I ended up, after becoming more interested in the work of John Allen and his famous "Gorre & Daphetid," model railroad and after listening to a model railroading podcast epsiode, I learned not must more about his early start in the hobby, but the state of what the hobby was when he started out in the early 1940s. I learned that he started during his time as a professional photographer, taking photos & portraits of American servicemen, he became more interested in the hobby. I learned that during this time, factories where instead turning out materials & goods for wartime instead of model trains that where in production at the end of the depression, and became less of a priority due to wartime demand. I also learned that despite to wartime fears the hobby was alive and strong, something for people to turn too, as anything could happen, such as fears of invasion or the tide war turning against the allies. However something confused me. Due to strong encouragment to buy war bonds, and to contriubute as much scrap and material to the war effort, was the hobby discouraged?I mean if you wanted to buy wood to start the benchwork for a simple starter 4'x8' layout would you have gotten stares and be told you where not helping the war effort by contributing enough materials or being greedy?
In the 1930s (pre-war), Model Railroading was nearly an all-scratchbuilding hobby. There were nearly no kits or even very many parts.
So, as a consequence, war rationing and limited supplies did not effect much as far as hobbiests would have noticed in the early 1940s. Model Railroaders were already building their models from scraps and bits as could be found.
Electric toy trains were probably effected directly by war production needs.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
If you go back to the 1940s issues of MR, there are plenty of ads referring to shortages and delayed releases for components and kits. Numerous ads refer to selling what stock is available from pre-war production. Several speak about being occupied with war production and are like "we're already planning for victory and new products!" Lots of mentions of poor postal service due to war restrictions.
For instance, page 322 of the July 1944 issue has three ads. All three mentioned the war. The first mentions their plans for post war locomotive releases. The second is ad ad basically saying not to place orders with them because they can't fill their existing orders due to labor shortages. The third says they can still supply orders from their full line as depicted on a previous price list.
I do not think model railroading was discouraged during wartime. I think modelers found a way round things to proceed. Just like now with this Covid stuff (with shortages of track etc.)
The interesting thing (I found) in wartime is, it is the wartime modelers we admire and followed after the war, are names we know now.
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
"During the war, model manufacturers were ordered to stop production in order to conserve critical metal supplies. Walthers produced what it could from nonessential materials. Walthers was well-known for his humorous ads run during World War II and his sense of humor in general. A series of these ads in 1943 saw Bill literally scraping the bottom of a barrel for materials. A line of 'Tongue-in-cheek' products was issued. This included the #933-5419 'O' gauge Beer Can Tanker Tank Car Kit, which was a set of metal castings including a chassis, sprung trucks, couplers, wheels, ladders, a spigot and a platform that could be assembled onto any type of aluminum can (beer or soda pop that you provided) to make a custom tank car. The Walthers motto used on packaging was "fun to build". Some feel Bill Walthers personally kept model railroading alive despite the wartime restrictions on materials used in model railroading. Walthers boasted that every freight and passenger car model offered in their line was patterned after its prototype. All parts and patterns were built from the original railroad drawings with dimensions accurately scaled down."
http://www.tcawestern.org/walthers.htm
Simon
It is very interesting to read Model Railroader from the war years -- the ads, the articles, the editorials, and the letters from readers -- because of the shortages and what they caused modelers to have to live with. Most articles about building stuff used wood and paper/cardstock anyway so in a sense construction articles continued to be helpful. But the shortages did mean that not many newcomers could enter the hobby (assuming they were not in the armed forces - the average age of a model railroader back then was surprisingly young). And there were some interesting work-arounds, since necessity is the mother of invention. For example, eventually brass rail was not to be had, but one enterprising firm created rail made of wood and suggested that since a locomotive would be unlikely to run to the end of your sidings, only freight cars, remove that much of your brass rail, replace it with wood, and use the newly recovered brass rail to make a turnout or crossing, or create a new siding. How many guys actually did that I have no way of knowing.
Many firms, especially those unable to convert to war work (Varney and Mantua were able to and did), withered and died as a result of the war.
Another consequence of the War, and here MR's editors and the NMRA and some other influential people in the hobby put their heads together and kind of forced a major change in a way that seems almost unthinkable today: it was becoming agreed that the 6 volt motors used for pre-War HO were inadequate and it was more or less decided by a fairly small group of folks, that as soon as things got back to normal, the 12 volt motor would be the new standard. I may be getting my facts confused here but I think the old 6 volt motor standard was an outgrowth of automobile batteries being 6 volts originally. I do know that auto batteries were a common power supply in the hobby in its early days. I am sure there were hobbyists pretty outraged by this "conspiracy" for a while, but eventually I suspect they swallowed hard and re-motored their old stuff. Improved standards of appearance and operation probably retired as many old models as did the change in voltage.
Less remarked is that many of those same materiel shortages developed during the start of the Korean War but the national mobilization for that War was of a different magnitude, plus it was a shorter duration. But one can wonder if the industry, having seen metal quickly become in short supply due to war, looked more kindly on the new plastics being developed as a consequence.
Dave Nelson
I recall an ad for a war scrap metal drive with a little kid volunteering his electric train (which were all metal back then) to the drive. Most manufacturers changed to war production, not just train companies like Lionel but auto builders - there were no new cars for several years. But you could still buy something if you found it, hobby interests weren't discouraged. I recall several MR covers with men in uniform working on models.
With war production in full gear, people often worked many hours of overtime only to find there wasn't much for them to spend their money on. With all the money people had saved up by the time the war ended, that they splurged buying new things like cars, radios, TVs - and hobby items like model trains.
Lastspikemike Bear in mind that the wartime materials shortages issues were largely civilian morale building propaganda, not real at all. -------------------
Bear in mind that the wartime materials shortages issues were largely civilian morale building propaganda, not real at all. -------------------
Having lived thru rashioning, food shortages and the like to 1955 I could contradict your statement in its entirety, but I would be departing from the OPs original question.
I've thought sometimes that it's a shame that, once people got used to recycling during World War 2, that it wasn't kept up after. Recycling didn't become 'a thing' again until the 1970s. It would be interesting to know how much glass, paper, metal etc. during those 30 years were lost that could have been recycled.
Engi1487I mean if you wanted to buy wood to start the benchwork for a simple starter 4'x8' layout would you have gotten stares and be told you where not helping the war effort by contributing enough materials or being greedy?
BTW, wood wasn't rationed or in short supply. Quite the contrary, things that had been metal before the war were built with wood instead. For example, all-steel boxcars had become the norm during the 1920s, but many new boxcars were built during WW2 with wood sides to save steel.
When they started picking up the recyclable materials in our neighbourhood in the 1980's, my mom was on board 100% from day 1. I think folks from her generation (Depression and WW2 era) were very well used to it. I look at my kids today and while they are pretty quick at making a green statement, the behavior is not always there when it comes to actually putting things in the recycling bin or the compost... Oh well.
While only a small part of our total waste is recycled, an even smaller amount of stuff that is set aside for recycling actually is recycled.
Much of the stuff that is put into recycle bins ends up in the landfill.
York1 John
What most people don't relize is the scrap drives and some other things were not needed for accuall product duning the war (at least in our country), very little as a percentage of scrap was used in war production, but was instead it was a way to make the average person feel like they were contributing, same with a lot of the rationing.
I think we need to put things into its context, which was risk management in a real wartime threat situation. In 1940, there was a real scare in Britain that the island would suffer from a lack of aluminium to build their 300 or so spitfires per month, among other things. The Atlantic supply route was, let's say, far from being reliable at the time.
80 years later, I think it's easy to label these drives as propaganda. At the time, they probably were scrambling for anything they could get as they did not know how long the Battle of Britain would last...In the end, the household items that were donated did not make a big difference, from what I read on the Internet. But that's an after-the-fact statement...
I think something that may be overlooked, is that by encouraging citizens to donate, you create a sense of comeododery and purpose. A big part of winning wars is keeping the people "back home" feeling like the war is "worth it". Contrast this time period with another, say around the war in Vietnam. "People back home" got fed up with the seeming lack of purpose and wanted an end, even if that meant not winning. Please don't rage at this comment. Just my observation.
JJF
Prototypically modeling the Great Northern in Minnesota with just a hint of freelancing.
Yesterday is History.
Tomorrow is a Mystery.
But today is a Gift, that is why it is called the Present.
It's all about sacrifice. I give you the last ice cream bar and I feel like a better person, even if I don't enjoy any ice cream. I wait for my brass train track, I feel like a better person, even if it's totally pointless.
I just want to point out that the scrap steel drives in 1942 in the US rounded up enough steel for 102 Iowa class battleships.
Even if only half would have been scrap otherwise missed in the normal collection of scrap metal, that's still a lot of steel.
Nobody has mentioned this but a lot of model railroaders and potential model railroader went to war. Not all came back.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Before we cut them off shortly before the war started, the US used to ship a lot of our scrap metal to Japan. It was mentioned often during the war that a lot of it ended up coming back towards us as bullets and shells.
BTW, re the 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, remember that c. 1941 the top model scale was still O scale (although HO was catching up fast), which meant out of necessity that club layouts were kinda the norm. Most people didn't have the space or money to build their own home O scale layout. (The start and early years of the NMRA was largely done through various clubs around the country.)
After the war, returning vets used the G.I. Bill to buy new houses in the suburbs - with large basements with gas furnaces - and began turning more to home HO layouts.
snjroy I think we need to put things into its context, which was risk management in a real wartime threat situation. In 1940, there was a real scare in Britain that the island would suffer from a lack of aluminium to build their 300 or so spitfires per month, among other things. The Atlantic supply route was, let's say, far from being reliable at the time. 80 years later, I think it's easy to label these drives as propaganda. At the time, they probably were scrambling for anything they could get as they did not know how long the Battle of Britain would last...In the end, the household items that were donated did not make a big difference, from what I read on the Internet. But that's an after-the-fact statement... Simon
BigDaddy Nobody has mentioned this but a lot of model railroaders and potential model railroader went to war. Not all came back.
Never saw that poster before.
I'm sure the morale-boosting "Together we can win" campaign was helpful I do believe the scrap drives did provide a significant contribution to the need for War time production.
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/scrap-metal-drive-world-war-two/
Rubber, aluminum, rags and paper didn't contribute much as these materials were as difficult to "recycle" than as they are today (less-so the aluminum but only "virgin" aluminum could go into aircraft production).
However, steel, iron, tin, copper and lead were easily melted down and was probably helpful in the effort.
An interesting observation:
Useful though recycled steel and iron were, some scrap drives went overboard. In addition to old streetcar tracks, wrought iron fences, church bells, and the like, people carted off relics of previous wars, including cannons, park statues, and other memorials. When the memorials were being rebuilt after the war, many wished they hadn’t been so hasty.
There’s no denying scrap drives and other World War II home-defense efforts were meant in part as morale builders. Some seem pretty loopy in retrospect — air-raid blackouts in Nebraska, for example. But a few were surprisingly effective.
In 1943 victory gardens produced 40 percent of the country’s fresh vegetables. Salvaged kitchen fat was used to produce glycerin, an ingredient in drugs and explosives. Then there’s the Civil Air Patrol, organized in 1941 to watch the coasts and assist in search and rescue operations. Less help than hindrance, right? Not so. In the 18 months before the navy took over patrol duty, the CAP spotted 173 U-boats, located 363 survivors of sunken ships and downed aircraft, and reported 91 ships in distress. Lest you think all home-front volunteers were paunchy air-raid wardens in tin hats.
Cecil Adams
Cheers, Ed
Most of the model railroad manufacturers (that were not basement operations) were involved in wartime production. Here is one example- the main compass on the Battleship North Carolina. It you look on the edge it says The Lionel Corporation. (However I do not think if a transformer is attached the ship will start going around in a circle......)
I don't know about other families, but the men in mine had "other things" to keep them busy during the war years.
My Dad found himself as a Sherman M4 tank commander and spent his war time in New Guinea and the Phillippines and occupied Japan.
My Uncle Frank found himself in England and later on the beaches of Normandy.....lasting until D-day plus 7.
Uncle John was 4F, but spent the war years working mega hours as a tool & die maker - helping to build the "Arsenal of Democracy".
Grandfather Andrew was too old to serve, but he also worked mega hours keeping the boilers running at the Chicago Fox DeLuxe brewery.
So while my family couldn't participate in extra curricular activities, "Congratulations" to those that had the time and luxury to fret over their hobbies during those years.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
mobilman44 I don't know about other families, but the men in mine had "other things" to keep them busy during the war years. My Dad found himself as a Sherman M4 tank commander and spent his war time in New Guinea and the Phillippines and occupied Japan. My Uncle Frank found himself in England and later on the beaches of Normandy.....lasting until D-day plus 7. Uncle John was 4F, but spent the war years working mega hours as a tool & die maker - helping to build the "Arsenal of Democracy". Grandfather Andrew was too old to serve, but he also worked mega hours keeping the boilers running at the Chicago Fox DeLuxe brewery. So while my family couldn't participate in extra curricular activities, "Congratulations" to those that had the time and luxury to fret over their hobbies during those years.
First off, thank you and your family for their service. My grandfather served in the navy and I considered a career in the military, but was denied admittance due to medical reasons.
I don't think anyone in this thread was trying to detract from the many who gave so much during WW2. Rather, I think that a passing curiosity of a bygone era spurred the creation of this thread. I know that my curiosity was piqued by the seeming lack of use for donated materials. Again, i thank you and your family for your great lineage, and all it has given. This is not in any way a put-down. Just a friendly "hey, I get it, but don't get too offended by what others say, or post".
No offense taken - or given!
I wanted to point out that the war years were times of extreme difficulties. And, while the thread addresses the supply side of the equation, the fact is a huge percentage of adult men had other things on their mind.
Having said that, we have to pull in the demand side as well.
And that brings to mind that the lack of "toy trains" (vs. scale models) was more of a concern, for there were a lot of kids that couldn't get their much wanted Lionel or Flyer under the Christmas tree. Lionel did put out a carboard set, but it was a poor substitute.
wjstix I've thought sometimes that it's a shame that, once people got used to recycling during World War 2, that it wasn't kept up after. Recycling didn't become 'a thing' again until the 1970s. It would be interesting to know how much glass, paper, metal etc. during those 30 years were lost that could have been recycled.