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Re: Famous 'SP Daylight' Author passes ...
Author: KRK
Date: 02-11-2013 - 12:44
Here's a few comments about Richard from "Bob Z." :
"Dick basically... well, wrote the book on the detailed exploration of a single passenger train. He included materials that most authors will weed through and cherry-pick, thinking that nobody's interested in the raw materials. But Dick trusted that Daylight fanatics would indeed want to read the entire specs, word for word, and see builder's photos of every aspect of construction from the truss frame up. He also interviewed some of the chief players from the 1930s. There are mistakes, as there will be in a 40-some-year-old work, and new materials have come to light since the publication of the definitive series on SP passenger cars by the SPH&TS. But as a reference album full of photos and specifications that you can't get anywhere short of the Pullman Library, it's worth its weight. And it's very heavy!
Dick also created a generation of passenger train modelers -- always at the margins of the overall hobby -- who could trust that the model kits they were buying were true to actual dimensions. He sold rubber inter-car diaphragms that weren't authentic to any diaphragm in real life, but they closed up the gaps and they worked, and anybody who used Walthers Goo to equip their models with MHP diaphragms really felt like they had a truly 'finished' model.
MHP/Wright Enterprises even offered enamel paints matched to SP specs. They were shiny gloss, like the real thing, when we were otherwise painting our models with flat finishes that were a good guess at an approximate color. I still have a can of his Daylight Red, and it's probably still good. It was absolutely right on for authentic color, that's for sure. His kits were made up of wood roof, floor, and underbody pieces, with stamped tin sides and ends. I learned how to solder on these kits. His trucks were sprung, and rolled really well, even if they weren't exact copies of SP trucks, or any trucks for that matter. But there was a sense when you finished an MHP kit that you had a 'real' replica, in a sea of toy passenger trains.
I remember,one of his "Cascade" 12-bedroom sleepers that I built up some years ago, but substituting plastic roof and floor, better trucks, and other mods. It's not state of the art today, but the juice of it still holds. When the sun comes out tomorrow I'll do a little better. Simple kits -- windows punched into flat sides, with the right shapes and the correct overall dimensions. When they were new, that was a very big deal.
Dick was a pioneer. And he sure loved that Daylight. His love was definitely transferred through his models and book to many, many people, and that energy lives on today.
~ Bob Z."
KRK
"Dick basically... well, wrote the book on the detailed exploration of a single passenger train. He included materials that most authors will weed through and cherry-pick, thinking that nobody's interested in the raw materials. But Dick trusted that Daylight fanatics would indeed want to read the entire specs, word for word, and see builder's photos of every aspect of construction from the truss frame up. He also interviewed some of the chief players from the 1930s. There are mistakes, as there will be in a 40-some-year-old work, and new materials have come to light since the publication of the definitive series on SP passenger cars by the SPH&TS. But as a reference album full of photos and specifications that you can't get anywhere short of the Pullman Library, it's worth its weight. And it's very heavy!
Dick also created a generation of passenger train modelers -- always at the margins of the overall hobby -- who could trust that the model kits they were buying were true to actual dimensions. He sold rubber inter-car diaphragms that weren't authentic to any diaphragm in real life, but they closed up the gaps and they worked, and anybody who used Walthers Goo to equip their models with MHP diaphragms really felt like they had a truly 'finished' model.
MHP/Wright Enterprises even offered enamel paints matched to SP specs. They were shiny gloss, like the real thing, when we were otherwise painting our models with flat finishes that were a good guess at an approximate color. I still have a can of his Daylight Red, and it's probably still good. It was absolutely right on for authentic color, that's for sure. His kits were made up of wood roof, floor, and underbody pieces, with stamped tin sides and ends. I learned how to solder on these kits. His trucks were sprung, and rolled really well, even if they weren't exact copies of SP trucks, or any trucks for that matter. But there was a sense when you finished an MHP kit that you had a 'real' replica, in a sea of toy passenger trains.
I remember,one of his "Cascade" 12-bedroom sleepers that I built up some years ago, but substituting plastic roof and floor, better trucks, and other mods. It's not state of the art today, but the juice of it still holds. When the sun comes out tomorrow I'll do a little better. Simple kits -- windows punched into flat sides, with the right shapes and the correct overall dimensions. When they were new, that was a very big deal.
Dick was a pioneer. And he sure loved that Daylight. His love was definitely transferred through his models and book to many, many people, and that energy lives on today.
~ Bob Z."
KRK
