Display train from SPH&TS 2015

In my prior post about the 35th annual meeting of the Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society (which you can find at the following link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/10/sph-meet-2015.html ), I showed an overall view of the freight train I entered in the contest. I mentioned in the post just cited that I had been asked to show the entire train, with information about its makeup, in a future blog post, and this is that post.
      My train was entered in the freight train category, and it won first place, by vote of attendees. Below, I show the certificate awarded, which is only included here because I thought the convention committee had chosen uncommonly attractive certificates, compared to some I have seen.

     Before showing the train, I should mention that I deliberately chose a wide range of models for display, from Athearn “Blue Box” origins, to the latest ready-to-run (RTR) cars, and included a full range of car types (perhaps a little artificially for a single train). I will begin with the locomotive, SP 2763. It has been painted and upgraded, adding a number of detail parts, including cab window shades, crew, and cab curtains made from facial issue, and then lettered, and weathered.

Prototype: 2-8-0 Consolidation, Class C-9, built by Baldwin, March 1905
Model: modified Balboa (built by KTM) brass engine, detailed and weathered
     The first car in the train was a reefer with steel roof but wood-sheathed sides and ends, PFE 73617. Construction of this model was described in an earlier post, at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/08/small-modeling-project-pfe-r-30-16.html .

Prototype: PFE Class R-30-16, rebuilt from older cars by PFE, 1940–1942
Model: a Red Caboose body, with parts from the late, great Terry Wegmann
     The second car, another reefer, was a steel car, PFE 48137. Construction of this car was also briefly described in a prior post (see it at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-classic-ho-scale-car-kit-one-more-time.html ).

Prototype: PFE Class R-40-23 refrigerator, built by Pullman, 1947
Model: Athearn kit, decorated by Evergreen Roundhouse, details upgraded
     The third car was a stock car, SP 73557.

Prototype: SP Class S-40-5 stock car, 36 feet, built by Ralston Steel Car Company, 1917
Model: Red Caboose RTR car, factory lettering, Kadee Vulcan trucks
     The last car I will describe in the present post is a tank car, SP 58478, which has the lettering familiar for many years, with the “diamond S” emblem on the dome. I always emphasize that this diamond-S emblem only indicates that the car has been modified to be suitable for liquid sugar service, not that it necessarily is currently assigned to sugar service. But this model does show lettering indicating it is in sugar service at this time. I should mention that upgrading Athearn “Blue Box” kit cars like this into models of SP prototypes has been described in my blog (at this post: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/05/modeling-sp-tank-cars.html ).

Prototype: SP Class O-50-12 tank car, modified for liquid sugar service, built by General American, 1928
Model: kitbashed and redetailed Athearn kit, painted, decal lettering
     I will stop at this point to keep this initial post reasonably short, and will continue with more of the train in the next post.
Tony Thompson

The 2015 “Naperville” meeting

The 22nd annual meeting known as Naperville (though held in recent years at a hotel a few hundred yards outside the Naperville town line in adjoining Lisle, Illinois) took place during October 22–25. It was very similar in plan to previous meetings, with an extensive clinic program (four simultaneous talks during most time slots), a fair number of vendors, especially purveyors of photographs, and a large model display room which also hosted two very large layouts.
     There was some significant news announced at the event. This meeting was originated by Martin and Patricia Lofton of Sunshine Models in 1994, and continued to be run by Martin and Tricia in Naperville for 16 years, until 2009. The meeting had been so successful that it became known informally as the “Freight Car National” or sometimes the “RPM National.” Starting in 2010, the organizer and director of this meeting has been Joe D’elia of A-Line, but the change announced this year was a change for future years, to the supervision of Mike Skibbe and his friends at Modutrak. It is to be hoped that this venerable meeting, located conveniently to a very large population of model railroaders, can be continued and even made better in future years.
     As has been the case for several years, the meeting included a “Friends of the Freight Car” dinner. This year’s speaker was Pierre Oliver, who spoke on Friday about the Canadian side of prototype modeling. Here is Pierre, in the red shirt, beginning his talk. In the right foreground is Perry Sugarman.

     As always, there were a number of really outstanding clinics. I will not state all my favorites, but certainly one of the most interesting and dramatic was the one by Aaron Gjermundson on resin casting. Aaron had brought enough equipment to actually make some castings in real time! He had a variety of rubber molds, measured and mixed up some resin before our very eyes, poured it into molds, put the filled molds into a vacuum chamber to remove most air bubbles, and then into a pressure chamber to compress any remaining bubbles. These steps have been covered often in the hobby press, but to see it all done in a matter of minutes was indeed impressive.
     Shown below is Aaron, standing in the olive green shirt, and to the left of him is Joe D’elia, who was trying to help with a computer problem. Standing to the right in the black shirt is Mike Skibbe, also trying to fix the problem. But it didn’t get solved, and Aaron then met the challenge of describing what he was doing, without visual aids.

     I took a lot of photos in the model display room. Many were for my own interests and information, so I will just show a few of them here.One of the most impressive items displayed was this HO scale feed mill from Clark Propst, complete with appropriate freight cars (you can click to enlarge),

     It is always especially interesting to see models in the process of construction, since so much can be gleaned about the work being done. Here is one example, from an extensive display of HO scale tank cars by Steve Hile. It’s on its way to becoming a General American tank car.

This is an Athearn underframe, appropriately shortened (see Richard Hendrickson’s article in Railmodel Journal, August 1996, pages 14 to 21) to accommodate an InterMountain 8000-gallon tank. Underframe modifications are mostly completed in this view, using Tichy brake gear, styrene shapes, and just visible at the ends, the fine Yarmouth Model Works sill steps with a middle rung. (To see these Yarmouth parts, you can go to http://yarmouthmodelworks.com/details.php and scroll down to the steps.)
     Also of interest was a new model of a CB&Q drop-bottom gondola, shown by Ed Rethwisch, as you see here.

     Lastly, I’ll show an overall view of the vendor room, which though somewhat more sparsely populated by sellers than in some years, nevertheless was busy between all clinic times and in the evening. Nearest the camera is the Kadee Products table, with Sam Clarke standing behind the table. Sam brought a number of the new Kadee tank cars, which sold out quite quickly.

     The meeting seemed about typical of recent years (Joe D’elia reported about 250 registrants) and socially it seemed very congenial, with a lot of networking taking place in the hallways, vendor rooms, bar, and lobby. I look forward to learning what changes and improvements Mike Skibbe may be making for future meetings.
Tony Thompson

East Shumala stock pen, Part 3, office

I introduced the topic of my stock pen at East Shumala with some photos as well as information from the prototype, in Part 1 of this series (it is at this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-stock-pen-for-east-shumala.html ). I then showed construction progress of the main pens that came in the AHM kit, and a tankhouse, in Part 2 (it can be found at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-east-shumala-stock-pen-part-2.html ). But there were a couple of parts of the project yet to be done when Part 2 was posted. The present post describes one of them, the office.
     To me, the missing element was an office structure that would look right. The brick building that was shown in Part 2, left over from another kit, really does not look right for a facility in the Far West. I decided to go ahead and make a suitable frame office from styrene. Looking at the site, and thinking about how much office space might be needed for a facility like this, I settled on an 8- x 18-foot building. Since it is an SP facility, I used shiplap or “novelty” siding, in this case Evergreen no. 4083. First step is to cut out all the sides, which I did by the usual method of scribe-and-snap.
     Next step was to choose the office door and windows. I chose the Grandt Line 30-inch door with a window (Grandt no. 5028), one of the Grandt double-hung windows (no. 5117), and a horizontal sliding window (no. 5081). Once these parts were laid out with pencil on the back of the wall pieces, I then cut out the window openings with  a corner chisel (I showed the use of this tool earlier, at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/05/building-guadalupe-fruit-part-3.html ). Once the rough openings are cut, a flat Swiss file quickly cleans up the sides, with frequent checks against the fit of the Grandt parts. I really enjoy this part of a project like this, making the door and windows fit right.

     Next came painting. First, the building was assembled with 1/8-inch square styrene strips in each corner. Then I airbrushed the walls with Tru-Color no. 153 (Colonial Yellow), and painted the trim strips, door, and windows with a lightened version of Tru-Color no. 163 (Light Brown), since I think their color out of the bottle is distinctly darker than the SP color drift panel. Last, I airbrushed Tru-Color no. 154 (Moss Green) onto a piece of Pikestuff shingle sheet (part no. 1015) from Rix Products, for material to make the roof. Here are the components at this stage.

     Another feature I wanted to add, to make the building unmistakable, was a roof sign, of the kind visible in a number of SP photos. Here is an example, from an SP photo print marked “Fort Ord”  (California) on the back. The sign is above the right end of the freight car.

The end-door automobile car is UP 161089, Class A-50-14, built in 1937 with the then-standard Roman lettering, and still has its “NEW” weight stencil. The SP Consolidation, no. 2838, is lettered “SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES” on the tender, which is pre-1946 lettering. My conclusion is that this photo probably dates from 1938. Why? The car is moderately dirty, thus not brand new, but the date is before 1939, when the car would have been reweighed. Anyway, here is a closer view of the sign atop the freight station.

The sign appears to have a dark, probably black frame.
     I used SP’s “Egyptian” font for this sign, as that was pretty standard for signage. I glued the printed sign onto 0.040-inch styrene sheet, framed it with black-painted scale 1 x 8-inch styrene strip, and glued it to the office roof with canopy cement.

The sign looks a little larger than I expected, and I may replace it with something a little smaller. And the office needs a concrete front step. But for now it’s complete.
     Having a better looking office (and one which better fits the space) is a step forward for my stock pen (which SP called a “corral”). The only remaining task is to add a third pen to make the facility a little bigger, as I discussed in the first post in this series (link shown at the top of this post).
Tony Thompson

Operations: non-rail-served customers

Some folks reading the title of this post might think, “Why would we care about customers who are not rail-served?” (meaning, of course, on a model railroad layout). The answer is that they were actually quite important on the prototype. Many railroad lists of customers would show a considerable number with no siding, meaning of course that they had to work through a team track, freight house, or the freight section of a depot. Therefore these customers naturally offer a wonderful variety of possible load destinations and origins. Think of furniture stores, appliance stores, auto dealers, lumber yards, and a myriad of other retail establishments which might receive rail freight by unloading it directly from railcars, and conversely, of course, who might ship products out by the same means.
     This means that some of the open-top car loads you may have, such as lumber, creosoted poles, structural steel, or crates of machinery, can be destined to a team track. And of course almost any load in a box car can be delivered to a freight house or depot. Most railroads referred to the track serving the freight end of the depot as the “house track,” and that would be indicated on the waybill for such a load. Though we don’t usually bother to do so on model waybills, prototype waybills usually gave specific spotting instructions (such as “Building 6, track 2”), or team track, or house track.
     I have had visiting operators on my layout look at a waybill and say, “The bill says McKay Machine Shop, but I don’t see their siding.” I tell them to read the rest of the destination, which says “house track” (sometimes abbreviated by something like “HS TRK”). Here’s an example with an SP box car:

     Here is the car identified in that waybill, at the Ballard depot. (The SP tried to keep its “Overnight” box cars in LCL service but did not always succeed.) One reason to ship to the house track instead of a team track is that there is a platform, which may help in unloading from the railcar, then transferring to a highway truck.

     The same kind of thing happens with team track destinations, and though I emphasized above that open-car loads are quite appropriate, the same is true of house cars, as in this example. Plywood could, of course, readily be unloaded to a flatbed or box truck from the box car.

In a previous post, I showed an open-car load of concrete pipe in a PRR gondola, and its waybill, to illustrate that kind of example (at this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/10/relocating-team-track.html ). Another example might be a delivery of lumber. This commonly took place on flat cars or (for finished lumber) in box cars. But on the SP, it was not uncommon to ship rough lumber in gondolas. This is an example.

Shown below is the waybill for this load of lumber, again with the team track destination identified with an abbreviation, “TM TK.”

     I hope that these examples indicate the kinds of opportunities presented by house track and team track destinations for freight cars on a layout. They certainly are effective in offering variety on mine.
Tony Thompson

The new Dry Creek SP work cars

A major announcement for SP modelers has just been issued by Dry Creek Models (via its proprietor, Robert Bowdidge). The models announced are the SP Class W-50-3 gondolas, originally Hart convertible gondolas, later converted into dump-only cars by SP. The original cars are described fairly thoroughly in Volume 1 (Gondolas and Stock Cars) in my series entitled Southern Pacific Freight Cars (Signature Press, 2002). To see more about Dry Creek, visit their web page at: http://www.drycreekmodels.com/ and for more about this specific model, there is a connected page with more photos and description; the link is: http://www.drycreekmodels.com/w-50-3-as-made.html . That page shows the model exterior well.
     The interior arrangements of this interesting prototype car are well shown in the three views below, from the 1912 Car Builders Dictionary. These are the three inter-convertible arrangements of this car design. (You can click on the image to enlarge it.)

Shown at left is the “open” body arrangement, for pulling a plow through and driving the cargo out through the side doors (note they are slightly open from their top hinges); center, arranged with dump doors closed and ends set to be a flat-bottom gondola; and right, dump doors open to rest against the sides and make a center-dumping car. The new kits can model any of these three. But by 1940, SP had disabled the side doors, making these into primarily dump cars in their later life.
     As background, I have previously mentioned Robert’s fascinating display of his 3-D printing process which produces these models as one-piece bodies. There is an overview of the display for Bay Area Prototype :Modelers (held last June) at this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/06/bay-area-prototype-modelers-2015.html . Robert again brought some of his models, including flat cars and battleships, together with explanatory photos, to the SPH&TS meeting described in my previous post (you can read it at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/10/sph-meet-2015.html ), though in that post I did not allude to the display. A photo of it is below.

The photos at lower left show the processing in the 3-D printer, and at right center is an unpainted car body. I realize that even clicking on this image to enlarge it will not help much, but I wanted to remind those who saw the display that the models are now available.
     These are very impressive bodies. I show below one of each kind of body offered in the Dry Creek kits, the gondola with flat floor, and the dump car. The kit, by the way, comes with very clear and complete directions for the steps needed to complete the model.

Not shown are the end pieces, which can be installed in the position desired (see prototype photo at top). The most impressive part of this model, probably, is the underbody, with the truss underframe correctly well back behind the side sills (unlike the Train Miniature model) and also prototypically dimensioned (unlike either the Silver Streak or Train Miniature models, the trusses of which are considerably oversize).

     I am eager to add the few necessary details, like grab irons, sill steps, and brake cylinder, along with trucks and couplers, and put these beauties to work on my layout. Kudos to Robert Bowdidge for having the vision to realize they could be made by 3-D printing, and for having the persistence to work through all the development work to bring these to market. I suspect many SP modelers will want one or several of these superb models.
Tony Thompson

SPH&TS meet 2015

The 35th annual meeting of the Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society was held during October 7–11, 2015, in Sacramento, California. Co-chairs of the meeting, Mark Brown and Scott Inman, took full advantage of the proximity of the world-class California State Railroad Museum (CSRM), and Thursday afternoon and evening of the convention found almost all of us at the museum. There were also the usual attractions at the conference hotel, particularly a clinic program. (I presented a talk on SP cabooses from 1871 to 1980, at the request of the program organizers.)
     A highlight for many was the time at CSRM, especially a chance to have a guided tour through the SP Sacramento Shops buildings. It’s remarkable to stand on the east side of the Erecting Shop, the part built in 1869, and realize what an enormous number of SP locomotives has passed through that building in its history, from diamond-stack wood burners, through cab-forwards and F-units, to the most modern SD40 rebuilds. Today CSRM has both work equipment and stored artifacts in the building, such as the handsome locomotive shown below, and not too far into the future, this will become one of the Museum’s own buildings.

     Also seen around the Shops area are some pieces of equipment stored outside, such as this 120-ton crane, and beyond it, the original SP experimental double-stack container car. That’s the I-5 freeway bridge in the background.

     In the evening, former Southern Pacific President Mike Mohan spoke to the attendees, seated in the museum’s roundhouse, with the dramatic backdrop of SP Pacific 2467. In this photo, convention co-chair Scott Inman (yellow shirt) is at the podium to introduce Mr. Mohan.

     Back at the hotel, we had a full schedule of events. The model contest and display, along with the photo contest, was very strong this year, with numerous entries of very high quality. I entered a freight train, and as it happened, it was voted the First Place entry in this category. In the photo below, it’s the second one from the front, pulled by a steam locomotive.

This is a 15-car train with a range of both SP and non-SP cars in it. One of the attendees in the room asked if I would show the cars in the train in a blog post, and I will consider doing so, when I can get all the cars photographed.
     An always-busy part of these meeting is the vendor room at the hotel, where a wide range of sellers of both prototype and model materials have items for sale. Here is just an overall view of the room on one of the afternoons.

     I always enjoy the SPH&TS annual meets, because of course the subject matter is dear to my heart, but I would rank this one as one of the very best I can remember.
Tony Thompson

Jupiter Pump & Compressor, Part 2

In my previous post on this topic (at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/09/jupiter-pump-and-compressor.html ), I showed the site for this industry and said a little about its traffic, along with preliminary work on an old Suydam kit structure to be used as a receiving building.
     To signify a larger plant than what can be built on the layout itself, I added a KingMill Enterprises flat behind the Suydam building, as I showed in the prior post, and decided to add also a one-story extension of the plant to the right. This extension is a concrete block building, including in the KingMill “Jefferson St.” sheet no. 9.  (As I mentioned in the previous post, KingMill is no longer selling these sheets, which may have been sold to Scenic Express.) Trackage into the receiving building obviously is not yet complete. The photo below shows the industry as it was switched in the last operating session (see: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/10/another-operating-session.html ).

Attached above the building extension you will see the signage for Jupiter.
     In choosing a logo for my sign, I ended up with the following image, which perhaps will remind some of the logo of a fine brew pub here in Berkeley called the Jupiter. It has been and is an excellent pub for local beer and food, but as far as I know, they have never built any pumps or compressors. This adaptation of their logo should serve well to announce this industry on the layout. Here is a closer view of that image.

By the way, if you were curious, yes, that is a “red spot” behind the name.It’s even about the right shape, as you will see if you Google "Great Red Spot,” though I suppose a critic might say that the spot on the logo is only a pretty good red spot.
     What remains to be done on my representation of this industry? I may add an additional building flat to the right of what you see in the photo at the top of this post, and some additional details need to be added around the area, and of course the receiving trackage needs to be completed, along with a switch machine for the turnout. And the lead track off the main crosses Oso Flaco Creek (for more on the construction of this creek, see for example: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/03/modeling-oso-flaco-creek-part-2.html ), and a short beam bridge will be added there. But for now, cars can be picked up and delivered from the lead track which exists.
     Inbound components to Jupiter include not only raw materials for the foundry and fabrication shop, but all the other parts which go into these products, from gaskets and valves and screw-machine products, to electric motors, gear trains, and electrical controls. There is a craneway inside the receiving building, so that open-car loads such as steel plate can be unloaded and moved into the warehouse. There is also a dump between the rails for bulk cargoes like coal. Though coke is an efficient fuel for remelting, as would be done at Jupiter, it is also more costly, and many small foundries continued to use coal. My schematic map for Jupiter will direct bulk and open-top loads onto the outer track, Track 2, while house car loads both inbound and outbound will work from Track 1, nearest the warehouse.
     Waybills are being developed and a schedule is being created (a schedule for car flow into and out of the plant — as I’ve discussed elsewhere on this blog: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/11/operations-demand-based-car-flow-2.html ) for Jupiter operations. I’m looking forward to including these shipments as part of operating sessions at Ballard.
Tony Thompson