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