John Allen's articles in M.R.


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I have heard people complain about how many articles John Allen wrote while he was alive, in Model Railroader Magazine. This is similar to people complaining about Malcom Furlow's articles in the 1980s. I have counted how many articles John wrote, between July of 1946 and his death in 1973 and found he only had 21 articles in that 27 year span. While it is true that John had many photographs published in the magazine (how many, I'm unsure) however in most people's eyes his layout was impressive. Malcom Furlow, on the other hand, had 30 articles in 9 year span from August of 1980 to December of 1989! The truth of the matter is there were many people who had far more articles published in Model Railroader than either of these two people. It's my opinion that when people show real talent for a subject, they should (if they like) write often, as I like to see and read about how they do things! Pelle Soeborg is another example of someone who has a lot of talent and is willing to share how he does things and I greatly appreciate. I don't know why people complain about talented people contributing to the model railroading press, maybe it's sour grapes. Again, this is only my opinion and last I heard my opinion and a $1.50 will still buy me a cup of coffee!
 
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We had a funeral insurance here that advertised on TV that said there premiums were no more than the price of a cup of coffee per day, so I always took that to mean "Hey, don't expect us to not increase our premiums either". I also remember in NZ, back in the early 60's, finding a copy of MR in a used book shop when I had never seen one on a magazine stand anywhere. There were 2 layouts featured in it, one was an 8 x 4 by an author I have now forgotten, but did influence me while I was building a Marklin layout for my 2 young sons (and myself) in a spare bedroom. That layout that had 2 lines separately controlled, but divided into 3 blocks so one train could pass from one circuit to the other while the other waited in the isolated 3rd block, unfortunately finished up semi discarded where there mother, after our separation, placed it, in the dirt of an open basement.

The other featured layout was the G & D, but my memory of the article is that it was written in the 3rd person. It was of John Allen's original 10 x 5 plan, and I based my (our) layout as best I could as a facsimile of his with features of the other as well. JA's front scene of the timber truss through bridge, crossing the entry tracks into his turntable/engine yard, has always been an element I've tried to incorporate into a layout design ever since. The plan for that ill fated layout had an outer edge oval, the second was a figure 8, borrowed from the other MR layout, with grades so the 8 crossed in the middle. To connect the two involved involved that 3rd track performing a transition between the two and involved a grade and turnouts that had a grade a fairground roller coaster would be proud of. At least the Marklin engines (4-6-2 + tender and an electric w pantographs) were so heavy and with such deep flanges that the speed with which it was necessary to fling a train at that grade (3 short coaches), derailments/disasters were avoided.

All in all, I can credit MR mag to providing me with a book that became my MR Bible, until I moved to Aussie in the mid 80's and bought a subscription. It certainly never bothered me who wrote an article in MR, it was all golden information to an information starved fan like me, and what not long after got me involved into a club so I could enjoy the hobby directly.
 
I am a big fan of John Allen. I was lucky enough to have had the opportunity to attend a number of operating sessions on his G&D ayout whe I was assigned to temporary instructor duty att Mare Island in the bay area. I happened on a hobby shop in the area and was just browsing when a gentleman started a conversation in the store and when he found out that I was in the service and from Montana he extended an invitation to meet John and attend an operating session. I almost wet my pants. I had been reading everything I could find that had anything to do with his layout.

When I first saw the layout my jaw dropped. What a sight. One thing that did strike me is that the layout wasn't as big as it appeared in magazine articles, but with the use of mirrors it really increased the look of the size. One of my hobbies was photography and being that John was a professional photographer, we did strike it off quite well.

At the time John was probably at the leading edge of the hobby and I'm sure tha he inspired many modelers. He did me. I had a good friend up in Cascade, MT who also had met John and he also had visited John's layout ant it was easy to see that he took a lot from his visit to the layout. He had scenery that extended right to the floor and took many ideas from John's layout and incorporated them into his layout. Unfortunately he pssed away a number of years ago, but his layout was moved to the Montana Railroad Museum in Great Falls and it will be incorporated into the Great Falls Model Railroad Club.

I never could get enough articles and photos of the Gorre & Daphetid Railroad.

Another great railroad layout I managed to get a look at was the Franklin & South Manchester built by George Sellios. I only got to see the first section of the build back in the 90's and the detail is second to none. This is another model railroad that I have been following for many years.
 
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Those complaining are often people who produce nothing themselves. They kvetch and whinge over what they see, but have no idea what it takes to produce a successful magazine lasting through several successive generations. Their opinions are worth a pinch of coon poo.
 
Selector, I agree! I wonder if it might not be a bit of Sour Grapes, too? Chet, how lucky to have been able to both see and operate the GD and also meet John. Where you a part of the group when Andy Sperandeo was there?
 
Selector said:
Those complaining are often people who produce nothing themselves. They kvetch and whinge over what they see, but have no idea what it takes to produce a successful magazine lasting through several successive generations. Their opinions are worth a pinch of coon poo.
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Crandell You crack me up! Never heard that "pinch of coon poo" before - a classic!

I subscribe to the other end of the spectrum: There can never be enough pictures of good and leading edge modeling. My whinge with publications is that there are too many adds and not enough photos of excellent models: example: a 1/8 page covering a scratch 4-8-8-4 .. and a full page on a DCC throttle.
 
How this thread got started is I have access to every issue of Model Railroader through their "All Time Digital Archives" and thought I should go through, looking at the cover and contents of each issue. I've been looking for articles that I am interested in. I started out wanting to find everything written by Malcom Furlow and as I was looking at his stuff, I added an "Of interest" for myself, Northern Pacific, John Allen, Rio Grande Southern, Narrow Gauge, Jack Burgess and finally, Frank Ellison. I started with the year 1946, as there wasn't much going on in HO until after the war. maybe at some point I will go back farther as I am certain that some great information is availabel back there. I am up to 1983 and am only looking at the contents, for coming up with a list of stuff I will go back to.
 
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I would welcome the critics of John Allen, Malcom Furlow, Howard Zane, George Sellios and other talented Model Railroaders, to post photographs of their home layouts. The layouts of these modelers have inspired countless other modelers who hope to achieve similar results.

I only wish I had the privilege to have visited John Allen's layout and I have read every article I could find that Allen wrote or was written about Allen's Gorre & Daphetid. In my plans for 2017 is a trip east next year to visit George Sellios' Franklin and South Manchester railroad.

Greg
 
I've only briefly been acquainted with John Allen's work and plan on obtaining his book one of these days. Earlier in this thread someone mentioned Pelle Solberg. While I generally don't read his articles because my layout is intended to be the exact opposite of his modeling, (1939 in the mountains, versus modern desert) I have to respect him and appreciate what he is doing for the hobby. I wish there were other talented modelers that would take a John Allen-craftsman approach utilizing modern technologies and guide us into the future.
 
I highly recommend Lynn Westcott's Book on The Gorre & Daphetid! It is thorough and very interesting. I know it is fairly expensive; but, well worth the price. I am also a HUGE fan of the Franklin and South Manchester. I read all of Pelle Soeborg's articles, even though I don't have; or, feel I need an airbrush. I just love seeing and hearing what true artists are up to and how they do it!
 
Railrunner130 said:
I've only briefly been acquainted with John Allen's work and plan on obtaining his book one of these days. Earlier in this thread someone mentioned Pelle Solberg. While I generally don't read his articles because my layout is intended to be the exact opposite of his modeling, (1939 in the mountains, versus modern desert) I have to respect him and appreciate what he is doing for the hobby. I wish there were other talented modelers that would take a John Allen-craftsman approach utilizing modern technologies and guide us into the future.
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Not real sure what you mean, Railrunner130, in your post? There are many incredibly talented modelers on this website.
 
A recent article of Pelle's discussing the fitting of turnouts to correct track alignments was quite revealing and helped solve an issue on the club layout because no-one thought of or had considered the possibility of shortening (cutting) the diverging track's stub on a Peco turnout to make it fit. The sort of revelation that we can do with manufactured set track, just as we do with flex, a "light bulb" moment.
 
During my browsing of Model Railroader Magazines from 1946 forward, I was struck by how many articles where about building projects, specific to a certain railroad with multi-view plans. There was so much information provided and my guess is, this was because if you wanted that specific freight, passenger car; or, structure for you layout, you had to build it from scratch back then. I find issues from the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s to contain more useful information than what is written about today. Back then, if you had a model railroad you where much more likely to call it a PIKE as opposed to a LAYOUT.

Another modeler who I think is wonderful is Michael Tylick. He has modeled in HO and O scale and written a few articles in MR, I think Mr. Tylick is as good as George Sellios and they model similar types of layouts.
 
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Sirfoldalot said:
Not real sure what you mean, Railrunner130, in your post? There are many incredibly talented modelers on this website.
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I apologize. I thought about it after I posted. I left that too open-ended and I agree 100% that there are many talented people here and elsewhere. HOExplorer for example, shares his immense talents with us and is a great example of whom I'm looking for to emulate. Someone that gets down in the weeds and shows us the nitty, gritty of building a layout and it's components. Someone that scratchbuilds most of what he does.
 
How many of us here have the ability to visit Model Railroaders All Time Digital Archive? If you do not have this ability, it looks like it would cost you around $32.00 per year to join. So, for $32.00 per year you have access to every Model Railroader Magazine Kalmbach has ever published! This would appear to be a very good deal to me! That is 984 issues, as of today, that are available to view on line. You could go through and read every article ever printed, page by page!

I've also added George Sellios to me list. Since the April of 1986 issue, when his Franklin and South Manchester first appeared in Model Railroader, his layout has expanded into a exquisite and wonderful work of art. George is a very talented man. Yet, I have heard people complain about his layout, too!
 
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I have just completed the year 1994 and because I have expanded what I am looking for, I'm going back over issues I have looked at previously when looking for Furlows stuff.
 
I would have access through my club who subscribe and are internet connected. They also have the CD that was put out a few years ago now. Scanning/printing double width pages is a new capability just added.
 
I can't imagine a valid complaint about John Allen's articles. I read many of them in M.R. and always found them to be inspiring. It's sad that the layout was lost to a fire after he passed away. It would have been nice to salvage at least a part of it.
 
I've noticed that as I get closer and closer to the present day, I'm finding less and less articles that I am interested in. May be because much of what is being talked about has been stated before and there is a turn away from the actual modeling process (building models) in these modern times, I don't know. Back in the 40s and 50s I would find around 10 or more articles that a noted in my list. I'm looking through the last decade and I'm only finding 3-4 article I note down.
 
I haven't signed up for the on-line archives...yet. But I agree somewhat that I find fewer articles that really interest me nowadays. Perhaps this has to do with having nearly completed my current (and probably last) layout, and also that my "era" runs from the 1940's and '50's when I was a boy, and the railroad was how we travelled to see my mother's family in downstate Illinois from Chicago, and some other train travel that essentially ended in 1960. I cannot recall what year or issue that inspired me to kitbash a C.B.&Q. combine that consisted of an open-ended heavyweight coach with a cupola over one end. By today's "standards' it probably isn't much, but I still have it and run it occasionally. Amazingly, the Walther's Goo still holds the stamped metal sides to the wooden roof and floor! The other project was a meat-packing plant that I built from an article in MR back in the '50's. I scratch-built it from balsa wood, scribing each course of the brick walls with a straight edge and #2 pencil! The Oscar Mayer sign on the water tank atop the building was cut from a package of bacon! It still serves on my layout! Part of the problem nowadays is that most folks don't have the time or the patience to do something like that, even if it appeared in the magazine. Another factor that affects the articles published in MR or the other magazine is that very few younger (than 70) readers can relate to anything but diesels. Most of them never saw a live steam locomotive in action, and there are so few HO scale model steamers that are suitable for kitbashing like the Mantua's were.

So doubt younger folks will disagree with me, as they super-detail an SD-40-2 or somesuch.

As to having too many ads in the magazine...those pay to keep the thing in business, NOT the subscriptions!
 
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