Acquiring knowledge of your era

Many serious modelers choose a specific era for layout or rolling stock modeling. Richard Hendrickson chose to model rolling stock, mostly for the Santa Fe, for October 1947. Jack Burgess’s superb layout depicts the Yosemite Valley Railroad in the third week of August, 1939, because that was the last period that the YV operated a through Pullman to El Portal, at the National Park’s entrance.

Of course many people want a looser time constraint. I can understand the person who wants, for example, to be able to model some prototype scrapped in 1965, and also to model some new equipment that arrived in 1968. That person might say “I model 1965–68.” But the danger lurking in looser constraint was well expressed once by Tony Koester, who said, “If you say that you model the 1950s, what you’re really doing is modeling 1959 badly.”

But however your choice falls out, especially if it is a period 75 years ago or more, how can you research its character, details, and style? We are all familiar with histories of railroads, locomotives and rolling stock, and likely also with histories of line changes, depot abandonments, etc., for our favorite railroad. What else do we need? What products can you include on billboards? What about clothing for the figures on you layout?

There have, over the years, been effort by various publishers to create “yearbooks,” books highlighting everything of “importance” in a particular year. (I put that word in quotation marks because one person’s importance is another person’s trivia). But certainly these books can provide some information, even if not exactly what we want.

I have such a book for my modeling year of 1953, and in fact that year is in its title. I show the title page below. This is a 6 x 9-inch hardbound book of 448 pages (Unicorn Books, New York, 1954).

To convey its coverage, I show the Contents pages below. 

This kind of source is quite general. One may also need quite specific information. For example, let’s imagine that you want to put a builder logo on a transformer load. Your first choices (in the 20th century) would be General Electric and Westinghouse. But as you may know, the Westinghouse logo changed over the years. This is a good example today of how “Google is your friend.” You will quickly find on-line sources like this one: https://1000logos.net/westinghouse-logo/ .

This would then result in a correct pre-1960 logo on a load like this one (Richard Hendrickson built this  Milwaukee model of a gun-type flat from a cut-down Roundhouse short flat car). 

Another example is advertising. Some companies have retained essentially identical graphics for decades, and these are convenient to use. National brands have the advantage of great recognizability.

Consumer products are the most commonly advertised, so showing advertising images of that kind is appropriate. A good example for a product familiar to everyone is Coca-Cola. I have a period image in the form of a billboard alongside Bromela Road on my layout (one of my interchangeable billboards; see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/04/interchangeable-billboards.html ). 

Another era-identifier is trucks and, especially, automobiles. For my 1953 layout, I have carefully avoided any later vehicle model year after that date. And of course you can reinforce the year with billboards like the one below, alongside Nipomo Street in Ballard on my layout:  

Today, the internet contains astonishing amounts of information about the history of about anything you can image. Remembering to search on historical topics to make sure you have it right is important if you are going to accurately present your modeling era.

Tony Thompson 

 

Using augers for operation

I know at least a few readers are saying, “what’s an auger?” I went into the prototype a few years ago, in a post showing both fixed and portable augers; that post is at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2017/11/unloading-covered-hoppers.html . My modeling goal at the time was to build a fixed auger to unload covered hoppers at my chemical repackaging industry, so I followed up that first post with one about modeling (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/08/unloading-covered-hoppers-part-2.html ). 

Today I want to turn to movable or portable augers. These are used at team tracks or industry tracks to unload hoppers and covered hoppers, and I’ll repeat a prototype photo (uncredited internet image) from the first of the posts cited above, to illustrate. This is a way to unload many kinds of granular or even powdery materials. 

At a modeling meeting not long after those posts in 2017 and 2018, I bought a 3D-printed portable auger model for HO scale. I’m embarrassed that I don’t remember the seller (if a reader knows, please comment at the end of this post). Here is what it looks like. It came in all gray, which is okay, except for the tires, but I remember seeing one that had an aluminum main tube, so I painted it that way. 

This of course can easily be posed at any team track or other industry to indicate unloading. One example that fits on my layout is the delivery of spent brewing malt, used for animal feed, and delivered to agricultural areas. It’s shown here at the team track in East Shumala on my layout. 

So this can be the physical implementation of actions following from the waybill below, which brought the car to this team track. 

These kinds of augers can also be used for loading; a truck would dump into the receiving bin, and the auger would transport the material into a hopper. If the area I model were suitable for growing hops, for example, the crop could be loaded in just that way. The auger will need to be elevated to reach the hatches in the covered hopper.

On model railroads, industries don’t always have a clear way to load their product into freight cars, or alternatively, to unload arriving cars. Including something like an auger can take care of that for certain cargoes, possibly to the satisfaction of the fastidious operator.

Tony Thompson 

Making a silk purse . . . Part 2

Recently I posted about making a “scenery” version of an old Athearn reefer, lettered for Fruit Growers Express, by modeling it with its doors open (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/10/making-silk-purse.html ). I had only intended to describe broadly what I was going to do, and then show the final result. But I received an email asking if I would show more of the process. Luckily, I did take a few photos during the process.

First, having removed the old ice hatches that were shown previously, I also sliced off the “hinge” bulges and the bulge for the latch bar, along with removing the clunky running board. Then I cut off the Athearn locating posts under the running board, and glued them into their roof holes. This is shown in the photo below, at left. 

Then I used Tamiya putty to fill the hinge holes and scale 1 x 6-inch styrene strip to cover the latch bar hole. Some of the running board post holes also needed putty. This step is shown at right, below, with the roof also cleaned up. 

With those steps completed, I touched up the new areas with brown. I added a Walthers white metal Ajax brake wheel (no longer produced), and turned to the underframe. I used the Athearn coupler boxes, secured with 2-56 screws, to host new Kadee no. 158 couplers, and replaced the steel-axle wheelsets in the Athearn metal sprung trucks with InterMountain wheelsets. 

Next I reattached the Athearn ice hatches, replacing two that were damaged with new Athearn parts, and installed the Plano running board with canopy glue. Lastly, I represented latch bars with scale 1 x 3-inch styrene strip. This doesn’t really look much like a real latch bar, but will suffice for this “scenery” model, following Richard Hendrickson’s dictum that this is a place where “there should be something there.” 

Now I could mask the sides and ends with Tamiya tape, and spray paint the entire roof brown, to blend everything together.  And with a coat of protective flat overall, I proceeded to weathering, following my usual method using washes of acrylic tube paint (for more on that, see the “Reference pages” linked at the top right corner of this post). 

I now added the doors, using strips of ordinary Scotch tape as hinges. This allows a choice of how widely open the modeler wants the doors to be, dependent on how strongly creased are the pieces of tape. Here is my choice. And though I don’t plan to do it, the doors can be closed, too.

The purpose of this model, as mentioned at the outset of these two posts, was to model as “scenery” a reefer with open doors at a loading dock. It’s shown below alongside the dock at Guadalupe Fruit Co. in my layout town of Ballard.

This was an interesting project, because not many of my freight cars are intended as scenery; and I learned a few things in the process. Can’t beat that.

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 

WOOPS 2025

As perhaps only Westerner model railroaders know, “WOOPS” stands for “Western Oregon Ops,” an event held in alternate years. This year it took place during June 6–8. Though literally only in the northwestern corner of Oregon, there are a number of fine layouts, and a fair crowd shows up every time. Below is their emblem, including iconic Mt. Hood, a visual presence throughout the region. 

I reported on a WOOPS event once before, in a blog post, and if interested you can view it at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/06/woops-2019.html .

I was only able to attend for two days this year, but enjoyed two really nice, large, and interesting layouts. The first was Charlie Comstock’s Bear Creek and South Jackson, with a challenging operating scheme. I worked at Bear Creek Yard, and was kept moderately busy all day. 

I was especially intrigued to see the ground throws that Charlie uses: they are the Caboose Industries N-scale throws, though the layout is HO scale. This works because his hand-laid switches have a near-prototype spacing of point and stock rails, so the smaller throw distance of the N-scale device is sufficient. It’s quite visible here at an unpainted switch.

The layout is scenicked nicely in a number of areas, while not yet done in other areas. The completed ones were quite well handled, such as this scene at Junction City, Oregon. It’s very sharp depot model, and some good industrial buildings (the one at right is a computer-printed paper). Notice at left he is experimenting with photographs for the streets that head straight into the wall. And every station has a schematic map on the fascia to help orient crews.  

The other layout was Bill Decker’s Cascade Division of the SP, set in the early 1970s at the moment (he plans to backdate in the near future). The layout is HO scale, and models from Eugene, Oregon and environs, then up the long climb to cross the Cascades at Cascade Summit. Again, I managed to snag a yard job in the big and rather busy Eugene Yard, and had a lot of fun doing it, busy most of the day.  This photo looks railroad west along the yard. 

In addition to mainline trains climbing or descending the grade, there are several busy locals. Below you see Steve Menker (left) and Jim Radkey (right) working the Springfield Local. 

As has happened every time I’ve attended, it was a fun weekend with really enjoyable layouts. If you get a chance to attend a future WOOPS, don’t miss it!

Tony Thompson 

Refining scenery, Part 6

In the preceding post, Part 5 of this series, I showed the assembly and placement of the Tichy handcar shed near the backdrop in my layout town of Santa Rosalia. But since I wasn’t representing an actual handcar facility in that location, the kit parts that model a handcar track were surplus. I had a use for those parts in a completely different part of the layout. (Here is a link to that previous post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/01/refining-scenery-part-5.html .)

At the east-most end of my town of Ballard, right by the tunnel portal where the branch line emerges into Ballard, I have long had a small handcar-like shed, along with a phone booth and a tie pile.

I always have been a little disappointed that I didn’t take advantage of this location to include a pull-out for a handcar. Near a tunnel is a logical and quite common location, but I didn’t do that here because the shed is too close to the track. (I did include a handcar pull-out at the SP mainline tunnel entrance near Shumala; see a view of that area in the last photo of this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/10/my-walking-around-list.html ).

But it occurred to me that there is enough space behind the shed that it could be moved back a ways, allowing space for the Tichy handcar track. I measured that distance, and drew it on the ground. I then cut along my pencil line with a utility knife, to define the area to be removed. The ground rises somewhat to the right rear corner, as may be evident.

Next I removed the necessary material using my Gedore chisel, an excellent German tool I have shown before (see my post about it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/06/more-sags-in-track-to-fix.html ). This tool made quick work of this small removal.

Now I needed to prepare the Tichy speeder track to fit this space. It seemed to me that it had too few ties, compared to what I have seen in photos. Accordingly, I added two styrene scale 4 x 6-inch strips. These can be seen below, unpainted, in a photo of test-fitting everything to the revised site. 

Because the shed door is located so that the handcar rails line up with the track right at a switch, this may not seem to be a likely or convenient arrangement. It would make lifting a handcar off the track less easy. But speaking as a person who has helped manhandle speeders off the track onto set-outs on speeder trips, even the heavy motorized speeders can certainly be handled in such a situation.

I painted the ties dark brown and the rail a rusty reddish-brown, and when installed, added some ballast under and around them. The finished scene isn’t visibly all that different from the previous area, but it now has the handcar rails added.

This was another quite minor modification of a scenicked area, but a refinement I wanted to make. I am pleased to continue with these little upgrades here and there.

Tony Thompson

Refining scenery, Part 5

This series of posts about minor scenery refinements on my layout is not intended to present profound insights into scenery development, only to illustrate that even a largely complete layout like mine can benefit from some refinement and upgrading of scenery. 

The present post is a follow-on to my post about creating some ground texture in an area alongside the modest-size industry, Pismo Marine Services, in my layout town of Santa Rosalia (read that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/01/refining-scenery-part-4.html ).

At the end of that prior post, I mentioned that I had chosen the Tichy handcar shed for a storage shed structure to be placed in the area I had worked on. Like most Tichy products, this shed goes together very nicely and is easy to build. The first step is to glue walls together and add the floor. (The building’s footprint in HO scale is 12 x 20 feet.)

Following this step, the doors were added. I decided to paint the roof of the structure a different color at this stage, when it is easy to do so. I chose dark green, a common enough color for rolled roofing as is depicted on this kit. 

And after considering several shades of gray and tan for the structure’s walls, I decided to keep the molded color of the walls, and thus simply sprayed the body with clear flat, so it could be weathered. I will paint the underfloor support posts a darker gray after weathering .

My next step was weathering. I used my usual technique, washes made with acrylic tube paint, as described in the “Reference pages” linked at the top right corner of this post. The intent was to show a moderate amount of dirt, consistent with a fairly long time in service. On the roof, I added some Pan Pastel gray to soften the dark green.

You can see above that the doors are a little elevated, to accommodate tracks for a speeder. But this isn’t going to be that kind of shed, so I needed to add a little platform, making shed entry convenient. I just used some scrap Evergreen scribed styrene sheet with about 10-scale-inch board width, and assembled it with styrene cement, using scale 8 x 8-inch strip for inside corner reinforcement. I then dirtied it with Pan Pastels. I also added the name of the adjoining business on the doors.

Next the ground texture and some grass and small vegetation needed to be added to complete the scene. That is why, in the previous post’s last photo (see link in top paragraph, above), the center of the area between the two dirt piles was unfinished. Now it looks like this.

Although really quite a small project, this does complete an essentially empty layout area that had been unscenicked except for painting the Homasote. The area has now been put to some use, instead of being merely a blank spot. I suspect there are lots of layouts with occasional small areas that could be given improvements or upgrades like this.

Tony Thompson

Yet another Tony Koester book

I recently received a question about my book reviews, asking why I hadn’t reviewed Tony Koester’s 2019 Kalmbach book, Time-Saving Techniques for Building Model Railroads. I do own the book, and have enjoyed browsing in it, but probably because my own layout is already built, and fairly complete at this point, I didn’t feel an impulse to review it. But here goes. 

Tony K. has always advocated a number of specific approaches for layout building, and this book pulls a number of them together. I enjoyed seeing Doug Tagsold on the cover, renowned among operating people for his rapid and impressive layout building. He’s shown in the early days of at least his third (and present) layout.

The book, as was usual with Kalmbach Media books, is 8.5 x 11 inches in size, softbound, with 112 pages. As with all of Tony’s books, it is handsomely illustrated with informative photos.

The scope of the book is well demonstrated by names of the chapters. Here is the Contents page:

An interesting and certainly simplified approach to upper decks on double-deck layouts is to use shelving systems. Koester himself has done this, as you see below. Note that the steel brackets for the upper level are already painted sky blue. The backdrop will be notched to fit around them.

One interesting time-saving method described for a couple of layout is foam-base scenery. You see that in the book cover photo, at top. Here is another view of Doug Tagsold’s 1:72 layout, showing at left the fairly complete scenery contours accomplished with foam, and at right the scene when the usual materials are added.

Another person who has used this approach is Bill Darnaby. He has emphasized narrow track boards, and likes the flexibility of the foam (easily modified). At top is the 2-inch blue foam that is the foundation, being applied to wall brackets. Next below is trackwork being placed atop the foam, with easily-added ditches alongside, and at bottom we see a completed area.

I like this book, and have enjoyed reading and re-reading it. If I had to offer a criticism, it might be that there are too many photos of a finished layout (the author’s) and not enough in-progress views or views of more and different layouts. But it’s not a “step-by-step” book, it’s an idea book, and the points made about time-saving approaches are quite valid and clearly presented. That’s why I believe the book does what it was intended to do.

Tony Thompson

Refining Scenery, Part 4

In this series of posts, I am describing some quite minor refinements to my layout scenery, not because they are noteworthy projects, but to illustrate that even a nearly complete layout like mine still has some needs for scenery repair, upgrade or completion. The second of these was a good example, simply moving  two trackside details farther from a ground throw; it can be found at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/12/refining-layout-scenery-part-2.html . (It also contains a link to the first in the series.)  

In the present post, I don’t describe a correction to layout scenery, as I did in the first two of these posts; instead, I describe completing an area that has been “bare ground” (actually, brown-painted Homasote) for years. In the photo below, it is the area against the backdrop, identified with the arrow, to the left of the long, low gray building (Pismo Marine Service). The small yellow shed was a candidate for this area, but will be used elsewhere. There’s really nothing there but a tie pile (you can click to enlarge the image).

What I decided to do was to add some kind of a (different) shed in this area, along with some terrain character that would look as much like dirt piles as anything. I made a couple of low piles using Sculptamold paper mache, as you see below. Note also the distinctive texture of the Homasote “ground” in the area (you can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish). What used to occupy this area was the foreground stack of ties.

Obviously we don’t want to be presenting snow piles, located mere yards from the Pacific Ocean in central California, so these were promptly painted brown.

Then the same scenic technique described in the previous posts in this series was used to cover the piles in dirt and a little grass, leaving the space between the piles open. The area is now prepared for the next step.

The intent for the gap between the two dirt piles was to accommodate a shed of some kind, whether a railroad-owned shed or something associated with the warehouse business to the right, in the scenes above. The real purpose is to fill the empty area that you see above, which can’t accommodate an industry to be switched because it is alongside a turnout. My choice was the Tichy kit for a handcar shed, which follows a C&O prototype, though I won’t be representing a handcar facility, just a shed. But that will be the topic of a future post.

Tony Thompson

Refining scenery, Part 3

Back in the summer of 2024, I relocated the MP1 switch machines at the throat of my trackage into the layout town of Santa Rosalia. I won’t go into the reasons for that (it can all be found in a series of previous posts, culminating in this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/07/update-on-switch-machine-installations.html ), but to sum up, the relocated machines had linkage exposed between machines and track. This can be seen below, along with remnants of previous arrangements. 

The “trenches” in which the linkages lie need to be filled in with paper mache, so they can be scenicked. The wire linkages pass through brass tubing, so filling the “trench” will only contact the tubing, and allow free movement of the linkage wire. In addition, the surrounding area was unfinished scenically, so that needed attention also. Below is an older photo of the entire area, as it appeared when the current structures were in place and the MP1 machines connections were concealed.

The building at photo center with the gray roof, built from a Timberline kit, is called “Ballard Farm Supply,”and is located here to cover the switch machines shown in the upper photo. To its right is a railroad water tank, and in the foreground is the Richfield bulk oil dealer in the town of Santa Rosalia, including a tank car spotted for unloading.

I applied Sculptamold paper mache to the linkage trenches, and also to make some ground contours in the area. As you can see below, this area is right in front of the backdrop, and some effort is needed to minimize visibility of the joint between horizontal layout surface and vertical backdrop. The loading dock in the photo below shows the location of the left end of the Ballard Farm Supply building.

Next the area needed to be painted. I used acrylic tube paint in Raw Umber for this. I extended the color over the entire area, since I want to scenick it all.

Next I applied my usual technique, a coating of matte medium followed by real dirt and a few pinches of Woodland Scenics grass. Then the area is spritzed with “wet water” to make sure the matte medium contacts all the scenic materials and secures them.

Finally, to show how this was supposed to end up, I show below the Ballard Farm Supply building in place to conceal the MP1 machines, though with its roof off. Other scenery work in the area remains to be done. Incidentally, the Farm Supply business does receive inbound rail shipments, but having no spur of its own, receives them at the town team track.

As I have observed in each of these “Refining Scenery” posts, this is a quite minor project, but I wanted to show it to illustrate the kind of thing that is often needed, even on a layout as nearly complete as mine. More later.

Tony Thompson

Refining layout scenery, Part 2

In the previous part, I mentioned that no matter how carefully built the layout is, or how conscientiously maintained, careful examination will inevitably reveal a few layout areas that need work. Some time ago I began to be more systematic in this layout examination process, which I have termed “management by walking around” (see the post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/07/management-by-walking-around.html ). And yes, I know this phrase is already a cliche in management circles.

My first venture back into this process, after some time off, was reported in the first post in the present series, describing an improvement in the location of my yard limit sign at Shumala. You can read that post here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/11/layout-scenery-refinements.html ).

One persistent problem on the layout has been in the area near the mainline tunnel, leaving Shumala westward. Near the tunnel mouth, there is a track gang’s tool house (at right below), a milepost (the telegraph pole with the white paint and the milepost number), a cable box (where telegraph lines from the pole go underground to traverse the tunnel), and a phone booth, all near a ground throw for the Shumala siding. This is a kind of tight location for throwing that switch, especially for those with fat fingers or diminished coordination.

The view above probably looks okay. But I realized long ago that some people would find the ground throw area a little confined, and would bump into the phone booth and cable box, so they aren’t glued down. As a result, after most operating sessions the area shown above looks like what you see below.

The real problem is that there isn’t room to put those two items farther from the ground throw, because the ballasted grade area narrows toward the telegraph pole. The obvious solution is to enlarge that grade down to and past the pole. My method was to mix up a little Sculptamold paper mache and adjust the contours appropriately, as you see here.

Next I painted the new area with acrylic tube paint, Burnt Siena, as a foundation for scenic materials to follow. I had originally planned to ballast the entire new contour, and put the phone booth and cable box back on top of it. But as I mentioned in the first post in this series, this is not what Southern Pacific usually did. They mostly put things like phone booths on the ground outside the ballast. I decided to do the same.

My usual base scenery material for “ground” is a medium tan earth, actually real soil collected around home plate on a softball diamond. I paint the area with dilute matte medium, apply the soil, and spritz it with “wet water,” water with a bit of detergent, this latter to help make sure all the scenic material is contacted by the matte medium. I then add a pinch of ground foam grass, so the ground isn’t perfectly bare. That gives the appearance shown below. Comparing the top photo in the present post, you can see how the level area has been enlarged.

Next I simply replaced the cable box and phone booth, but now much closer to the pole, leaving more space for “fat fingers” to operate the ground throw. These remain unglued for the reason stated above. I have considered adding a heavy cable from the top of the cable box up to the pole, representing the telegraph lines being brought down from the pole to an underground line, but have not decided how best to do this. So for the time being, this is the arrangement.

I have a couple more minor scenery refinements like these to describe, and will do so in future posts. To repeat, these are quite minor projects, chosen only to illustrate that even a fairly complete layout needs continuing attention to scenic details. Perhaps these posts will allow you to look at your own layout with a fresh eye.

Tony Thompson