Welcome to the March 16 version of the Model Railroader book club, where each week I select an old issue of the magazine, and those who have the All Access Pass to the digital archive, or have the DVD of prior issues, or have the issue in hard copy, are invited to read the issue and then discuss anything and everything about it that you find interesting, just as we would in a book club.
I chose March 1944 for a very particular reason – it was the first installment of Frank Ellison’s groundbreaking series of essays, The Art of Model Railroading. MR reprinted the series in 1964-65, and then reprinted a condensed version years after that. It remains an influential and thought provoking series of articles because it really gets down into first principles of the hobby – why are we doing all of this? To engineer a model layout that “works?” To build accurate models that really run? Ellison says no - the reason is to create a working model of a railroad transportation system with all that that implies and entails. And that in turn can influence what kind of layout we build and what kind of equipment we run on it. Although only part 1 is in the March '44 issue, I suggest reading the entire series – it will all be fair game for this week’s book club.
One article that should be of continuing value and interest is the one by “Boomer Pete” about bridge engineering, with useful and instructive drawings of key parts of a girder bridge. A nice drawing of a D&RG 4-4-0 of the 1880s is marred by a botched scan of the magazine – the drawing is repeated twice and is partly cut off both in drawing and text both times. I lack the original issue so I cannot say what is missing, but if Kalmbach is so inclined I would urge them to redo this particular set of pages.
The war hangs heavy over the issue - and perhaps the war was the perfect time for a “thought piece” such as Ellison’s ser
I have the whole year 1944 in print, that one I haven’t gotten rid of despite having the DVD and now the archive option. First time through the whole year it was interesting to get the state of the world and the war from a model railroad perspective. Interesting place to look is January 1942 - you can get a sense of when they put the issue to bed based on some comments you find about the “war with Japan” - no mention of Germany.
Once I paged through March 1944 I remembered it - especially the one pager on digging out a trench in your partially dug basement to make more room for a layout! I once rented a house like that, although the fully dug cement portion was the majority, and the dirt portion had way too much of a vertical difference to consider running a trench into it like that.
The ads, of course, all the big manufacturers converted over to making war materiel. Who knew - fine machining needed for model trains is the same sort of fine machining needed for precision parts for military applications. The Red Ball ad - I think that was actually literal - somehwere around that time his factory burned down.
Make do was certainly the byword of the day - look at Wagner’s article - the couplings he uses are pieces of wire insulation!
Three items that caught my eye in the Railway Post Office
In the Letter “Oversized Rails” mention is made of Q gauge which is a new one on me though I gather that the rail gauge was narrower than O gauge by .0625” and the scale was 1:45 compared to O scale 1:48.
While I’m a great believer in planning ahead and it may have been said that “the war was going to be over by Christmas” but I would have thought that “Post War Plans” in March 44 were far too optimistic.
They must have bred them tough in those days, I’m amazed that as a flight instructor doing over 100 hours a month training army cadets to fly Mr Robert M Hill had the time to consider the pros and cons between 6 and 12 volt systems. I guess it was his “Happy Place to escape to.
Other stuff.
Following the discussion regarding the N.M.R.A in last week’s book club, I see that “British Model Rails Ask Affiliation with N.M.R.A.”
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I always thought Q gauge wass O scale with proper track gauge. Standard O scale track gauge works out to be more like 5’, not 4’ 8 1/2". Old issues of model magazines talk about it that way, but then I’ve also seen it the other way, making the models bigger (1:45) to fit the width of O scale track.
I think the problem is part comes from the early days of using ‘scale’ and ‘gauge’ as interchangeable terms - they are most definitely not. If today you say you are building an HO gauge layout, are you building standard gauge HO scale, or O scale 2 1/2’ narrow gauge? Or some other combination, whatever HO gauge track works out to be in larger scales. Or a super-broad gauge N scale layout.
The June 1966 issue of MR has an article on Minton Cronkhite, and says that the Q gauge he used was a corrected gauge for 1:48 O scale models. That is not the same as the 17/64" scale that was the corrected scale for O gauge track. That was popular at one time particularly for trolley models, perhaps because the wider gauge of O gauge was more difficult to accomodate with the smaller size of trolleys. I have some recollection that the beatiful freight car trucks by Carl Auel from the 1930s were 17/64 scale - they are really impressive models for their time and even today.
Since then an even more precise corrected gauge for 1:48 has gained popularity and I do not believe it is called Q.
Cronkhite by the way designed and built the O scale layout that was at Chicago’s Museum of Science & Industry for years - the one I saw during my school trip to Chicago in the early 1960s. It was impressive and the Santa Fe had paid for some upgrades in equipment over the years so we saw blue and yellow diesels.
I enjoyed reading the Art of Model Railroading. Very forward in its thinking for the time. I have to wonder though, that I am not that kind of model railroader. Operation leaves me high and dry. I am a model builder and models of trains are my prefered outlet. I rather glazed over as Mr. Ellison described the operational manouvers on the layout. I similarly do when magazines print this kind of article today. But that is the joy of model railroading, there is a place for us all!
Well Greg I know you are not the only person who feels that way about operating and operating sessions, and I know I feel a certain dread when you find you have to sit through an hour lecture in order to start an operating session on some layouts. But there is alot of genuine fun to be had on a layout that runs well and has an operating system that can be readily grasped. And I am glad you gave Ellison a fair read.