Model Railroader – October 2019

Heritage Fleet

22 http://www.ModelRailroader.com

By Keith Wills

Minton Cronkhite, Q gauge, and the Santa Fe

Minton Cronkhite, 1888-

1971, one of model railroad-

ing’s pioneers, forged the way

in 1920s scale modeling with

Ed Alexander and Fred Icken.

His 1927-1928 Pennsylvania

RR class I1s 2-10-0 Decapod

was one of several locomo-

tives featured in a June 1966

Model Railroader story about

his engine-building skills.

He moved from New York

to California in about 1930,

where his large San Marino &

Santa Fe two-rail O scale

home layout received public-

ity. He was contacted by the

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe

to build an O scale demon-

stration layout for the 1933-

1934 Chicago Century of

Progress Exposition.

Cronkhite espoused

Q gauge, which corrected

1:48 O scale models to a more

accurate 1^3 ⁄ 16 " gauge track.

With none commercially

available, handlaid track was

a necessity. Few truck suppli-

ers meant re-gauging was

also required.

His pièce de résistance was

the 1941 Chicago Museum of

Science and Industry layout

with Q gauge steam and die-

sel locomotives made directly

from Santa Fe blueprints. The

layout was placed in a large

hall with an upper

balcony around

all four sides.

Viewers could

look down from

about 12 feet to

see it below, while

at floor level, visi-

tors could walk

around the 45 x

60-foot layout and

its low-lying roll-

ing desert scenery.

While prepar-

ing the 1939-1940

San Francisco

Golden Gate Expo

layout, Cronkhite

was busily

designing the Chicago layout

to open in January 1941. The

event was covered in the

March 1941 issue of Model

Railroader and the November

1941 issue of Model Builder

magazine. The layout was

modernized in 1953 with 1^1 ⁄ 4 "

O gauge track. It saved having

to re-gauge commercial mod-

els to the slightly narrower

13 ⁄ 16 " Q gauge. Cronkhite’s

steamers were returned to the

Santa Fe as diesels assumed

greater importance.

Santa Fe relinquished own-

ership of the layout in the late

1960s, and it was dismantled

and auctioned off on eBay in

2002. The iconic, historic lay-
      out no longer reflected current
      railroad operation, and was
      replaced by an HO scale layout
      built partially with donations
      from ATSF successor BNSF.
      [See the June 2003
      MR for more on
      the museum’s cur-
      rent layout. – Ed.]
      Cronkhite contin-
      ued building
      1:48 scale steam
      locomotives for
      11 ⁄ 4 " track until
      near the end,
      when Parkinson’s
      disease encum-
      bered him.

When creating

expo locomo-

tives, Cronkhite

relied on Walthers

and Lobaugh to

flesh out needed freight and

passenger rolling stock;

Lobaugh’s 1940 catalog car-

ried Cronkhite’s Electro-

Motive Division E1 and

stainless steel streamlined

passenger cars.

O scale was the “rich

man’s” hobby, too costly for a

Depression-era wage-earner.

Ed Alexander cataloged an

O scale steam locomotive in

1930 equal in price to a $495

Chevrolet roadster. Rather, a

growing Hi-rail O gauge mar-

ket was best exemplified by

Lee Ridgman’s expansive

Centinella Valley RR club’s

mix of scale-tinplate and com-

mercial O scale inside-third-

rail kit locomotives and cars.

Q gauge, discussed at

times in letters to editors

in the postwar hobby press

but never fully adopted,

remained an obscure

sideline as most O scale

manufacturing held to

National Model Railroad

Association (NMRA) 1:48

O scale standards.

Cronkhite’s Santa Fe

layouts were: 1933 Chicago

demonstrator, 1935 San

Diego California-Pacific

International Exposition,

1936 Dallas, Texas,

Centennial Exposition,

1939 San Francisco Treasure

Island, and 1941 Chicago

Museum of Science

and Industry.

For more complete infor-

mation, see “Locomotives by

Minton Cronkhite” in the

June 1966 MR by James A.

Slocum, pp. 44-49, with many

photos of his locomotives. He

was a man of great talent,

prolific energy, and vision,

who, like Alexander and

Icken, led us on the path to

where we are today.

Registered users can read “Locomotives by Minton Cronkhite” online at http://www.ModelRailroader.com.

This Pennsylvania RR class I1s 2-10-0 Decapod was one of five built by Minton Cronkhite in 1927

and ’28. It was among the first models built by this model railroading pioneer.

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe 2-10-2 Texas type no. 3872 was

built after Cronkhite moved to California from the Northeast.

Both it and the PRR Decapod at top were featured in a June

1966 MR story about Cronkhite’s locomotives.

The cover of the March 1941

Model Railroader featured a

scene from Cronkhite’s

Museum & Santa Fe layout

built for the Chicago Museum

of Science and Industry.

Q GAUGE WAS

DISCUSSED AT

TIMES IN

LETTERS TO

EDITORS IN THE

POSTWAR

HOBBY PRESS

BUT WAS NEVER

FULLY ADOPTED.

• KEITH