Model Train Journal

Hello O scale world .

We return to the Museum of Science and Industry layout .... opened Jan 1941 built by Minton Cronkhite ( and helpers) laid out in Q gauge .

Passenger trains numbered two ... heavy weight set and the Chief pulling the streamlined cars made of Montel metal ( looks like aged stainless) . Minton had montel cars on his home layout as early as 1938 ...also used on the SF Treasure Island layout in 1939. The Montel cars are lovely with operating vestibules .. ( akin to Crovan passenger cars ...as Minton was one of the initial partners in Crovan) . Montel passenger car set was run as a 7 car set due to passing siding lengths. (freights trains limited to 15 cars).

Post war Bob Smith provides PA's to run in the layout as Santa Fe (owner of the layout) wanted to keep up to date with actual equipment being used on the railroad . Unknown if passenger cars were changed as this time . MRC article from 1950 covering the layout uses old stock photos and description of layout ..so of little use.

Bob Smith rebuilds the layout to O gauge 1952/3 ... adding FA's ... ( All Nation ? or his own? ) running as ABA .....now pulling 8 cars ... so passing sidings may have been lengthened or eliminated/not used ? ... Two postcard exist from this era ... yes taken from 50' away ...but you can see two sets of ABA pulling 8 passenger cars each gleaming under the spot lights. Note the length of the passenger cars compared to the FA's could those cars be 17/64ths?

As a kid in the mid / late 60's -70's ... fond memories of the glorious layout with the shiny Santa Fe passenger cars that reflected like mirrors in they passed .... refer back to the postcard images you can see the high glow of the cars even at 50' .

Last passenger cars on the layout included double decker type cars also of the high shine finish .. no photos that I've found yet ...

Last week an unusual collection of passenger cars was found ....including 4 of the Montel , 3 Exacta in chrome finish , 9 Exacta's paint silver , and one Pomona car similar to the Minton set found in the San Diego museum.

Bob Turner in a prior posting mentioned that Bob Smith had plated the PA's .... so would it make sense that the passenger cars they pulled would also be plated? CLW produced the PA's in 46/7 ... high time when Exacta was ramped up to provide their 90% correct cars in both 1/4" and 17/64ths ... the PA's that ran on the MSI layout were lashed up as a ABA ...and are bigger then the later used FA's ...so would the choice of 17/64ths be a better match ? ...Has anyone ever measured the CLW cast bodied PA's to see their actual scale ?

Hopefully in time more photos will surface from the millions of folks who saw the layout over the decades...to help fill in more details .
Cheers Carey
Cars were found without trucks .... so cast Lobaugh trucks on the cars as shown are all wrong ... but better than dragging the cars around the layout without wheels at all .

Carey Williams wrote:Passenger trains numbered two ... heavy weight set and the Chief pulling the streamlined cars made of Montel metal ( looks like aged stainless).

Do you mean Monel metal?

Definitely MONEL. Montel was a talk show host.

The layout was updated with second generation diesel power.....I'm guessing 70's or later. There is an article on the update in an issue of "O Scale News 48/ft". Might even be on the cover page, but that's a guess on my part. I think they also laid new track.

Funny we never got Smith on record with any of this. I tried, but I am not a skilled interviewer.

As a guess, I would say that some of the 600 or so cast PAs made it to the layout - Bob didn't bring it up when he told us the Alco story. I think the next step was All Nation F3s. Not at all sure about FAs, and not even sure Santa Fe had them.

Monel metal is high in nickel. Easy to look up - it seems to age to a smoky grey. Maroon may have a few of these. I think I will guess that Lobaugh trucks were used in even the Q gauge layout.

Thanks for the neat photos!

I don't believe they were FA's given the museum and the Santa Fe's penchant for accuracy. I remember them as EMD F-units, whether All-nation or Bob's I don't recall.

ATSF didn't roster Alco FA's.

This, from Wikipedia, is interesting, and I think worth repeating here:

Monel is a group of nickel alloys, primarily composed of nickel (from 52 to 67%) and copper, with small amounts of iron, manganese, carbon, and silicon. (Alloys with copper contents 60% or more are called cupronickel.)

Stronger than pure nickel, Monel alloys are resistant to corrosion by many agents, including rapidly flowing seawater. They can be fabricated readily by hot- and cold-working, machining, and welding.[2]

Monel was created by Robert Crooks Stanley, who worked for the International Nickel Company (INCO) in 1901. Monel alloy 400 is a binary alloy of the same proportions of nickel and copper as is found naturally in the nickel ore from the Sudbury (Ontario) mines and is therefore considered a puritan alloy.[i][3][4] Monel was named after company president Ambrose Monell, and patented in 1906.[5] One L was dropped, because family names were not allowed as trademarks at that time.[1] The name is now a trademark of Special Metals Corporation.

Hello all
Yes monel sorry mistype
Yes F units ..EMD ... but CLW made F units or were they FT's also? Cast bodies by Adams ?
I have a photo of the PA's on the layout pulling passenger cars ..can post tomorrow .
In the article covering Minton's placement on the O scale hall of fame ...the plated PA's are cited . My brother in law at one timed owned a set of plated PA's from the MSI layout ...( got rid of them when better ( in his eyes) PA's were made. )
The Minton monel cars in the San Diego museum have nice upscale detailed ...non Lobaugh style trucks ...
Lobaugh is given credit for providing some cars for the layout ..freight I'd assume .
Minton would have worked closely with Lobaugh at the 39 Treasure Island exhibits ...,as Lobaugh had a booth where you could watch engines being built before your very eyes.
Cheers Carey

Let me see if I have some leftover photos to contribute.



These are Monel Metal, probably now in Maroon's collection. They may be Pomona Valley. And yes, Max Schwanda had some Cronkhite Monel cars, and yes, they had exquisite trucks - sprung, as I recall. Could have been Ace, or Graceline?

Yes - quite interested in seeing the M& SF Alco plated PAs. Also interested in plating a pair of mine, but so far have not found anybody doing nickel. Don't want silver - tarnishes too quickly.

Carey Williams wrote:Hello all
Yes monel sorry mistype
Yes F units ..EMD ... but CLW made F units or were they FT's also? Cast bodies by Adams ?

Carey

CLW made F3's, F7's, and E8's. The bodies were in several pieces, not one piece like the traditional Adams. Did Adams make the parts? Beats me. I've seen some assembled kits that were only surpassed by Keys. (opinion)

Only the mis-shapen Baldwin E units were one piece, and even those may have had separate ends. The Adams typically were six pieces, soldered together.

I don't know when Smith started the etched sides, but strongly suspect he used A-N on the Chicago layout. I saw a box of worn out transmissions from the junk box of the M& SF, and they were A-N.

Hello Bob and the World

Smith having SantaFe as a client,....they could have easily,funded many of the engine projects ...a few for the layout and corporate offices ...,molds paid for to produce kits for the masses. FM and SW models were on the MSI layout,...Smith did the rebuild of the layout in1952..and maintained the layout for awhile .....Smith moved to FLA in the 60's? ... Early F units could easily have been CLW product ...when Smith went south ..All Nations would have been an easier replacement,...and available cheaply locally ...F units ruled the layout from 50's - 70's ...pulling passenger and freight ...logging many miles ...they went through,a lot of F units over the years .
Here is a photo of the PA's ...running across the bridge to the Grand Canyon ....also had fun trying to run a Minton train last night ......engine from 1934...prior to NMRA back to back standards ...switches to NM RA ... A no go ..engine does not like my 48" radi on the inner loop ....outer loop with 55" not operational yet ....so a short passing siding run ..
Cheers Carey

https://youtu.be/Li3Z8RC2_YI

Those look like the cast units. Hard to tell if plated or painted. It is nice to know that plated ones exist.

Hello Bob thank you for posting the photos of the monel Pomona car ....those match the one that came with the group ...,much heavier gauge metal than found on the other cars .