A name familiar to those interested in OO in 1942 was, OO pioneer H. L. “Red” Adams. He had several articles in the model railroad press in 1942.

First up we have an article in the July issue of The Model Craftsman on “A Turntable for OO,” which they note right away “may be built for any gauge.” As Adams states, “this article describes the small facilities I had [had?? More on that later in this installment] on my OO Mojave Railroad, where we serviced 5 steam and 3 Diesel locomotives in reasonably efficient manner.” He describes in it how a turntable and steam service area works and also how to build a turntable. His in OO was 15” long and made from a piece of 1×2. His roundhouse “was one of those Ideal HO gauge kits. These are very good in my opinion, and my OO required very little trimming for clearance.” As he also notes toward the end of the article, “Try it out boys, if you haven’t already got one on your pike; all parts are available and now is the time to stop howling about what we haven’t got, and build those things that we definitely need to finish that railroad!”

The next really notable OO article of the year was by, you guessed it, Red Adams. This time the article is in the September issue of The Model Craftsman, on the topic of building a typical 1895 passenger train in wood. He opens with some interesting background though as to the times and other projects underway.

Well, fellow members of the home guards, at this time I had hoped to be describing the intricacies of constructing a Challenger type steam locomotive for you, but due to complicating factors relating to bronze castings and motors and gears, this project has been tabled for a short time. Most of my patterns are finished, however, so it won’t take long after bronze is again available, before one of these giants will be snaking around the curves of my layout. At least I hope it will get around the curves. After the bugs are ironed out of it, I’ll give you the lowdown. 

However, our railroading is versatile and we model rail builders can “keep ‘em rolling” as far as our building goes, and do it without writing our congressman for special privileges to get critical materials. How about forest products? If we are curtailed on our other products why not resign ourselves and use what is available. If we can’t build locomotives, how about cars and scenery? There’s a lot more to a model railroad than the locomotives. The first scale model I ever built back ten years ago was an O gauge passenger coach; my locomotive wasn’t finished until 18 months after this, so why can’t we start some cars now and in 18 months we will be able to get locomotives again, and then our cars will be ready for them.

Adams used sugar pine to build the models in the article, and decorated them for his Sierra railroad. At the very end he describes the locomotive seen in this photo as well. It was “the only kit job” on his roster, a Scale-Craft 4-6-0 with working marker boards and headlight plus a scratch built Vanderbilt tender. “This is a very good locomotive in my opinion; it runs smoothly and quietly and will haul up to 10 passenger cars if the boiler ballast is used.”

Finaly, it turns out in the December issue of The Model Craftsman we find out that his layout was also the first prize winner in OO gauge in the 1941-42 Railroad Layout Contest! And it turns out that the layout, as implied in the wording of the article quoted earlier, had been dismantled. A number of new details can be gleaned from the article about the layout (such as he used 24 volt DC Scale-Craft motors), and a full roster of his equipment is given, but the end of the article is the most interesting in the context.

This layout was in operation over three years with reasonably good success, and a great deal of enjoyment. Naturally, it was not the perfect layout, as the one I am starting now will try to make that grade, but the Mojave gave a great deal many modelers inspiration, in that it was completed within a reasonably short time – was not high priced in any way – and occupied a small space. Yet could reproduce any small division town movement, a change of locomotives, simple switching operations, water stop, etc.

This track plan is essentially the same as the one published in 1941 in Miniature Railroading, but a bit cleaner and gives a view of the final version of this layout.  It is the sort of layout that I would be happy to have, perfect for exercising trains of OO models with that double track mainline.

As we saw it twice above, the 4-8-2 is one he made, it is a model of his own design, enlarged from the 4-6-2 model he developed that was marketed by Scale-Craft.

Article updated 2021