Layout visits

Modeling America's first oil boom

This 12 x 30-foot HO railroad serves the oil fields of 1860s Pennsylvania
By Richard Senges
Published: Thursday, June 14, 2007
A typically colorful American Standard 4-4-0 leads a one-car passenger train past Shaffer Farm, Pa. Richard Senges' 12 x 30-foot HO scale layout depicts the 1860s oil boom in western Pennsylvania. (Richard Senges)
I think it's a shame that so few people model the quaint scenes of 19th century railroading. As I discovered in building my 12 x 30-foot HO scale Oil Creek RR, which is set in western Pennsylvania during the 1860s oil boom, the fascinating history, unusual operations, and primitive rolling stock are compelling reasons to model the 19th century.

The prototype Oil Creek RR was chartered in 1860 by a group of investors from Warren, Pa. The Oil Creek RR was initially built in broad gauge (six feet) in order to interchange with the connecting Atlantic & Great Western. In 1865, a third rail was added and the Oil Creek became a dual-gauge railroad (broad and standard).

The new railroad was desperately needed, for western Pennsylvania's oil boom was in full swing. Horse-drawn wagons couldn't meet the demand for transportation, so oil barrels were also shipped out on barges using a process called a "pond freshet."

The tributaries to Oil Creek were dammed. Then, at the right moment, all of the backed up water was released. This raised the creek level 22 to 30 inches, enough to free the barges and send them floating downstream.
An Oil Creek RR train eases past the oil derrick at Miller Farm, Pa. The flatcars on today's train are loaded with wooden barrels of crude oil- tank cars are still in the future. (Richard Senges)
Picture-perfect modeling
In addition to the prototype Oil Creek RR, my layout includes the connecting Bath & Hammondsport RR, set in the early 1900s, and the circa-1890 Oil Creek Logging & Mining RR.

My interest in logging stems from my uncle, Frank Smith, who told me stories and showed me photographs of his grandfather's logging and chemical company. His grandfather operated his own railroad and even built a suspension bridge across the Beaverkill River near Cooks Falls, N.Y., around 1915 to move log trains to his sawmill and acid factory across the river. I was hooked!

My layout depicts scenes along five miles of the actual route of the Oil Creek RR. I included oil and railroad facilities at Miller Farm and Shaffer Farm, plus the town of Pioneer, including the well-known Pioneer Bridge. My guides for modeling this area were large black-and-white prints (from 1860s-vintage glass-plate negatives) produced by the Drake Well Museum in Titusville, Pa. These photographs were invaluable in helping me model several long-vanished railroad scenes.
A spirit of innovation
Pipelines arrived in western Pennsylvania's oil fields in 1863. To compete, railroads had to develop more-efficient methods of moving oil in bulk. Initially, oil barrels were simply loaded on flatcars, but in 1865, Densmore oil tank cars (vertical tanks on a flatcar) appeared on the scene. By 1868-69, horizontal metal tank cars came into use. - R.S.
Building the scenery
The Pioneer Bridge was a joint effort with my friend and fellow modeler Dave Thompson. To build the bridge and figure out how it was positioned relative to Oil Creek, Dave and I carefully studied prototype photographs. We then worked on accurately locating the track leading to the bridge. It took us four tries to find the correct transition.

Dave built the bridge from strips of basswood, which he cut on his modified table saw. We followed the prototype for the bridge supports, which were originally wood pilings and beams. These supports were later replaced by stone.

I finished the area around the bridge using a lattice of corrugated cardboard covered with a natural cotton craft fabric called Wet N Shape. This product is great for model railroad scenery, and I've been using it for 15 years. The cloth softens when soaked in water and becomes very easy to shape. It dries and hardens in much the same way that plaster cloth does, but Wet N Shape is much cheaper and less messy. Wet N Shape can be hard to find. I purchased Wet N Shape from Foust Textiles, P.O. Box 576, 608 Canterbury Road, Kings Mountain, NC 28086, www.FoustTextiles.com.

I capped my lattice-and-cloth landforms with two thin layers of Hydrocal, then brushed on a coat of flat dark brown latex paint. I then applied a thick slurry of water, glue, and sifted dirt, followed by a coat of ground foam, kitchen spices (I find that spices offer a wonderful variety of colors and textures), and a scattering of small twigs and debris.

To keep my ground cover in place, I flowed on white household glue diluted with water. I've also used diluted matte medium with good results.

I shaped a layer of dirt slurry mixture to form the riverbed of Oil Creek. After giving the slurry time to dry, I added bits of real shale glued down with white glue and water. I left many of the stones ex-posed to give the impression of a shallow river, an appearance that mimics the real Oil Creek.

Once the water and glue mixture had dried, I poured on a layer of Enviro-Tex Lite, a two-part low-odor polymer compound that cures thick and glossy. I quickly followed this with a few added drops of black pigment in spots to give the illusion of greater depth or a bit of petroleum contamination. I've found that visitors to my layout often want to touch the cured Enviro-Tex - they don't believe it's not a liquid surface!
Layout at a glance
Name: Oil Creek RR
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Size: 12 x 30 feet
Theme: Oil production, transportation, and logging
Locale: western Pennsylvania
Era: 1866-1899
Style: free-standing
Mainline run: 75 feet
Minimum radius: 24"
Minimum turnout: no. 4
Maximum grade: 3 percent (logging areas)
Benchwork: open grid
Height: 40" to 74"
Roadbed: spline and Homabed
Track: code 100, 83, and 70 flextrack, handlaid code 70
Scenery: plaster over lattice with real dirt, ground foam, spices,
and rock castings
Backdrop: painted walls
Control: cab control
The 250-foot Pioneer Bridge spans Oil Creek. The structure took 200 hours to build and is based on prototype photographs. (Richard Senges)
The timber truss Pioneer Bridge was located at Pioneer Crossing, Oil Creek, Pa. This 1860s photo of the bridge served as a reference for Richard's model. Photo courtesy of Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, Drake Well Museum, Titusville, Pa. (Richard Senges)
Oil wells on Oil Creek
To scratchbuild my structures, I used scale lumber purchased precut from a hobby shop or cut to size by a friend. To represent large timbers, I've often used wood coffee stirrers. I paid $1 for a box of 1,000 - you won't find hobby wood much cheaper than that!

The stirrers are 31/2" x 17" x 40'-0" in HO scale. I find them useful in many scratchbuilding projects and easy to work with - after I sort out the twisted ones (a process familiar to those of us who have shopped at discount home improvement stores!). I stained some of these boards with Weather-It solution from A-West, and other boards I stained with a mixture of denatured alcohol and black leather dye.

Using photos taken in the 1860s as a guide, I scratchbuilt all 11 of my layout's oil derricks. This meant that I had to make, among other things, my own parts for the band wheel, bull wheel, pitman, walking beam, and temper screw.

I used many different materials and techniques in building my models. For example, the leather belt connecting the machinery is actually brown paper. I made latex molds and cast the oil barrels and small tanks using Durham's Water Putty. The stacks of firewood are twigs that I'd clipped from a discarded Christmas tree. To simulate oil in the large open tank, I again turned to Enviro-Tex mixed with black pigment.

One of the most pleasant surprises in building this layout was the wide range of products that match this long-gone era. [See "Modeling the 19th century" on page 82. - Ed.] The figures are mostly from Fun & Games and Musket Miniatures, which I've painted.

The wagon and horses are also made by Musket Miniatures. I built the boiler and stationary steam engine from a Woodland Scenics kit. As a finishing touch, I used a drop of real oil from the original Drake Well in Titusville, Pa., to lubricate the crank on the band wheel!

A scene I made showing two of my oil wells has won National Model Railroad Association first place awards in divisional and regional contests, and has earned an NMRA merit award.
Modeling the 19th century
Modeling the mid- to late 1800s is not as difficult as it may seem. While I ended up scratchbuilding many of the structures on my layout (mostly because I was trying to capture scenes from old photographs), hobby dealers carry locomotives, rolling stock, and detail parts that match this period. Some of my favorite HO scale products include:

Alexander Scale Models no. 6002 link-and-pin couplers
Bachmann no. 51124 American 4-4-0 locomotive
Cache Creek Scale Models no. BC24 boxcars and F24 flatcars
Campbell Scale Models various small structure kits, no. 250 barrels, and no. 800 shingles
Fun & Games 1800s figures
Grandt Line windows
IHC no. 13814 American 4-4-0 locomotive
Lytler & Lytler 1800s figures
Mantua 4-4-0 locomotives (out of production) and 1860s cars
Model Railways outhouses
Morse Productions oil/water tanks and small structures
Musket Miniatures figures, horses, tents, and wagons
Preiser figures, horses, mules, and wagons
Rivarossi 2-4-0 locomotives
Roundhouse 1800s passenger cars
Selley Finishing Touches horses and wagons
Woodland Scenics dry transfers, small structures, and stationary steam engine
Ye Olde Huff-N-Puff barrel car and wood barrels. - R.S.
Based on a 140-year-old photograph, this oil derrick was scratchbuilt from wood coffee stirrers. (Harold Russell)
This 1860s photograph of western Pennsylvania's oil field was one of the scenes Dick Senges used to research his Oil Creek RR. Photo courtesy of Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, Drake Well Museum, Titusville, Pa.
Modeling a pipeline company
The real Allegheny Transportation Co. owned one of the first great oil pipelines in Pennsylvania, combining the Nobel oil well, the Shaffer Farm pipeline, and Pithole and Benninghoff Run pipelines into a unified network. To show Allegheny's presence on my model railroad, and because I had a detailed prototype picture, I chose to model its modest wood-frame office building. I estimated the dimensions using old photographs, and I tried to model all the key details as accurately as possible.

I scratchbuilt the basic building from styrene and airbrushed it white. I made the windows using real glass cut from microscope slide cover slips. The window frames on my building are Grandt Line six-over-six windows, a common style in the 1860s. I used faded green construction paper for the shades.

I divided the interior into three rooms, lighting each with a miniature grain-of- rice bulb powered by a low-voltage transformer. I used a different value resistor on each light to vary the intensity. As a final touch, I placed the bulbs on top of HO scale wood barrels, so that when viewed through the windows they would appear to be oil lanterns.
A fun challenge
The 1860s were simpler times, but modeling the early decades of American railroading in the oil fields of western Pennsylvania has been anything but simple. For me, the challenges were a big part of the fun of building this layout.

If you enjoy history, research, and a little scratchbuilding, consider exploring the early railroad scene.
Meet Dick Senges
Dick had the usual Christmas experience with trains- am American Flyer set back in the 1950s. In 1975, he started to model in HO scale and has been at it ever since. Dick retired from Eastman Kodak Co. and is currently editor and publisher of Rochestor Model Rails, an online model railroad newsletter.