

The approved routes are listed by number, as was the case in the previous NKP guide, and I show a single example from this Western Maryland guide to illustrate. The lower portion of page 307 lists again some exceptions for Grain and Grain Products.

These kinds of routing guides were superseded from time to time, so that older ones were often discarded after a holding period. I am delighted to have the ones I’ve been able to use as illustrations, and I hope they cast some light on the prototype’s process of identifying approved routes.

Tony Thompson 

The shortest day comes ’round again

In many of the years of this blog, I have posted today about its being the shortest day of the year. Those of us who love daylight, as my dad did and I do, are delighted that now the days will start getting longer. This is doubtless an ancient human emotion, and long before people knew enough astronomy to know why the days change length as they do in an annual cycle, there were celebrations of this day for what it meant.

In many of my past posts, I have quoted (with permission from the author) a poem about this day that I like very much.  That it resonates with me may not mean it does the same for you, but give it a read and see if you too enjoy it. 

The author is Susan Cooper, author of a wonderful young-adult book called Over Sea, Under Stone, and later a fine five-book quest fantasy series, The Dark is Rising. In the 1970s, she became associated with the holiday celebrations called Revels, and wrote this poem as their closing piece for the each year’s event. (That’s whee I first heard it.) You can find it all over the web, often with changed punctuation and even substituted words! Imagine the gall!

As it happens, during the time I was a grad student in metallurgy at M.I.T., she was married to a faculty member in the department whom I knew, Prof. Nick Grant. Sometimes it does feel like a small world. I can remember attending some departmental social events where faculty and wives were present, but I don’t know whether any of them included Ms. Cooper.

She sent me a copy of the poem as she wrote it, so that it could be presented correctly. (If you’d like to know more about her, please visit her web site: http://www.thelostland.com/ .) She also mentioned that she was happy to give permission for use in this blog, as she is descended from three generations of English railwaymen!

THE SHORTEST DAY

By Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen,
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing, behind us -- listen!
All the long echoes sing the same delight
This shortest day
As promise wakens in the sleeping land.
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends, and hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year, and every year.
Welcome Yule!

 A far more eloquent presentation of our traditions than I could ever have written. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Tony Thompson 

Passenger trains on my branch line

My layout is very freight-car oriented; nearly all car movements on my fictitious branch line to Santa Rosalia, and most mainline action, are exclusively freight. When passenger equipment is operated, it is ordinarily on the main line, often a “deadhead” move balancing passenger equipment between Los Angeles and Sank Francisco. I’ve discussed this several times (for an example, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/05/mainline-passenger-cars-on-small-layout.html ). 

But there are exceptions. Regular passenger service on a branch like this would have been abandoned in the 1930s. But a passenger movement that happens occasionally on my layout is the operation of a passenger extra train, presumably an excursion and perhaps a  railfan event (though such trains were still rare in my modeling year of 1953). An example of this kind of passenger extra is the train that ran up and down the length of several branch lines, allowing fans to “collect miles,” as it was called. 

Such an excursion might operate, for example, from Los Angeles or Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo, along the way running the length of the Lompoc Branch and return, and, why not, the Santa Rosalia Branch, before connecting with passenger schedules at San Luis for the passengers to return home northward or southward.

Approaching Shumala, then, from the south, the train might make a station stop at the Shumala depot, as you see below in a train using a former RPO as a baggage car (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/06/small-project-old-brass-sp-baggage-car.html ), trailed by a 60-foot coach. Power here is Southern Pacific Ten-wheeler 2344. 

The train has stopped with its consist clear of Chamisal Road at right, because the locomotive will cut off and run around the train on the siding. Below we see the run-around in progress, as 2344 backs down the siding past the depot. 

Then with 2344 behind the consist, the train is ready to be pushed up the branch to its destination. When it’s time to return, the locomotive would then be leading, though tender-first. The 60-foot coach here is Golden Gate Depot’s SP 1972, Class 60-C-5.

But railroaders usually preferred to have the locomotive leading the train at all times if possible. If the passenger excursion heads up the Santa Rosalia Branch with the locomotive at the front of the train, there will then have to be a run-around somewhere up on the branch, given the lack of locomotive turning facilities on the branch.

The photo below shows 2344 starting its run-around in front of the Santa Rosalia depot. In this instance, the train is coach SP 1581 (a kit-bashed Roundhouse model), Class 60-C-4, and postal storage car SP 4263, pressed into service as a baggage car for the excursion (modeling SP 4263 was described in a blot post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/07/modeling-sp-head-end-cars-part-7a.html ). 

In one instance, the excursion train had two coaches, and only ran as far as the Ballard depot, as you see below, before performing the run-around and returning to the main line at Shumala. Power again is Ten-wheeler 2344 (Precision Scale brass). 

Since ordinarily the Santa Rosalia Local freight train is alone on the branch, any such passenger train requires a whole bunch of train orders to arrange a meet at either Ballard or Santa Rosalia, and for the excursion train to return to Shumala.  

Whether the operation of such an excursion train requires turning back at Ballard, or at Santa Rosalia, the important point is the lack of turning facilities. That in turn means that turning back involves the locomotive running around the train and pulling it back to Shumala with the tender leading. This has been an interesting complication for the normally unhindered local freight train operating in the same territory. Usually that increases the fun of an operating session.

Tony Thompson 

My wholesale food warehouse at Ballard

One of the first industries I wanted to add to my original HO layout in Pittsburgh, PA was a warehouse for a wholesale grocer. This is a great industry for inbound loads, because everything from fruits and vegetables, to meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products would arrive in refrigerator cars, and canned goods, other packaged foodstuffs, and dry goods could arrive in box cars, all logically to be delivered by rail. The possible waybills are practically innumerable.

My warehouse was scratchbuilt from heavy artist’s cardstock (walls are Bristol board) over a stripwood frame (mostly wood, some balsa). I made the frame heavy to ensure that the cardstock would remain flat. That’s shown below, looking into the interior. The building is 24 inches long and about 5 inches wide. The part nearest my hand is the “front,” that faces the siding, and the back wall, just visible here,  is blank because it can’t be seen from any angle, but does provide a view block.

I used a scriber to groove the Bristol board to look like sheathing planks. You can see above that one corner is cut off (lower right in the photo above) to fit the space on my previous layout. There is some additional description in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/05/survival-from-my-old-layout-2.html . 

The “business” side of the building has four numbered sliding doors, which can lead to requirements for “sure spots” by switch crews. (For background on that topic, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2017/12/operating-with-sure-spots-part-3.html ). Doors are scratchbuilt, as is the inset loading dock; windows are Grandt Line. 

In the photo above you can see the business sign at the roof peak. It’s shown more clearly below. This lettering was printed with an “open” typeface, then hand colored. 

A view of this from one end (at a high angle, not accessible when standing on the floor of the layout room, shows the roofing and the distance from the backdrop. That’s the Zaca Mesa winery at right (for background, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/11/my-zaca-mesa-winery.html ). 

Normally much of the the Peerless building is partly concealed by foreground structures, but getting up on a step stool allows a view like this, so that you can see the whole siding serving Peerless. The large reefer is from PFE’s first class of mechanicals (described in my RMC article in January 1988 and of course in the PFE book).

In-service views include ones like this, with a switcher spotting an MDT reefer. Note that one of the cars on spot is a box car, as mentioned in the introductory comments, above.

This has been a great industry for the layout, with lots of traffic inbound, involving a wide variety of foods and grocery staples, coming from all over the country. It’s wonderfully flexible and to me, endlessly interesting.

Tony Thompson 

15th anniversary of this blog

It seems hard to believe, but yesterday, December 11, marks the completion of the 15th year I have been writing this blog, with over 300 posts per year. In fact the post you’re reading is number 1852 in the series. It seems like an impossible number to me, but since this is something that my host, Google, keeps track of, I know it must be true!

At this point, I’d also like to mention that a few years ago, I posted a summary of my goals and intentions for this blog, and anyone relatively new to reading it might benefit from seeing what I have set out to do (see that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-purpose-and-uses-of-this-blog.html ) 

As I often do in these annual reflections, I reviewed the page view data provided by Google. In the first five years or so of the blog, my posts typically received 150,000 to 200,000 page views a year. More recently that has moved above 300,000 a year, in some years approaching 400,000 page views. That itself is amazing to me.

But there’s more. Last year on this anniversary my total for all the preceding 14 years was just above 3 million page views. This year it’s risen to well over 4 million. Yes, over a million page views last year, for a single year. 

I well understand that “page views” include web crawlers and other internet denizens visiting a web address, though without any actual interest in the content, And to be sure, taking 15 years to get to 4 million page views, even if it’s mostly non-content visitors,  is nothing compared to an internet “influencer,” but still, it seems like a fair amount for a model railroading blog. 

As has been true almost since this blog began, I receive comments and questions about the content, some of them via the comment function that Google provides, so that other visitors can see those inputs and my response (if any), but also, increasingly, by personal emails from people who I suppose don’t want to make questions or comments public. That’s fine, and many times I realize I hadn’t been clear or didn’t go far enough in a description. These interactions are interesting and welcome to me. 

My layout continues to host operating sessions. I am among the considerable number of layout owners who do host such sessions, and like many of them, I feel like the main reason I brought the layout near to completion was to host such sessions. When visitors operate the layout and all its equipment, the layout is functioning as I envisioned it years ago when I was still in the planning stage. You can’t ask for more than that from a hobby.

I can’t resist showing a scene fairly typical of my operating sessions, from a couple of years ago. Shown below are Dave Falkenburg (left) and Bob Hanmer (visiting from Chicago), operating at Shumala. Here Bob is serving as the engineer while Dave is the conductor in carrying out the switching work in this part of the session. This session was back in 2023; you can read about it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/10/layout-operating-session-no-85.html .

I continue to find operation to be a really interesting part of model railroading. Partly for that reason, I strongly welcomed the introduction of the new Achievement Program in operation created by the Operations Special Interest Group (SIG) of NMRA. I wrote a post describing that program (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/08/a-new-achievement-program.html ). 

The foundation of such operation by modelers is, of course the prototype. So photographs like this one (Conductor Charles Martin in Southern Pacific caboose 684, Class C-30-1, in the 1950s: Stan Kistler photo) continue to intrigue me. When we modelers act as conductors in an op session, we aren’t provided with the captain’s chair or a desk, but we work our waybills very much like Mr. Martin is doing here.

Beyond those considerations, I must admit upon reflection that I continue to enjoy and even relish nearly every aspect of this hobby of ours. Except maybe wiring. My several posts entitled “Electrical wars” probably bear witness to that. (You can use “electrical wars” as a search term in the search box at the top right corner of this post, if you’d like to read a few.)

On that topic, I well remember a cartoon that once ran in Model Railroader, showing two guys with halos over their heads and little wings on their backs, looking at a small layout floating on clouds. One is saying, “Wiring? What wiring? This is heaven, remember?”

Tony Thompson 

 

Operating sessions #106, 107

The latest two operating sessions on my layout were on December 7 and 8. By and large, they followed my usual format and content, with only a few changes in the program, though with extensive changes in car locations and car movements (which of course were directed by waybills).

On Sunday, Dec. 7, I hosted four operators and an observer. Most of that crew is shown below, with, from left, Robert Bowdidge, Leo Pesce, Alex Craghead (nominally the observer), and Miles Callan. They are standing at Shumala getting organized to begin the session; Leo and Miles are holding throttles. 

The other crew member was Jason Schoenmann. He and Leo began work at Ballard, with Jason conducting, but later in the session Robert took Leo’s place when the crews switched places. Here Robert is conducting, with Jason at right, operating at Shumala.

 A feature of this session was the inclusion of one of Southern Pacific’s new piggyback flat cars (service began in June 1953). From the earliest days of that service, trailer flats were mostly inserted into the “Overnight” trains of black box cars, but for some months occasional “extra” movements did occur in scheduled freight trains. That's what I depict here, in scheduled eastward train 916, passing Shumala.

Both the flat car and the trailers were 3D-printed by AJ Chier, as I mentioned in describing my modeling work on this car in a series of posts (see the final post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/06/sp-piggyback-part-7-finishing-flat-cars.html  ). 

The following day I hosted another session, essentially a repeat of the previous day’s car movements, with a few exceptions. One crew was Jim Radkey (left) and Bryn Ekroot, who you see here at Shumala . I enjoyed watching these two work together. 

The other crew was Seth Neuman (left), here conducting at Ballard, and Lawrence Crowl. Seth is such an experienced conductor, that it’s always worth watching how he organizes and carries out this kind of assignment. 

These were fun sessions, with crews quite busy. Being that many of the visitors are experienced operators, I did set up pretty full workloads, and all was done in good season, with few errors. Nice work, and of course fun for me, mostly in seeing the layout come alive to be operated as I intended it to be.

Tony Thompson