Mar/Apr 2021
This column is a follow-up to my “Moving the San Juan Central” in the January/February 2021 GAZETTE. In that column, as you may recall, I addressed not only the history of this seminal HOn3 project railroad built by Malcolm Furlow on behalf of Model Railroader, but its ultimate destination to the California State Railroad Museum (CSRM) as part of an exhibit on scale model railroading.
This exhibit, The Magic of Scale Model Railroading (or just “the Exhibit” as we call it) is sponsored by the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA), and was designed by The Sibette Group, and fabricated/installed by Gizmo Art Production of San Francisco. While I will be writing a comprehensive article for the NMRA Magazine on the history, elements and features of this Exhibit, in this column, I want to focus on the narrow gauge portions of interest to our readers. In so doing, please understand that the Exhibit is not a narrow gauge exhibit, but rather one that just happened to end up with significant narrow gauge elements.
A little history. In 2004, the NMRA decided to build an exhibit on model railroading. Bob Brown and I serve on the Howell Day Museum Committee of the NMRA. At that point, the design of the exhibit, the location, and even the scope of the exhibit was not defined. For years, the NMRA hoped to build a museum on scale model railroading, but the multi-million-dollar price tag always seemed to be a barrier to such plans. We on the committee felt that starting with an exhibit in an established museum would probably be a more cost effective way to tell the public the story of our hobby. As Bob Brown often says, “If you want to sell the hobby, show the public what we do.” Such an exhibit would also serve as a precursor for any future museum and serve as a learning tool for such a project. Much as starting with a small model railroad instead of trying to fill the basement with a dream layout, this exhibit we felt would establish our bona fides in the museum industry, but also provide a good sense of what was involved in creating a museum.
We initially engaged a design firm in Tennessee, where NMRA headquarters are located, to develop an exhibit plan. They came up with some very innovative ideas and we simultaneously decided some important policy issues. First, we wanted the exhibit to be at a prestigious and well-attended railway museum somewhere in the United States. Secondly, we wanted the exhibit to focus on scale model railroading, which the NMRA is all about. Thirdly, we wanted the exhibit to be entirely funded by donations and not by Association dues.
After much searching and negotiation, the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento offered free space in what they call their gallery level at the museum. This space had proven difficult for CSRM to utilize. The space was used for traveling exhibits simply because the museum itself could not determine a good use for the space. It sits above the curved roundhouse-style portion of the Museum and features elaborate, but intrusive roof trusses, segmented spaces and essentially consists of two large rooms separated by a curved gallery overlooking the roundhouse floor. We were offered one large hall, the curved gallery and a small part of another hall.
Bob Brown developed a good plan for the exhibit and the essence of that plan is eventually what was installed although in a very different format. One thing we did discover with this exhibit is that well-intentioned amateurs are simply that. When the design professionals get involved, generally their ideas are far superior to the amateurs. However, there were occasions when their lack of knowledge of the hobby became an issue and our ideas were accepted as superior to their own initial thoughts.
Although we began the process in 2004, it was not until 2009 that we were able to sign an agreement with CSRM about the exhibit, and not until 2019 that actual installation began. If you are curious as to all of the ins and outs and complications, please read my future article in the NMRA Magazine. Otherwise, suffice to say that the end result justified all of the waiting. And although the Exhibit was never intended to be a narrow gauge focused exhibit, serendipity resulted in many narrow gauge elements to the Exhibit.
After all, we could only exhibit what we could obtain. The Exhibit is broken into parts due to the fragmented nature of the space. The entry is past a children’s train-themed play area, which occupies most of one large hall, and this entry features an impressively tall large-scale trestle scene with a narrow gauge train on top. A smaller N scale version is tucked within the large-scale trestle. The adjacent curved gallery is home to the Timeline, the subject of this issue’s Robert’s Ramblings, and a series of dioramas/model railroads, designed to inspire and illustrate the diversity of model railroad interests, with most of the layouts being narrow gauge.
In order, the On30 Smuggler’s Cove is first in line. This magnificent New England-based seaport layout was described in a three-part series beginning in the March/April 2013 issue of the GAZETTE. Built by Australian modelers Geoff Knott and Michael Flack, of Red Stag Logging fame, the series was briefly interrupted by Knott’s untimely death. Smuggler’s Cove was built expressly for the Exhibit as the Australasian Region, NMRA’s contribution. An earlier diorama was offered, but the unforeseen delays with the Exhibit proved a problem and the original layout was sent to Dave Revela’s Finescale Museum in Florida. Its replacement is a masterpiece of construction and detailing, depicting a fictional New England seaport town served by a typical two-foot(ish) railroad.
Chama, in Sn3 comes next. This diorama depicts Chama yard circa 1955, and for years was the traveling exhibit for PBL until retired to Chama, New Mexico for the Narrow Gauge Preservation Foundation’s visitor center once located there. The NGPF generously, and with some local reluctance from the Chama Chamber of Commerce, sent Chama for the Exhibit. Jimmy Booth of PBL drove it out and we performed a little restoration work. Next in line is the HOn3 San Juan Central, the subject of last month’s column. Across a short aisle away from the SJC is a Bob Brown, MMR, reconstructed model of Occidental, California, built by the late Boone Morrison in O scale for his On3 North Pacific Coast layout. For years, Boone wrote a column on the NPC and its California narrow gauge heritage for the GAZETTE.
Next to Occidental, is a small N scale diorama entitled the “Monitor,” exactly recreating a Matthew Brady Civil War photo showing a mortar on a flatcar with boxcars and troops all around. Builder Mike Blumensaadt, MMR, copied each element of that photo in 9 mm gauge. Beyond these dioramas is a portion of Irv Shulz’s turn of the last century, Michigan-based iron ore model railroad. The HO Ore Dock scene features a small station and a ship being loaded from a wharf-side ore bunker.
The last two pieces return to HOn3 and narrow gauge, both from the Estate of Jim Vail. The first is Jim’s truncated, but impressive West Side Lumber Company sawmill from his layout, described in the January through May 2007 issues of the GAZETTE. This scene was originally sold to a local modeler, Mike Davis, who graciously donated it back to the Exhibit. Bob Brown and I added a small farmhouse scene in one bare corner to fit the space and otherwise fixed some details, but left the sawmill much as built by Jim. The last exhibit in this area, also by Jim, is his Holmes Lime Company described in the March and May 2014 issues of the GAZETTE. This compact facility illustrates a local industry that served the 3-foot gauge South Pacific Coast Railroad.
After the layouts/dioramas, a turn takes you into the remaining large hall with a panel on the NMRA, a series of written testimonials from model railroaders, a display of the covers of over 80 model railroad magazines past and present, a bookcase of vintage model railroading books with the salvaged Gorre control panels from the Gorre & Daphetid, a wall with hundreds of components and a lesson on how to become a model railroader, an operable layout under construction, a display on Operations, and the Modeler’s Corner with models from Whit Towers, John Allen, Irv Shulz, and Mel Thornburgh, among others. Dominating the hall is the Wall of Trains, with some eighteen, 40-foot long shelves of complete trains in all scales and types.
Amongst this impressive wall’s many trains are an HOn3 coal train with two K-27’s pulling a string of gondolas and a caboose from Kevin Shanahan, whose Ophir Loop-based RGS layout has been featured in the GAZETTE. There is also an HOn3 Silverton Train circa the 1950s, complete with K-28 and phony diamond stack pulling passenger cars in Grande Gold, provided by the Narrow Gauge Preservation Foundation. On these trains, the locomotives are brass imports, painted and weathered. The coal cars/caboose are by Blackstone and the passenger cars are LaBelle. At the bottom of this wall, are a large-scale narrow gauge mixed freight train, as well as a logging train, plus a series of California/Hawaiian narrow gauge boxcars, all from Bob Brown’s collection.
The Exhibit should be open when you receive this issue, but because of Covid-19, do check before visiting. Bob deserves a lion’s share of the credit for his many contributions to its design and message. By any measure, it is impressive and though not intended to promote narrow gauge as much as scale model railroading, the many narrow gauge components are pretty impressive in their own right. I know Bob and I would enjoy hearing your impressions if you visit the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, California, to see the NMRA’s Magic of Scale Model Railroading Exhibit. Well, that’s all for now; until next time — write, if the mood strikes.