Model Railroader
February 1985
180 pages
Editor: Russ Larson
Managing Editor: Dick Chistianson
After being sidelined a couple times in the last few weeks, it’s time to climb back aboard the Decades Express and get back on track (pun intended).
I distinctly remember this cover with the brass loco and the cover topic of Bruce Chubbs’ new C/MRI series. Jumping ahead to At the Throttle, Editor Larson introduces the article by referring to it as a “landmark series.” Mr. Larson notes that Mr. Chubb was not the first to present the model railroad computer interface in print, but “the significance of Chubb’s series is that it will popularize the subject.” It is fascinating to read the words knowing what we know now. They were aware of the “significance” of this “landmark series” even before the issue hit the mailboxes. This goes back to my mantra of what MR should be: information, instruction, and inspiration. MR has a long history of significance and landmarks. Here’s to hoping that the new life Firecrown offers MR gets them back to leading the charge with new landmarks.
Retreating back to the front of this issue and in relation to the cover topic, a couple of letters in Railway Post Office indicated that some readers were not ready to embrace this new-fangled computer technology. R. L. Burger of St. Joseph, MI wrote in to express his displeasure with a computer related article from the December 1984 issue: “I am just a little put out that you devote space to something so far removed from modeling, trains, and scenery.” Steve Bogart from Westfield, NJ relayed his feelings on the subject while commenting on Rob Spangler’s layout also from the December 1984 issue: “For my money, the most refreshing breath of fresh air in many months was Robert Spangler’s article describing his layout. It had an interesting track plan, no computer, no electronic gadgets, and no phony smoke photographically dubbed into every available stack.” Well then, I think these two gentlemen were firmly in the analog world and by gosh, they liked it that way. You know what? Even today there is nothing wrong with that if that is how you want to model. Analog? Digital? Do it how you see fit and to thine own self be true. Mr. Larson said as much in At the Throttle: “I know that there will be some of you who feel that you have no use for this information. That’s fine. In a hobby you should be free to choose those things that you like and ignore the rest. If you don’t want anything to do with computers, just skip over Mr. Chubb’s articles. But please realize that a lot of your fellow model railroaders have a home computer and are interested in model railroad application for it.” It seems to me he was answering the letters from Railway Post Office. It also goes to the larger issue that, generally, no one will likey every article, but every article will be liked by someone.
David Thayer of Waltham, MA wrote in to MR to suggest they make a coffee table book out of their best covers but without all of the words, labels, and banners. I could go for that. In fact, I could go for a book of their best covers with all of stuff on them. But I do agree with his point that I prefer a much cleaner and less wordy cover. Some of those cover photos can sell the magazine all by themselves. I remember this coming up in later years and the marketing theory behind it was to put all of the banners and splashes and words on the cover to catch the attention of newsstand customers. The same reason was given for extending the name and blue box all the way across the cover. It was pure marketing straight from a consultant or from the magazine cover design fad. I think it is time to go back to cleaner covers as it is simply not a newsstand world. Splashing the entire table of contents on the cover does nothing for me. Many of my favorite covers are from the 1982-1984 timeframe. Some months the covers were wordy, but many months the cover photo did most of the talking.
The first feature article is not digital as is squarely in the analog world. It is Jess Bennett’s S scale Great Northern Pacific. It is 20 x 44, has big mountain vistas, natural scenery materials, and scratchbuilt motive power. He scratchbuilt his 52 turnouts with wooden ties cut in his shop from scraps of white pine. He built his 14 wooden bridges and trestles from homemade scale lumber. He scratchbuilt 5 Cab Forwards, 6 Challengers, 10 Big Boys, and two 4-8-4s in an approximate 5 year period. This is a hands-on, rugged, independent, do-it-yourself modeler. I can’t even imagine doing what he did. I don’t foresee scratchbuilding all those locomotives and I’m not about to make my own scale stripwood.
The Model of the Month Award went to Jim Booth, Jr. for his drop-dead gorgeous D&RGW 2-8-0 #268 in Sn3. It started out as a Pacific Fast Mail Sn3 model no. 223. He stripped it down and then built it back up with 130 commercial parts and 45 handmade parts. It took him 170 hours over 3 weeks to complete his model. That’s working an average of 8 hours per day. I wonder if Mr. Booth and Mr. Bennett knew each other. It seems they both have the same work ethic when it comes to the hobby. So, I guess that makes it a hobby ethic?
The hands-on, do-it-yourself theme continues with a two page spread on a scratchbuilt 9-mm model of New Zealand Railways K88 2-4-2. Jim Harwood built the model out of sheet brass, the cab is laminated mahogany, and drive wheels were cast and turned on a lathe, and it features numerous working parts, such as the Stepheson valve gear. The model measures in at 18-inches in length. These first three articles are putting me to shame but I still find all of it to be inspiring and informative.
Continuing with the scratchbuilding bonanza in this issue, the next one is getting more in my wheelhouse. Al Boos shows us how to build steam shovels using military tank tracks for the chassis. The model is a blend of the American, Brownhoist, and Bucyrus designs and is intended to be a model that was pleasing to the eye and relatively easy to make (at least according to the author). It’s a nice article if you dig freelance steam shovels.
Jim Kelly brings us “All Aboard: Basic Modeling Information” in which he discusses maintaining locomotives. This is another example of a reoccurring “basics” feature that came and went. I discussed problems with regular beginners or basics columns in another Decades. They come and go on a routine basis. It’s not that the information is not good, it just seems these types of things wear out their welcome. To the actual article, it’s good if you want to get older locomotives tuned up but I believe that only part of the information translates to today’s models.
The second layout feature is on the San Diego Model Railroad Museum. The museum consists of four layouts: the O scale Cabrillo Southwestern, the N scale Pacific Desert Lines, the HO scale Tehachapi Pass, and the HO scale San Diego & Arizona Eastern. The museum opened in 1981 and is still going today with what I presume is the 4 layouts represented in this article. At the time of this issue, there was still substantial work to be done on at least 2 of the layouts which would be why this short 4 page article has 4 layout photos. To see the layouts in their current state, visit https://www.sdmrm.org/.
Trackside Photos has some nice work with one photo of a scene on a module and a second photo of a hobby shop display layout. The third photo is my pick of the litter and it is of Lou Sassi’s HO scale Postabe RR. The thing that caught my eye was a wooden industrial building, Fogel Leather Co., kitbashed from Tyco interlocking towers that was inspired by Art Curren. Lou Sassi and Art Curren. It’s no wonder I liked the photo. And I only recognized the origins of the kitbashed building after I read the caption. It’s obvious now but it didn’t register until I was told.
Prototype information, photos, and drawings are in the house. This issue features Alco’s Century 420 road switcher. Gray & yellow L&N, black & gold Monon, NKP, Apache Railway, Little Rock & Western, and the Long Island RR are represented. That black & gold Monon is one sharp paint scheme.
Jim Six follows up with an article on modeling Alco’s Century diesels with tips on combining parts from plastic models to build a C420, C424, and C425. It is a nice pairing for the previous article and Jim Six was responsible for some great articles including this one. He took AHM models, waved his magic modeling wand, and presto! I really do enjoy these type of transformation articles even if I never plan on doing these models.
Now we have the main event. Bruce Chubb: Part 1 C/MRI. I like the back story he tells: “I resisted computerizing the Sunset Valley for quite a few years….Linn Westcott often used to ask me when I was going to put a computer on my railroad. I would respond with something like, “I really don’t plan to do it – it works just great the way it is, “ or “I like it without a computer,” and sometimes more strongly, “I don’t want a computer running my railroad!” The reluctant hero turned pioneer. He goes on to describe the computer he was using at the time he wrote this (and let’s wrap out heads around the specs): Heathkit H-8 computer with 56k memory, H-19 CRT display/keyboard, three 5.25” floppy drives, H-14 line printer, and bus extender card. He goes on to say that you don’t really have to have that large of a computer as you can make one with 16k memory and 1 floppy drive work. To build the baseline unit to set up C/MRI cost about $300 in 1985 or $885 in 2025 dollars.
The next article kind of gives the reader a breather from this new and wild computer layout control stuff. It is a one pager on building rock-fill crib walls. A straight-forward, simple modeling article using wooden match sticks.
Improving N scale snaptrack remote-controlled turnouts follows the rock-filled crib. I’m out of my depth here to even know if there would be anything useful. I don’t know N scale well enough to even know if today’s Atlas N scale turnouts need improving.
A 3 x 7 trackplan for an N scale layout is presented for your reading enjoyment. While the layout is freelance, it is based on the Santa Fe in the Houston/Galveston area. The layout features a courthouse square type of town. The layout is intended to be viewed/operated from 2 sides and a dense line of trees hides “layover” tracks from the town. There is a plywood mill that is represented by flats to act as another viewblock on the backside of the dense trees. They hide the built-in loop used for continuous running. The author designed this layout as he did not have the space to start his dream layout, but his design allows for it to be incorporated into a larger layout at a later date. Smaller modeling is better than no modeling if you have eyes on a dream layout that is on hold.
The second place finisher in the Young Author Contest senior division was Chris MacKay for his scratchbuilt Canadian National transfer caboose article. Again, this younger modeler did an outstanding job and is continuing evidence that the pages of MR should offer challenges to modelers young and old, beginner and grizzled veteran alike. This Young Author contest highlighted some great talent. He built the caboose from plans that appeared in the August 1981 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman and wrote an article that appeared in Model Railroader. I know there was a time that you didn’t dare mention the competitor’s name but back in ’85 there was no problem with it. My feelings is that pretending they don’t exist doesn’t mean that they don’t. There’s plenty of room for both publications and forbidding the other to be mentioned will not increase sales nor will readers abandon the magazine for the competitor just because of a reference in an article. I would believe that the vast, vast majority know that both exist so it does no harm to acknowledge it. Re-visiting the issue of challenging the reader, the young author wraps up the article with: “I’m pleased with the way my model turned out – it’s much better that I would have thought I was capable of doing. It was also much easier than I expected, and I look forward to even more scratchbuilding projects using styrene.” There is a lot to be learned in those couple of sentences as far as attitudes towards young modelers or beginning modelers. Challenge them. Inspire them. Teach them. Don’t lower expectations so low that the content suffers.
Another one-pager appears next. Wendell Greer shows us how he used copper clad printed circuit boards to make sidewalks that could light his streetlights without having to run a bunch of wires under the layout. He also used it for the back wall of building flats so he could connect his interior lighting to it. Pretty nifty. Oops, sorry. Nifty is from the wrong decade. Pretty rad, dude.
I’m flipping through Symposium on Electronics. If you are interested, it mostly covers throttle circuits this month with a few other flasher, horn, detection, and constant lighting circuits thrown in.
Paint Shop gives us information on how to model 4 variations of a Northern Pacific “plain brown” 40-ft boxcar. The boxcars had varying lettering schemes and doors.
MR Workshop has a piece on making manual turnout controls with a hand-made piano wire point spring connected to an operating key that is located on the layout fascia. It lives in the same vein as manual control rods for turnout control but in this case, the piano wire spring holds the turnout in a normal position. It looks to be a fairly simple turnout control option. MR Workshop also has a contribution on securing buildings to the layout through the use of internal gussets and screws, driving screw through a detail, such as a barrel that is firmly attached to the structure, or through the use of small pins inserted through holes in the wall and into the layout. All three are simple but effective.
What a balanced issue. I agree that it is a landmark issue with the first in the C/MRI series. But throughout the issues there was this analog/digital type of give and take. You had two letters in Railway post office bemoaning computers in model railroading and you had C/MRI. You had old-fashioned scratchbuilt steam locomotives and you had electronic circuits. Throw in some kitbashing, a couple easier articles, some layouts and you have balance across many subject areas. Well done.
Jeff