Model of abandoned storefront.

Building 2: Derelict Storefront

Posted Sep 30, 2022
Updated Apr 29, 2023

I started this project on April 7, 2019, a few months after purchasing the Design Preservation Models (Woodland Scenics) kit “Kelly’s Saloon” at the train show in Puyallup. The idea to model a derelict storefront came when browsing Pittsburgh Bureau of Building Inspection photographs on Historic Pittsburgh.

I found one of them particularly appealing, and it had the same basic storefront design as this kit, making it easy to recreate. I liked the broken windows, the grime, the many signs and posters attached to the front, and the fact that two of the posters were for Kennywood and West View, two local amusement parks. The photos were of such high resolution that I was able to read all of the lettering on the signs and recreate them at scale in Illustrator and Photoshop. I completed this model on December 17, 2020.…

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Making 1940s Billboards from Scale Lumber

Posted Sep 29, 2022
Updated Jul 17, 2023

Something that stood out to me in photos of Pittsburgh street scenes in the 1930s and 1940 is the number of billboards on roads and buildings. There were dozens on Carson Street in what I call the Terminal and West End scenes. Most of them had the same basic wood construction, usually painted green. I’ve seen photos of a different design, painted white, but the green ones were more common.

I found plans for scratch-building this type of billboard using scale lumber, in an article titled “Highway billboards from the 1930s and ’40s” by Stanley Reynolds in the August 1989 issue of Model Railroader magazine. In another issue (I’ve lost track of which one), the magazine provided copies of vintage billboard graphics, which I printed on my crappy old inkjet printer. Future billboards (I’ll need a lot more) will be printed on my new color laser printer, which prints in higher quality.

I assembled one of my first billboards without its support structure and mounted it to the side of Building 2, the derelict storefront. These first two billboards were built and painted over a few days each, in June 2020.…

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Building 1 - Stanley Radio

Building 1: Radio Shop

Posted Sep 28, 2022
Updated Apr 29, 2023

I started this project on January 20, 2019, after purchasing the Design Preservation Models (Woodland Scenics) kit, “Pam’s Pet Shop” at the train show in Puyallup, which was the first structure kit I’d built in 30 years. I initially planned to put a small restaurant and second floor apartment inside, but later decided it was too small for a restaurant, and chose a radio shop instead, which needs very little space, and would help convey the late 1940s era.

By March 2019, I had started to build interior walls and floors and installed LED lighting, which by April was animated by an Arduino to simulate a 24-hour cycle of lights coming on and being turned off in each room at different times. The animation included a simulated TV flicker effect in the living room of the second floor apartment. TVs were still a pretty new thing in 1949, but they were on the market, and I figured the owner of a radio shop would be the type of person to be an early adopter of the technology, and might have one in his living room. However, when I obtained 3D printed vintage radios, they came with a small vintage …

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The Shortcomings of Athearn Heavyweights

Posted Sep 11, 2022

In the year or more that I’ve been planning for a roster, using the B&O’s October 1949 consist book as a guide, my intention has been to use old Athearn cars for the heavyweights (spruced up with paint, new wheels, interior detail and lighting), and more modern models for the streamlined lightweight cars, which are only needed for two of the seven B&O trains through Pittsburgh. However, I’m now thinking I’ll use the Athearn cars only for the two B&O trains in the daytime operating session (and probably the P&LE/NYC commuter trains), and will go with modern models for all five of the night session trains, both lightweight and heavyweight.

The Shortness is Only Acceptable in Isolation

The shift in thought came when I purchased two modern models of heavyweight combines to use with the Athearn heavyweights, since Athearn didn’t make coach/baggage combines. The fact that the Athearn models are about an inch too short becomes very apparent next the the modern cars, which are the correct 72 scale feet long. My reason for wanting to use Athearn heavyweights in the first place was so that I could incorporate the seven that my dad built from kits in the …

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Interesting Joint Service

Posted Sep 10, 2022
Updated Sep 11, 2022

From an operations perspective, the most interesting passenger service at the P&LE Pittsburgh terminal in 1949 was the joint operation of the B&O’s Washingtonian and the P&LE’s Steel King, running between Baltimore and Cleveland in two hours and forty minutes, the fastest option at the time. The Steel King operated on the segment west of Pittsburgh, and the Washingtonian operated on the segment east of Pittsburgh. When arriving in Pittsburgh, incoming trains would hand off their last two cars (an Erie coach and a B&O parlor-dining-lounge car) to the counterpart train for the rest of the run, with about 30-40 minutes between the arrival of the inbound and the departure of the outbound.

Engineer David Budd (with glasses) and Fireman Phillip J. Hagerty (on ladder) posing with four steel company secretaries in front of the Steel King. May 1, 1950. Photo from Historic Pittsburgh.

The Steel King was itself a joint operation with the Erie Railroad, which contributed half the motive power and one coach. The train was pulled on alternating days by either Erie or P&LE locomotives, while the other was serviced in Youngstown between runs. Since the morning arrival and evening departure in Pittsburgh both occur …

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