Lost innocence by Keith Wills
1941 Model Railroad Equip- ment and Supplies catalog “For Tinplaters and Scale Model Builders -O Gauge and Standard Gauge -OO Gauge,” is an interesting look at where part of our hobby was just before World War II. Printed by Model Lumber Co., a small business lo- cated in Belleville, New Jersey,
A its
model photos were over-stamped “dis- continued.” It had also moved to Dover, New Jersey, suggesting the copy in hand was re-released after a War Or- der Board forbade unnecessary con- sumer
manufacture from July 31,
1942. Of particular interest, it supplied kits in Standard, O and OO gauges, in- dicating some hobbyists were still cre- ating scale Standard gauge layouts. This is a subject covered previously in this space (April, 2008), and the first this writer has seen such material of- fered in a catalog. It was up front in saying body kits
didn’t follow exact lines of any particu- lar car, bearing in mind men wanting to build rolling stock and lettering them for their own roads. Some were based upon prototypes with minor changes, and while resembling one were not exact duplicates either. Atti- tudes towards authenticity weren’t as
critical at that stage in our hobby. We were happy to get anything.
Cars were shown with text indicat- ing OO gauge: ⁵/₃₂″ scale, O gauge: ¹⁄₄″ scale, and Standard gauge; ³/₈″ or ⁷/₁₆″ scale and ³/₈″ cars were said to compli- ment tinplate models. What difference, if any, there was between the two is un- known to this writer. Rolling stock consisted of 12 freight
cars listed as Standard and O gauges, excepting a Standard gauge-only two- bay hopper, reefer and boxcar. Kits were wood, without paint, decals, trucks or couplers. There were four passenger cars. Two were 62-foot steel commuter types: coach and baggage, with fishbelly
The Model Railroad Equipment and Supplies catalog of 1941 was published and distrib- uted just after the War Order Board forbade unnecessary consumer goods from being manufactured. Thus the word “discontinued” was stamped on its listings.
90 MAY 2014
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