Realistic layout operation, Part 2

I have raised this very general topic simply intending to add a few comments on the subject. Most modelers already have ideas about what they want to accomplish on a layout, or have already accomplished those ideas. I am just putting forward some thoughts of my own on the topic. 

In the first post on this subject, I talked about completeness and realism of scenery and rolling stock treatments, obviously the visual parts of a realistic layout that is operated (you can find that post at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/11/realistic-layout-operation.html ). 

Let me repeat why I haven’t commented further on layout building, scenery, structures, and all kinds of other physical layout factors. Nowadays, there is so much guidance on the modeling side that I hardly feel any need to enter that topic. From Tony Koester’s outstanding book, mentioned in the first post (link in second paragraph above), and C.J. Riley’s long-awaited publication, Realistic Layouts (Kalmbach Media, 2020), which I reviewed when it was new (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/05/riley-layout-book-published.html ), my comments would pale beside these authorities.

Now I want to talk about operations themselves. Here the fundamental principle, in my opinion, as I stated in the first post, is to follow the prototype wherever possible. One part of this topic is paperwork. Of course, the prototype handled an immense amount of paperwork, involving armies of clerks before the computer age, that we have no interest in duplicating, but some of that paperwork is germane to model operation. The key is to identify the germane parts and decide how to use them.

I believe the first piece of paper that is essential to give a prototypical appearance is a timetable. I hasten to add that it need not be sophisticated or complex, and may not even be important in your particular layout operation, but it is a vital part of what’s called “typographic scenery,” a phrase coined by Al Kalmbach and included in his 1942 book, How to Run a Model Railroad. Here is part of page 44:

Note his examples above: they refer to his fictitious railroad, the Great Gulch, Yahoo Valley and Northern. Notice, too, his comment in the text about bulletins and letterheads, so typographic scenery needn’t be limited to timetables. I note in passing that the above page was published over 80 years ago.

On the timetable point, I have done what many layout owners do: I simply copied shamelessly from the Southern Pacific original. My layout is located on SP’s Coast Division, so I used the cover of the September 1953 employee timetable as my own timetable cover, almost verbatim. I only added the word “supplement” under the timetable number, to indicate that this is not the full Coast Division timetable.

Then in the center spread of this document I included the eastward and westward timetables for the Guadalupe Subdivision, which is where my layout is located. I simply removed numerous stations that are some distance away from my layout’s location, and inserted a line for Shumala, where my fictitious Santa Rosalia Branch leaves the main line. For more about this, you could read my article in the October 2014 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist, an issue still available for free to read on-line or download for your use, at www.mrhmag.com .

I believe this captures a great deal of the prototype flavor, contributing to realistic operation. To complete the paperwork for conduct of operations, I also use a lineup of trains, for the benefit of yard crews at Shumala, giving the dispatcher’s estimate of times of freight trains and extras. For some sessions, I also supply a Bulletin, such as the one shown below (you can click to enlarge).

In addition to the above, I also use switch lists, “flimsy” train order forms, and clearance forms, all copied directly from SP originals, as shown below (at the time I model, SP did not put its name on train order or clearance forms). Prototype originals like this can be a starting point if your layout models a fictitious railroad. 

Last, I plead guilty to having contributed to the recent upsurge in interest and usage of prototypical waybills. Having over more than a decade, written 117 posts on the topic (for a guide to the first 100 of these, see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/11/waybills-part-100-guide.html ), along with several magazine articles, I can’t hide from it; but I do think this is an obvious feature to include on any layout that has switching. I won’t go further into waybills at this point.

The paperwork items described above are certainly typographic scenery, but more importantly, they are among the tools for prototype operation that follows the prototype. I will turn to that aspect, layout operation, in a future post.

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

 

Layout scenery refinements

This topic may seem a little surprising. The great majority of my layout has been pretty much complete for ten years, and parts of it are considerably older than that (for some previous posts about my layout’s history, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/11/layout-origins-shumala.html or a more general one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-layout-description.html ). But problems do arise, or in some cases, persist for years. I plan to write several posts about correcting a few of them.

One of the areas on the layout that needs improvement is the location for my yard limit sign, for trains returning to Shumala from the Santa Rosalia Branch. This was a “small project” a number of years ago, and identified for branch train crews the point where they should stop and request yard entry. In my post, I even showed the SP standard drawing for such signs. (See that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/08/small-mdodeling-project-yard-limit-sign.html ).

Below is shown the area that includes the yard limit sign, and as may be evident, it is quite close to the track, close enough that steam locomotives with longer wheelbases often brush against it. This view is taken from right above the tunnel portal through which the Santa Rosalia Branch track exits the Shumala junction.

As you can see above, the problem is that the sign is already at the outer edge of the railroad fill as it is, and there isn’t room to put it farther from the track. So what is obviously needed is to widen that fill in the area near the sign location. 

This is pretty easy to fix. I simply mixed up a little Sculptamold paper mache and adjusted the contours appropriately, as you see below, to widen this area of fill.

Of course this snow-white look is not too appropriate for the California coast, so I painted it with acrylic tube paint, Burnt Umber, as a foundation for scenic materials to follow. One thought for the next step was simply to ballast the entire new contour. But this is not what Southern Pacific usually did. Photos of SP right-of-way almost always show things like signs located on the ground outside the ballasted area. I decided to do the same.

My usual base scenery material for “ground” is a medium tan dirt, actually very fine 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. A few pinches of ground foam grass then help the area blend with it surroundings. At the bottom of this view is the yard entry signal for Shumala (which I described in a previous post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-yard-entry-signal.html ).

The next step once all the scenic modifications are dry and solid, is to re-install the yard limit sign, which I did with canopy glue. This is the final result, looking to a casual observer as being much like it was before, but as you can readily see by comparing to the first photo is this post, now it’s really well clear of the track. In fact, the post is now 11 scale feet from the track center line, in conformance with the usual railroad standard that everything is clear within 8 feet of the track center.

I continue to tour the layout from time to time, with note pad or clipboard in hand, and try and find every area that needs to be repaired, upgraded, or even scenicked for the first time (I described this approach in a post some time back: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/07/management-by-walking-around.html ). I will mention a few other recent refinements like this in future posts.

Tony Thompson

My latest “Getting Real” column

Most readers know by now that I am one of a group of columnists who, in rotation, write the “Getting Real” column about prototype modeling in the on-line magazine, Model Railroad Hobbyist, or MRH. My most recent column has just appeared in the November issue. In recent years, MRH has been published in two parts: one that remains free to read on-line or download (visit www.mrhmag.com ) and in a second section, called “Running Extra,” which carries a fee, either for single issues or via subscription (cheaper per issue). The “Getting Real” columns have been appearing in “Running Extra.”

My new column is about modeling Southern Pacific flat cars. The idea to do that was stimulated by a question I was asked recently about the SP fleet of such cars, but also has a background in a talk I used to give some years ago, entitled “SP cars you can model,” emphasizing commercial models of the most common SP freight cars. Maybe that talk should be updated and revived. But that’s another story.

(For a full background on SP flat car history, my source is my book, Volume 3 in the series, Southern Pacific Freight Cars, Signature Press, 2004, covering automobile cars and flat cars.)

In the column, I began at the turn of the 20th century, with the first fully standard SP flat cars with steel underframes in any numbers, and the first to carry Harriman-standard class numbers, classes F-50-1, -2, and -3. The “F” stands for flat car, the “50” means 50-ton nominal capacity, and the last number is the individual class. Since those earliest cars were mostly gone from the fleet by the year I model, 1953, I have not modeled one.

But following those cars, SP adopted a flat car design that would be followed, with only minor changes, for over 20 more years and a dozen more flat car classes. This design originated in the Harriman era and thus is rightly called a “Harriman flat car.” Below is a good photo of one of the later classes in service at San Diego, Class F-50-8 car SP 38892, photographed by Chet McCoid on September 26, 1954 (Bob’s Photo collection).

The important things to notice about this car are the straight side sill, the blocking between the stake pockets which supports the wide deck reaching out to the outer edge of the stake pockets (called an “overhanging deck”), and the fishbelly center sill. All these features are well captured by the Owl Mountain Models kit for these cars (see my review of this nice kit at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2017/09/building-owl-mountain-flat-car.html ).

After World War II, SP turned to American Car & Foundry, and adopted their flat car design for several car orders. I went into some detail about these in the column. The most important cars were the 53-ft., 6-in. long ones, classes F-70-6 and -7, the latter a class of 2050 cars. Both classes are well represented by the Red Caboose HO scale model (dies now owned by the SP Historical & Technical Society, or SPH&TS, who have done a few re-runs of this model). 

Among the most characteristic loads carried by these flat cars in the 1950s was lumber, as part of a nationwide building boom. Shown below on my layout is a Red Caboose Class F-70-7 car with an Owl Mountain Models lumber load (for more on my building of this load kit, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/08/open-car-loads-lumber-from-owl-mountain.html ).

I also described a few details about modifications to these flat cars by SP. An important modification was the addition of bulkheads for plasterboard service. In 1949, SP began adding low bulkheads to some of its new flat cars, and the SPH&TS has offered a really nice kit to duplicate these bulkheads (see my review at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/07/modeling-sps-bulkhead-flat-cars.html ). Here is a Red Caboose flat car with these bulkheads, being moved by a Baldwin road-switcher on my layout.

Loads in the earliest days were usually tarped rather than wrapped, but by 1953, wrapped loads were appearing. Here is my bulkhead flat car with a load made by Jim Elliott. Incidentally, loading plasterboard to the height of these bulkheads did amount to a nominally 70-ton load, the capacity of the cars, so there was a reason for the low bulkheads.

In 1953 and later, SP also converted dozens of Class F-70-7 flat cars for introduction of piggyback service, which began in June 1953. I showed prototype photos and some models, comparable to a recent post in this blog, which is at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/10/sp-piggyback-part-4-progress-on-3d.html .

Finally, I briefly covered some of the SP heavy-duty flat cars, the F-125 depressed-center cars and the F-200 four-truck cars. As those have been covered in some detail in my blog posts, I won’t go into them here. If you’re interested, the following posts can be consulted, along with the MRH article:

F-125: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/05/an-sp-class-f-125-1-flat-car-part-2.html

F-200: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/05/sp-200-ton-flat-cars-part-5.html

It was interesting to review prototype information and modeling resources to write a summary about SP flat cars of the early 1950s. I hope it was of some interest or value to MRH readers.

Tony Thompson

Model operations with SP cabooses: Conclusion

In this series of posts, I am describing the variety and assignments of cabooses for my layout operating sessions, which are set in 1953. I began with some Southern Pacific caboose history, and showed my model of a “temporary caboose,” a box car conversion, in Part 1 (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/model-operations-with-sp-cabooses.html ).

The following post, Part 2 in the series, described the very widely used wood-sheathed cupola cabooses, around 620 cars of Class C-30-1, and an additional 80 or so cars of following classes C-40-2 and -3, built through 1930. The overwhelming numbers of these cars throughout the SP system made them a common sight in the era I model. That post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/10/model-operation-with-sp-cabooses-part-2.html .

For additional comments about SP cabooses in the area I model, it may be of interest to look at one part of my long interview with Malcolm “Mac” Gaddis, who first worked at San Luis Obispo as an electrician in September 1951 and remained there through 1954. I posted several parts of the interview; the part with comments about cabooses is here: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/05/san-luis-obispo-operations.html .

Thee were two classes of steel cupola cabooses, both built at Los Angeles General Shops. In 1937, 50 cars of Class C-40-1 were built, followed in 1940 by 135 cars of Class C-40-3 (along with 30 cars of that class for T&NO). The most visible difference between the two classes was the hand brake, which was a vertical-staff design on C-40-1, and a geared hand brake on C-40-3. The photo below, taken at Eugene, Oregon in July 1954 (George Sisk photo, Charles Winters collection) has the handbrake visible.

The steel cupola cabooses were also still important in my layout’s era. I almost always assign them to mainline freights. Here’s an example, a freight on the passing track at Shumala, with SP 1026 at the end. The brass model Class C-30-1 caboose is from Precision Scale. Visible here is the primary spotting feature of this class, the vertical-staff handbrake (you can click on the image to enlarge it).

Below I show a mainline train passing the engine terminal at my layout town of Shumala, with a steel cupola caboose of Class C-40-3, SP 1129, on the rear. It’s also a brass model from Precision Scale.

After World War II, SP ceased building its own cabooses in company shops, and turned to commercial builders for additional cars. They also adopted a new caboose design with bay windows instead of a cupola. And of particular note, a new paint scheme was adopted: ends of the cars were painted vermilion, likely a test. I should emphasize that is is not the Daylight Orange applied to caboose ends from 1956 onward.

Below is a photo provided by Joe Strapac, showing two of these cars at Dunsmuir in the lower yard in March, 1953, with a familiar mountain looming in the distance. For more on these cars, those interested can consult my Volume 2 of the series, Southern Pacific Freight Cars (Signature Press, 2002), which is about cabooses.

In model form, these classes have been done by Precision Scale, and I have one of them with correct end color. It is always found on a manifest train in my layout operating sessions. Here SP 1253 brings up the rear of a train entering Tunnel 12, as it departs from Shumala on my layout. It’s a 1947-built Class C-30-4 car.

To wrap up this series of posts about how I use SP cabooses in my layout operating sessions, it should be evident that there is a pattern at work, one I have derived from prototype information and photos. It is just one small part of the prototype atmosphere I try to create on my layout.

Tony Thompson

Small project: old brass baggage car, Part 2

In the previous post on this topic, I showed a heavily tarnished Ken Kidder model of one of the Southern Pacific’s distinctive 40-foot baggage-express cars. The prototypes were built as full postal cars but were rebuilt in 1929 y T&NO into postal-baggage configuration, with a few eventually ending up on Pacific Lines, rebuilt this time into baggage cars. The description of all that, and my start of work to prepare the model for use, is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/06/small-project-old-brass-sp-baggage-car.html . 

The body had been painted Dark Olive Green. The next step was to mask the body (a good job for Tamiya masking tape, easily flexible to match the end contour at the roof line). This was a simple step, as the fascia strips on sides and ends make an easy masking reference. Then I painted the roof black, along with the trucks (wheel treads were masked). I could now decal the body, using Thinfilm Decals set HO 160-SP. 

It may be worth mentioning that although the postal apartment’s door and window arrangement remain on this car body, it had had the entire postal apartment removed, and was now operationally a full baggage car, which is why it is lettered that way. This mirrors the prototype appearance on Pacific Lines.

With lettering complete and protected by a coat of clear flat, I weathered the body lightly with my usual technique of washes using acrylic tube paints (see the “Reference pages” linked at the top right corner of this post for descriptions and illustrations of the method). 

In the era I model, SP continued to keep passenger equipment fairly clean, so only the lightest of weathering was applied. Sides of SP passenger equipment were washed, less frequently for head-end equipment like this car, but roofs were not washed. Here is the body at this point.

Next I glazed the windows using clear styrene sheet, installed with canopy glue, and that completed basic body work. Next I turned attention to couplers. The original screw hole in the Kidder body for a coupler is quite small. I drilled it out and tapped it for a 2.0 mm screw. The chosen couplers were Kadee no. 36, with its small gear box, well suited to this kind of end mounting. 

 Next I wanted to add at least some indication of underbody equipment. Most photos of these cars don’t show underbody areas well, but there does seem to be some indication of an air tank on the left side (as seen from the postal end) and what is likely a brake cylinder on the right side. The photos mentioned are on pages 73–77 in Volume 3 of the series, Southern Pacific Passenger Cars (SPH&TS, 2007). 

I used a short piece of wood dowel for the air tank, and a brake-cylinder-like part from my stash of passenger car parts. But there is no intention here to do more than suggest this equipment in a side view.

Then came diaphragms. Late photos of these cars on Pacific Lines showed them with what I have called “skeleton” diaphragms, ones with face plates but no side canvas accordion folds. These are discussed in an earlier post (it can be found at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/05/passenger-cars-skeleton-diaphragms.html ), and modeling is discussed there too. These are visible in the prototype photo shown in the first post in this series (link provided in the top paragraph of the present post). 

I added a pair of my own versions of the skeleton diaphragm, built out of styrene sheet and strip, to the car with canopy glue. Then trucks could be attached and some weathering added. Here is the completed model.

Though these cars would have been a tiny minority in the SP Pacific Lines passenger car fleet, I have enjoyed researching, painting and lettering the model, and will no doubt include it is an occasional passenger train in future operating sessions.

Tony Thompson

SP piggyback, Part 4: progress on the 3D models

In this series of posts about Southern Pacific’s early piggyback operation, I provided historical photo coverage, including the flat car conversions that SP made for the original service. That particular post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/10/sp-piggyback-part-3-piggyback-service.html .) Now I want to turn to modeling of these flat cars and their trailers.

Last fall, I posted about some superb HO scale models 3D-printed and given to me by Andrew J. Chier, models of Pacific Motor Trucking (PMT) piggyback trailers, and two of the Southern Pacific’s original piggyback flat cars. (PMT was an SP subsidiary.) I included in that post a photo of AJ’s own completed models. Since then, I’ve been slowly progressing with completing these models, and that’s the subject of the present post. (You can see that previous post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/11/more-amazing-3-d-printing.html .).

My first step was to free the trailer bodies from their as-printed supports, clean them up with care (because small details are fragile), and then give them a coat of primer. I used Tamiya “Fine Surface Primer (White)” for this. Below are two of the trailers, as primed. The excellent and complete detailing of these models is even more evident with the light color of the primer.

I did the same white primer on the flat cars, and then painted them with the Tamiya “Fine Surface Primer (Oxide Red).” It’s a bit too red for SP freight car color, but when weathered, the difference won’t be very evident. As with the trailers, the remarkable thing about this 3D-printed model is the completeness, with all the trailer support and tie-down equipment in place.

The question can certainly  be raised about the photo above, whether any of the trailer equipment was a different color than the car body. I believe, after reviewing a great many photos, that the answer is “no.” 

The prototype image below will show what I mean. It shows the relatively new piggyback terminal at the site of Los Angeles Shops, with trailer unloading in progress. It’s part of an SP company photo, dated 1955, and the complete photo is in my Volume 3 of the series, Southern Pacific Freight Cars, on pages 284–285. I can see no indication that anything differs from body color.

Next I needed to add weight to the flat car. The design of AJ’s model cleverly allows for this, with a pocket in the underframe. I showed this in the previous post (link in uppermost paragraph of the present post). I cut some 3/8-inch lead sheet from McMaster-Carr to fit, and attached it with canopy glue. Since it will be invisible, I haven’t painted the lead. The remainder of the underframe, not shown here, is a part that fits right on top of this.

In addition to this sheet of lead, there is a 3D-printed frame part that goes over it, and that part has effectively “pockets” that permit adding additional, smaller pieces of lead sheet. Again, I fixed these in place with canopy glue. In this way, the weight can be raised to the vicinity of the NMRA standard for this car length.

From here, the flat car project is ready for the details to be added (grab irons, sill steps, brake staff and wheel) and also lettering. The trailers are primed and are ready for their red and orange paint. I’ll turn to all that in a future post.

Tony Thompson

More distinctive flat car loads

I have always enjoyed making and operating flat cars with distinctive loads, and am always on the lookout for additional opportunities to make them. Almost always, I make them removable, so that loads delivered on my layout can be picked up as empties in a following session. This post begins a series about two more loads, in these cases fairly distinctive ones. 

The first one I’ll describe is a load I’ve owned for some time, a marine boiler. I’m not sure of the source (a reader may know), but it sticks in my mind that it was from Chooch. Anyway, its width will fit on an HO-scale flat car, with the boiler’s long axis parallel to the length of the car, and that is one way to mount it. I prefer removable loads, and this one will be that way too.

I did wonder about what kind of marine boiler this might be, and my friend Ben Hom (a shipboard engineer during his time in the Navy), directed me to some excellent resources. First, the Wikipedia entry for Scotch marine boilers, as this type was known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_marine_boiler . 

In the above model view, the closed opening at the bottom is where fuel enters the combustion chamber, the middle section above that is a fire-tube boiler, and the steam is collected in the top part with the heavier bolts. The inside of this is shown in the side-view cross-section below, from the Royal Navy’s Stoker’s Manual of 1912, which can be found on the Wikimedia page for Scotch boilers. Path of hot gasses is shown by red arrows, movement of water in the water space is in black arrows.

In looking at the numerous photos of loads of this general kind, I always recall a group of Southern Pacific photos taken when their home-built Class F-70-4 depressed-center cars were new. It was during the run-up to World War II, and the photos show marine boilers being delivered on these cars to the shipyard in Richmond, California for use in Liberty ships. Here’s one of them, with the SP car in the foreground; note the light color of the boilers:

For more about the Liberty ships and their boilers and steam engines, I would recommend a really interesting and complete report on the topic (see it at: https://ww2.eagle.org/content/dam/eagle/publications/company-information/workhorse-of-the-fleet-2019.pdf ).

A close-up of the boiler still loaded on the car is also illustrative, because you can see the tie-down method (it looks like cable, but could be steel strapping). Note that the drum-shaped boiler is a bit wider than the car. Incidentally, SP’s notes on the photo state that this boiler weighed 52 tons, so a flat car of 70-ton or more capacity would be needed. Here again, the three combustion chambers are at the bottom, the fire tubes are in the middle, and the steam section is at the top.

Since I had a second model boiler like the one shown at the top of this post, I cut it down so that it could be mounted “cross-wise” like you see on the SP car shown above. It’s shown below after painting, a light color like the boilers shown in the SP photos. This is the “back” of the boiler, compared to the photo above.

I was interested to know more about how this boiler worked, so I did spend some time with a serious book on the topic (Steam: Its Generation and Use, 38th edition, published by Babcock & Wilcox, New York, 1972), but didn’t find much help. Evidently the Scotch marine boiler was not of great interest to Babcock & Wilcox.

I have been exploring simple bracing for securing the boiler. The SP photo above, showing the load on the car, seems to have really minimal bracing, and tie-downs over the top of the boiler, so I will do the same. I’ll continue with that part of the topic in a future post.

Tony Thompson

SP piggyback, Part 3: piggyback service begins

In this series of posts, I am presenting a summary of the history of the prototype Southern Pacific piggyback equipment and associated prototype operations, along with modeling issues and opportunities. The present post is about the beginning of SP’s rail service, and as such is a kind of continuation of the first post, which was about Pacific Motor Trucking (PMT) prototype. You can read that first post at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/sp-piggyback-part-1-pacific-motor.html .

There is extensive photographic documentation of the beginnings of SP piggyback, and I will turn to that in a moment, but first I want to summarize the background. For this, the fundamental resource is David DeBoer’s book, Piggyback and Containers (Golden West Books, San Marino, CA, 1992). After working for the New York Central, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), DeBoer moved on to Southern Pacific, advancing to VP of intermodal operations, before leaving to help found Greenbrier Intermodal. One could say that he didn’t just see intermodal happen, he had a role in directing it, and knew everybody who was anybody; that’s evident in the book.

An important point made by DeBoer is the foundation for SP President D.J. Russell deciding to initiate piggyback service. Because SP already owned a trucking subsidiary, PMT, and its busiest route, Los Angeles–San Francisco, was entirely within California, SP would not have to contend with ICC regulation. In addition, reliance on PMT meant that competing truckers could be shut out of SP’s piggyback routes.

The first challenge faced by SP, and other pioneer railroads undertaking piggyback operations, was how to secure the trailers to the flat cars. Railroaders regarded a wheeled vehicle on a flat car with considerable alarm, and wanted it secured as many ways as possible: wheel chocks, tie-down chains or cables tightened with binders, and often a last-resort “disaster cable” or chain in addition to everything else. Much of this was borrowed from the circus world, which had been tying down vehicles on flat cars for decades.

SP was very much of this “belt and suspenders” persuasion, choosing steel cables instead of chains (T&NO did use chains), with two cables and binders at each corner of each trailer. They also chose support stands underneath trailers, one at the front alongside the landing wheels, and one in front of the road wheels at the back.

All this can be seen in this end view of a newly converted Class F-70-7 flat car at Bayshore Shops in 1953 (SP photo). The cars were 53 feet, 6 inches long. Rub rails along the car sides, a bridge plate at each end, wheel chocks alongside the rub rails, and three of the four support stands erected, and some of the cable binders above the coupler and at the center and ends of the rub rail, are all visible. The boxes seen along the car center line contain cables. (There is considerably more photo coverage of the flat cars and trailer tie-downs in Chapter 13, Volume 3 of my series, Southern Pacific Freight Cars, Signature Press, 2004.)

The bridge plates were essential for what was called “circus loading,” derived directly from circus practice. Trailers had to be backed down a string of flat cars to their destination car. Needless to say, this was laborious and took careful work by drivers; and the entire process had to be repeated for unloading, though then at least drivers got to drive forward (SP photo at Los Angeles).

 

When tied down, this was quite an array of cables, two at each trailer corner, as mentioned (SP photo). Each cable had to be looped over a hook on the trailer frame, then tightened with the binders. This of course required a fair crew of groundmen, who attached and tightened all the cables.

SP inaugurated piggyback service first on T&NO on May 4, 1953, and at the end of June that year, inaugurated it also on Pacific Lines, initially only for the Los Angeles–San Francisco route. Many photos were taken of the initial service, such as this one (Joe Strapac collection).

So during the second half of 1953, SP piggyback was indeed operating on the Coast Route, and trailers moved both in some daytime trains, and were also to be inserted in the “Coast Merchandise” or Overnight trains. Here is a photo of two piggyback cars at San Luis Obispo, being switched by Consolidation 2592 (SP photo). Note the short-lived practice of “disaster bars” on rear doors.

I will continue with comments on modeling this early equipment in one or more following posts.

Tony Thompson

Model operation with SP cabooses, Part 2

In the preceding post which began this series, I introduced the topic of caboose assignments for operating sessions on my Southern Pacific layout. As background, I explained how there was a hierarchy of use on the SP, from the newest and best cabooses on the hottest trains, down through drag freights and locals, to what I called the “bottom of the barrel,” temporary cabooses converted from old box cars. That post is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/model-operations-with-sp-cabooses.html .

The next highest use after the boxcar cabooses was the ubiquitous C-30-1 wood caboose, with something like 620 of them built in company shops, mostly at Los Angeles. These soldiered on for many years after the construction in the 1920s, and were still seen in numbers in the 1960s. Both because of their large numbers and their longevity, these could be considered a signature caboose for the SP as late as the early diesel era.

I’ll begin by showing one of my favorite views of a C-30-1 caboose, in an outstanding photo by Stanley Groff (Kalmbach Library collection, courtesy Andy Sperandeo). The photo shows the conductor picking up orders at Burbank Junction, where the Coast and Valley routes outbound from Los Angeles diverge. But I’m using it here for all the detail it shows of the caboose, with side walkways on the original cupola, the distinctive SP ladder tops, and the white outside railings.

The caboose shown above is interesting in that it was built in 1926, as we know from its number, 187. Most of Class C-30-1 had numbers in the 600, 700, and 800 series, but when those were used up, SP began re-using numbers of retired old cabooses. There were 120 of those kinds of numbers, too, like the one you see above. Note also its spelled-out roadname, typical post-1946 caboose appearance. But many cabooses kept the pre-1946 initials for years.

My caboose fleet includes a wide range of wood-sheathed cars. I have several “original” appearance C-30-1 cars, such as SP 793 that you see here on a train approaching Shumala. It has a wood cupola with cupola-top railing and side walkways. This is a Walthers model.

In the late 1930s, as the vulnerability of the complex woodwork of the cupola became evident, SP designed a steel replacement cupola, and by the time I model, 1953, these were often seen on the old C-30 cars. The ancient Balboa brass SP caboose has such a cupola, and I enjoy using one on my layout. You see it here being switched at Shumala.

Finally, I should mention that in 1929, SP made some redesigns to the C-30 car body, and a new class, C-30-3, emerged, now with steel body framing. This is of course inside the car’s sheathing — except at the bottom of the side. That’s evident in the Wilbur Whittaker photo below (taken at Oakland in May, 1948), as is the full-width wood cupola design of these cars. The number is, of course, re-used from a retired caboose, and the photo just pre-dates adoption of the white color for handrails.

There happens to be an HO model of this class, imported in brass by Challenger models. The photo is a repeat of one shown in Part 1 of this series, with the car on the Shumala caboose track. It does have white handrails and old-stye lettering. The roof color is black car cement.

All these wood cabooses may be assigned to the Santa Rosalia Local or to trains like the Guadalupe Turn, that serves Shumala from San Luis Obispo. In a following post, I will take up steel cabooses.

Tony Thompson

Southern Pacific’s GE 44-tonners

The General Electric 44-ton diesel switcher was sold to railroads large and small, and to industrial users, all over North America, and many survived 30 years or more in service (and a number have been preserved at various railroad museums). Powered by a pair of Caterpillar 190-horsepower diesels, they were easy to maintain, with Caterpillar parts available everywhere. Over time, Southern Pacific and its subsidiaries owned a full dozen of them.

The earliest three 44-tonners owned by SP arrived in the fall of 1942, only two years after the first 44-ton locomotives had been produced by GE. Numbered 1900–1902, they were mostly used in Oregon during the war, and later were tried many places on the SP system. Like others in the earliest production, these had side radiators, unlike the many post-1942 44-ton engines with end radiator shutters. 

(One of the magisterial Joe Strapac books on SP diesel locomotives, Volume 18 in the series Southern Pacific Historic Diesels, is about Alco and GE diesel switchers. He covers the 44-tonners owned by SP, Pacific Electric, Visalia Electric, and Petaluma & Santa Rosa, along with Pacific Fruit Express. It should be consulted for history of the locomotives on all the subsidiaries.)

Here’s a photo from that book (Gordon Spafford photo, courtesy Joe Strapac), taken at Eugene, Oregon on March 15, 1946, with SP 1901 painted in “Tiger Stripe” colors. The side shutters and plain hood end are clearly shown.

In the photo above, note the prominent rerailing frog over the front truck at right. Photos of these locomotives on the SP after the 1940s no longer show these frogs present, so they were not a permanent feature. 

What might this have to do with SP’s Coast Division and in particular, the San Luis Obispo area (which I model)? In the 1953–54 era, SP tried out a variety of diesel locomotives on different parts of the system, including Coast Division, and specifically at San Luis. 

One of my previous posts, with parts of my interview with Malcolm “Mac” Gaddis who worked there in the early 1950s, mentions trying out GE 70-ton engines, Baldwin and Alco six-axle road switchers, and others (here’s a link to that post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/08/san-luis-obispo-operations-3.html ). He mentioned the 44-tonners in another part of the interview. Neither the 44-ton nor 70-ton locomotives could do the desired job in the yard at San Luis Obispo (which is on a grade), and after short stints, they were sent elsewhere — but they did work there.

This is of current interest because Rapido Trains has just introduced a GE 44-tonner in HO scale, and they offer it in SP paint and lettering. Among the body styles they chose to do is the original design, with side radiators, sometimes called Phase I, correct for the SP numbers they have modeled. Here is a photo of SP 1902 at work on my layout, switching cars at Shumala.

The engine runs nicely, has a realistic diesel sound, and handles switching well. It’s shown below spotting a reefer at the Phelan & Taylor packing shed in East Shumala on my layout.

I’m sure the 44-tonners didn’t serve very long in this area of Coast Division, but the times when they were tested does fit my modeling era, so I will operate this one occasionally.

Tony Thompson