Ten Years of Blogging and Counting (Review) - NightOwlModeler blog

It's been another year already since I posted the anniversary of my blog.  

One Year's worth of Blog Titles... What's the next year going to hold?

Thanks to all of you who have been reading and engaging in the hobby.  My goal with this blog has always been to help my fellow modelers gain skill and confidence to stretch their modeling boundaries into kitbashing and historical research.

Statistics of the Last Year (2025-2026)

This year the NOM blog has passed 300 modeling and research articles on this site.

July 2025-2026 Viewing Stats.

The Stats seem a bit skewed with 25k views in one day and other spikes of 10k views per day.  

Last 10 year viewing Stats, seems to be a 'hockey-stick' graph, suggesting outside influence in the last year.

From what I can tell, the AI web-crawling bots have completely ruined these stat-graphs usefulness.  There's no way that my blogs have been suddenly viewed 30+k times in one day.

2025-2026 Blog Page views - Certainly not accounting the crawler views.

Unfortunately, this list of article views is heavily skewed again by the AI-web crawlers looking at every page 2-4 times per day.  All of these 'top pages' are from over a year ago, so they don't really show which articles have been the most popular from just the last year.

2025-2026 Blog page views

These are the most popular links pages over the last year.

Some of my Favorite Posts in 2025.

So as the statistic data is garbage now, I'll just fill out this post with some of my favorite and fun posts that I've dug into researching and modeling in 2025-2026.

Research Timelines for SP Diners and Lounges

SP 1937-1960 Diner Timeline, and Painting chart

As we're seeing the Golden Gate Depot Harriman V2.0 project nearing reservation cut-off and now soon delivery, I wanted to do a deep dive on the research of visualizing exactly what the SP Diner fleet was made up of at various dates and what paint scheme the cars were in during those times as well.  This was the perfect reason to create a timeline graphic with colors and notes mashed together into one place.

SP 1937-1960 Lounge & Cafe-Lounge (aka semi-food service) car Timeline, and Painting chart.

Then I decided to be crazy enough to do the same graphical layout chart for the SP's Lounge cars and other food-service cars as well, mostly Cafe-Lounges, which changed back and forth to Diners, along with the Daylight and other Premier Train Tavern cars.

Kitbashing SP Food Service Cars

Current food-service kitbashing projects: Cafe-Lounge SP 10913, Diner T&NO 931, & SP 10014.

These timelines led me to revisit several of my Diner and Cafe-Lounge kitbashes, which I still am working on... but it has been nice to dust off these 10-15 year old projects again, and breath a bit of effort on them, seeing that the new GGD cars won't be replacing these kitbashes anytime soon.  When I feel like doing more Archer Rivet Decals, the SP 10014 will need basically all the rivets replaced and T&NO 931 and SP 10913 will have the windows adjusted to replicate the enlarged style the cars received in 1937's rebuilds.

Santa Fe's Grand Canyon?

My father's first brass engine purchases back in the early 1980s was a PFM 3751-class (semi) 'modernized' model.  I can't do the 3751 herself, as she was shopped a second time by my modeling era, receiving the single larger sand dome.

ATSF 3753 leads No.23 North, the Grand Canyon, to Richmond, California while the UP 6-6-4 sleeper 'American Scene' brings up the markers on a UP passenger train on the joint track west of the depot at Barstow.

I'm planning to finish it as Santa Fe 3753, which kept the two-sand dome arrangement into my modeling era and should work nicely as the road engine on the Grand Canyon's northern section to Richmond, at least the Barstow to Bakersfield section.  The Santa Fe's smaller engines worked in the Valley, mostly 1300-class Pacifics and 3700-class Mountains.

Sidetracked with Santa Fe "Shadowline" Cars

Santa Fe Diner 1458, and 6-6-4s 'Surprise Valley' in Shadowline and Two-Tone Gray 'Chama Valley.'

So while the photo above is not the normal operating consist order, the Grand Canyon will be a striking consist with the mix of heavyweight, lightweight, fluted, and shadowlined HW and smooth-sided LW cars, with HW chair cars, LW chair cars, HW headend cars, an RPO-Baggage, Diner, Sleepers, etc.

This last year I've mostly switched back to passenger car modeling, along with a shift to some Santa Fe Grand Canyon consist cars.

Santa Fe's 1458 HW Diner kitbash.

This is a rather involved kitbash of a Rivarossi HW Diner, the body work is fairly straight forward, but the underframe and the roof modifications are fairly involved, and still needs work.

Santa Fe 1524, a Snack Lounge-Dormitory.

Similar work is being done on a Walthers 3060-class Chair Car by converting it to Snack-Lounge-Dorm configuration of the 1520-series cars, every couple cars were different conversions.  I'm still researching what the interior arrangement of this car will look like, but the changes to the windows and underframe modifications are mostly done.  The last major work is moving the roof A/C hatch to the middle of the car and blank over the inner one near the car end.

I may look into a proper full-lounge car, but the Grand Canyon, No.23 North, consist usually just needed the diner westward, and then the California Limited, No.4 North,  would take the diner back to Barstow.  So for my modeling, the diner and snack-lounge can vary as ridership and scheduling needs the extra food and lounge space.  Given the prototype photo of the 1458 that I worked from was in San Diego in 1948, the diner I believe was coupled to a car that looks very much like one of the 1524/1525 type snack cars.  So I believe it's reasonable to be modeling both cars and running them together.

Minor Obsession with Pullman 6-6-4 LW Sleepers

My growing flock of SP, Santa Fe, & MoPac 6-6-4s make quite the rainbow of colors now.

I'm not exactly sure why, but I believe most of my Lightweight Pullman sleepers are now actually 6-6-4s.  As I'm digging more into various consists, it seems that I've either picked up several more in 2026 to work on or have picked up long term projects to finish.

From the Shadow...lines

Santa Fe's 'Surprise Valley', which was among the last 6-6-4s to loose shadowlining.

One of the Santa Fe's 26 'Valley'-series cars, which was assigned to the Grand Canyon (North) to Richmond California.  This car is one that a friend and I have talked about modeling for 15-20 years together, but his starting point 6-6-4 is too new with the removed skirts, and I was recently able to find another undecorated Walthers car to start with.

The Santa Fe's Idea of Two-Tone Gray with Silver

Santa Fe's 'Chama Valley' after it was painted into Santa Fe's Two-Tone Gray scheme and deskirted.

This is Walther's "earlier version" 6-6-4, which is still unfortunately rather later 1953+ era, with the deskirted body.  If it still had skirts, I could use it back into the 1950-era as the Santa Fe's 6-6-4s came out of the 1947 Shadowline scheme.

Don't Forget the MoPac!

Modeling MoPac's "Eagle River" Pullman 6-6-4, heavily customized Walthers model.

My Santa Fe Grand Canyon journey has spilled over into modeling the MoPac now too...  I've planned to model this car for 15-20 years now... but just never got started on it until now.  The Grand Canyon from 1947-1954 used a MoPac car on the Richmond-New Orleans route every 3rd or 4th day, with Santa Fe cars the other days to balance route miles.

As of July 4, I just need to wrap up the car with a clear-coat and then reinstall windows, window shades, etc.

1947-1953 Golden State Red & Silver-scheme

SP 'Golden Plain', one of the 1947 Golden State painted cars.

The striking red and silver Golden State scheme 6-6-4 has been a check-box project for me for over 20 years.  So this will be a fun car to finish up soon.  As of July 4, I just need to wrap up the car with a clear-coat and then reinstall windows, window shades, etc.

Projects for the 10th Year

I'm starting to look into several projects for the next year or so.

Passenger Consist Modeling

SP 4230, No.60 at Newhall, 4-29-51 - Brian Black Collection - used with permission.

I've been modeling cars for various cars from the West Coast (Nos.59/60) for over 20 years now.  Now I'm aiming for some fine tuning of those cars and polishing off the last few cars that have been 'too scary' to attempt to model or kitbash.

More West Coast Modeling

A sneak-peek at a mock-up of the rear end of the West Coast. SP 10913 Cafe-Lounge, SP 9162 (standing in for SP 9200) and SP 'Golden Plain' 6-6-4s.

A number of years ago, I already have done several articles on modeling the Owl (No.57/58), but nothing on the other night passenger train of the San Joaquin Valley yet.  I've been doing more modeling on making a more accurate West Coast, Nos.59/60.  This should allow me to make a couple posts on the West Coast's consist and some of the signature aspects of the consist which makes the 1950-1953 Sacramento-LA West Coast consist.

The West Coast Consist as of Nov 4, 1951, which is in the mid-early era that I'm modeling.

So with some more aggressive kitbashing, I'm looking to make my cars more accurate for specific eras of the train.  Likewise, I'll be finishing up the Owl that I started posting about 10 years ago.

SP 9200, ex-CoSF 10-5 Sleeper

The SP 9200/9201 were regulars on the CoSF, and then in late 1950 they were assigned to the West Coast.

One of these more complicated kitbashes is this 10-5 for the West Coast.  The car had 1941 City of San Francisco 8th Trainset detailing including unique skirting, trim molding above and below the windows, roof conduit, etc.

More Grand Canyon Modeling

Santa Fe's Grand Canyon (23 North) as of Feb 1949.

I'm enjoying getting a brain cramp sorting through the Santa Fe consists for their passenger trains between Barstow and Oakland (Richmond).

Jawbone Branch Projects

Building the redesigned Owenyo with the new 46" radius wye.

I've not done much on the Jawbone over the last year... since I was redesigning the scaling and proportions of the trackwork at Owenyo.  I'm hoping to restart on this soon, but I've also moved all my Jawbone Branch blog posts over to it's own blog to keep it separate from my general modeling which is here on the NightOwlModeler blog.

Jawbone Steam Engines - Setup & DCC

 

My planned mainstays of the Jawbone's steam engine fleet: SP 3237, 3266, & 3203.

As I get into working on the Jawbone Branch again, I'll need to get several steam engines working to start running operations on the line.  So this will mean at least a couple articles on DCCing HO brass and setting up the engines with proper mechanicals, weighting, lighting, etc.

While I have plenty of interesting freight car models to get into building, I'm not sure I'll have time to start building them in the next year.  It's more important to build the layout than increase the pool of freight cars to run on it.

New Model Releases & Reviews

It seems I've been doing a number of reviews of SP models that are coming out.  Several of them we've been waiting for a couple years.  So I look forward to their arrivals, hopefully this year.

Rapido's C-40-3 Arriving Soon?

SP 1115 in WWII SP as-delivered scheme, pre-production model at BAPM 2026 meet.

Sometime later this year (hopefully) the new Rapido SP C-40-3 should be arriving for service on the Jawbone Branch.  So I'm hoping soon this new caboose will be ready to show off on my Jawbone Branch while I get the new track work in and functioning.

Golden Gate Depot Harriman Cars.  Month or less away?

Golden Gate Depot's 75-CS Lounge tooling check from Feb 2026, 

I checked in with 3rd & Townsend Models a couple weeks back to see if there was any chance that the new cars would be arriving before the BAPM RPM meet in Oakland on June 27th.  I was told they'd be at least a couple weeks after that.  So I'm hoping that very soon after I post this Yearly Blog Review that they will show up and I'll do a series of articles on them.  I'm looking at doing both an 'out-of-box' review and also some articles on kitbashing or adding details to customize the models for the cars I want to model and air conditioning the 72-C-1 for use on my Owl and West Coast consists.

In Closing

What's the next year going to hold?

I think that wraps up this blog focused post for this year.  There's still a number of fun and interesting projects that I have in the works to post blogs about, so keep an eye here as I post new articles.

Related Articles:

Year 9 of the Night Owl Modeler Blog Starts Now - 2025

I missed a couple years here posting the July 4, reviews of the blog...

Six Years of Blogging and Counting (Review) - 2022

Five Years of Blogging and Counting (Review) - 2021

Four Years of Blogging and Counting (Review) - 2020

Three Years of Blogging and Counting (Review) -2019

Two Years of Blogging - Reflections - 2018

A Year of Modeling in Review - 2017

First Steps - A new modeling blog posting - 2016

Bay Area Prototype Modelers Meet 2026

On June 27, 2026, I headed over to the Bay Area Prototype Meet in Kensington, CA, a couple miles south of where the meet has historically been held at St. David's School due to the regular venue building receiving new windows and forcing the BAPM to be moved to a new venue.

Time for a Walk Around the Show

Here's some pictures that I took at the event, Enjoy!

The long-time regular at BAPM Harry Wong moves in with his lighting and camera rig around taking photos for Railroad Model Craftsman, where he now works.

Rapido's New C-40-3

The last several years Rapido has had a table with a couple of their reps to talk to and discuss projects with.  Last year, they had 3d printed pre-tooling model for their SP C-40-3 caboose.  This year they have pre-production models from the actual injection molding tooling and detail parts applied and then painted and lettered.  These are probably my second most anticipated model project for 2026, which I have reserved a couple years ago, which is in the pipeline right now.  My primary models of interest that are expected soon, are the Golden Gate Depot/3rd & Townsend Models Harriman V2.0 cars, expected in July 2026.

This would be the as-delivered scheme, initials only, pre-1946.

I was told by the Rapido representatives at the show, that these pre-production models will have some slight changes for production.  While I've not gone over these with a fine-tooth comb looking for problems, they look good to me on the first pass as they are.  As with all pre-production samples, this is to be expected.  Rapido is expecting these cabooses to be out near the end of the year 2026.

These models look very nice and I'm looking forward to receiving mine and writing the review on them for service on the Jawbone Branch.

The Rapido rep that talked with me said that the cars with the 'frog-eye' markers will work, and the earlier corner-lantern cars will have non-working markers included, which can be mounted on either end of the car as the modeler desires.  This seems like a reasonable solution.

This is one of the SP cabooses which was fitted with two stoves inside.

Some SP cabooses only had one stove, but some wood cars were refitted to have two stoves, like my SP 2 caboose, a C-30-2.  As I recall, the SP C-40-3s were built with two from the beginning.  Some kept the second stove in the short-end, but some had it capped off and/or removed.

A little weathering and this car would be ready for service on most any SP mainline layout after 1938.

It was rather busy at the Meet, but I should have grabbed some photos of the Gothic Lettered version (post 1955-56 era) for my blog.  

Here's a 'borrowed photo' from Cyrus Gillespie's collection from the meet showing the Gothic Lettering later versions of Rapido's C-40-3s.

I didn't see a sample for the version I have on order, which is the 1946-1955 version with the spelled out 'Roman' version of "SOUTHERN PACIFIC".  I'm not too worried about them getting those done right.  Part of me is interested in the SP version like the 1115 at the show, as I've seen views of those cars over Donner and the SP system in the Pentrex film, 'Southern Pacific in 1941'.  However, I have several other cabooses, and we can't have everything which 'looks cool'.

Working Construction Equipment Models?!

The arm has a working attachment connector to switch out what tool it needs at the moment.

Probably the most impressive models being shown at the meet are these functioning models of heavy equipment by Nexus Hobby. 

Business Card for Nexus Hobby, the builder of these amazing little machines.

Draglines, clamshell buckets, and an excavator with multiple attachments.  Plus a dump truck that can drive around the site as well.  The dragline and clameshell units could also traverse and move on their own tracks around the 'solid ground' of the 'sandbox' that the owner brought with him.  I shot some video of the pieces of equipment showing off what they could do.

Here's some of the videos that I shot of the working heavy equipment.

Excavator moving around with it's full light package and fully working arm with different attachments.

OwlMtModels & Jason Hill's Passenger Cars

OMM Table, Lumber Loads & my Passenger cars displayed - photo by "Sierra Rwy 1929"

I brought the OwlMtModels collection of Lumber Loads and a couple Beet Racks, plus some MW cars.  

BAPM 2026, NC&StL 15337 Jason Hill model. - photo by Sierra Railway 1929

I also brought along the NC&StL 15337 Accurail kitbash with all the chalk-marks and routing cars.  Nice to see some of the other folks out there thought it was worth taking a photo of it.

My main display of OwlMtModels lumber loads and passenger cars (and partial train consists) taking up a bit more than one table.

Also a large group of my current passenger train project cars, including most of my current West Coast consist and parts of my Santa Fe Grand Canyon, with the shadowlined cars and the MoPac 6-6-4 'Eagle River'.  I was surprised there were a couple other people modeling the Grand Canyon (North) also at the meet too!  I also had a couple miscellaneous Pullman Tourist Cars, including my 16-section kitbashed car and the Walthers 14-section 'Challenger' Tourist car.

Many folks enjoyed seeing the rainbow consist of the West Coast, with the freshly painted 'Golden Plain' (in the middle of the photo), and my newly started Walthers conversion for a ex-CoSF SP 9200/9201 Pullman 10-5 that I'll be posting about soon.

I think this was a Pullman 11-double-bedroom sleeper originally, with another ex-City car to the top left too.

I didn't see who's models these were, but they had a large collection of early Amtrak passenger cars.

I grabbed this detail shot so I can see what to do on my kitbash soon.

The cars that caught my eye were the ones which were clearly ex-City of San Francisco (or other City train sets) that had the roof conduits still in place, as my SP 9200/.9201 will need that.

Pullman 10-6 "Blunt-End" Overland-Pool Car

Among the other passenger train modelers, I found this Pullman 10-6 Blunt-End sleeper in Overland colors.

SP 9041, Blunt-End 10-6 for SF Overland, I didn't catch who the modeler was to give credit, but very
nice model.

I'll probably include this photo in some of my West Coast modeling blogs, as an example of the 10-6s that bumped the SP's 6-6-4s to secondary train assignments.

SP SSS & Gray era E-units and lightweight cars.

More Gray and SSS SP passenger consist modeling.

A couple of examples of the longest lived F7As on the SP roster.  SP 6432 was the last F7A on the Pacific Lines, as I recall.

As I recall the 6432 lasted into the early '70s before being traded in for newer engines from EMD.  In her last years, she was very dirty and weather beaten.

The T&NO 350-series units came back to the Pacific Lines in the 1950s, and 355 was among the last as I remember.

Ken Adams' M47 Tanks on Flatcars

There were a couple of military modelers at the show, one was Ken Adams with his M-47s and extensive research on them.  The 'Popsicles' and SP models behind are Kieth Clayton's, thanks to Cyrus Gillespie's photos of the meet.

Davy Dauchan's Wall of Consists from Time Books

This display shows sequential days of trains that the engineer took over the SP.  Pretty cool concept.  Amazing that today we can pull together photos of the engines to actually get a pretty good modeling of the consists of the trains from nearly 40 years ago.

The front ends of multiple trains, plus the time that the recoder operated the trains. 

I've never quite seen this type of consist modeling and display before.  It's a rather interesting way to show the actions of the trains and how they fit into the whole system and also relate to the timing of how the railroad worked.

Cyrus Gillespie got this better view of the data from each day's trip and consist.

1970s KTM 72-IC-series "Subs"

The lighting was rather tricky to get good photos of these solid Gray or Gray and black roof 'Subs'.

It's always good to see what can be done with these classic 'budget' brass passenger car models.

Lucas Goodman's Various Cabooses

A nice collection of SP and Santa Fe cabooses by Lucas Goodman.

Pat Davis' Models of Amador Central Engines

Pat's collection of custom AC's S12s.

Pat Davis' Amador Foothills model - photographed by Cyrus Gillespie, I missed getting this angle in my photo set.

Pat worked with Bill from PDC.CA for a couple months to get all the artwork correct for these custom decals.

Other Models at the Meet

Many of the other models around the room didn't have name tags or I didn't catch who did the models, so no disrespect intended as I'm just going to post these photos as I walked around the meet.

Maybe a couple dioramas

Cryo-reefer cars, covered hoppers, boxcars.. steel cars... all sorts.

My five cars in the foreground that overflowed from the lumber trains and passenger cars on the table to the right.  I missed who the WP modeler is that brought these WP MW cars and consist.  The far car in my five-car group is my NC&StL 15337 (which is currently one of my favorite cars), then a Fox Valley 'Wagon-top', two OwlMtModels F-50s with Blackburn Racks, and my kitbashed SPMW 847 wheel car.

Look at all the SD9s and Alcos, plus a couple Kraus-Maffies!  I also see a B-50-15/16 there and a yellow-stripe SP boxcar.

As always at these meets, there are diesels from all over showing up.

SP Centennials, Kodachrome, MW tie consist, and some regular gray & red SP units too. 

Amtrak Superliners, tank cars, gondolas, doodle-bugs, couple Daylight cars, all sorts of cars on this table.

How about some foreign train modeling too?

Even a few structure models show up at the meets too!

More diesels!

In Closing

As always, the group that comes together for the BAPM meets are a wonderful group, always positive and enjoyable to meet and talk with.  The shade trees at the new location in Kensington helped keep the heat down, and the narrow drive along the Richmond-Oakland ridgeline was certainly exciting, plus a great view of the bay and San Francisco.

Model Room around 1PM at the BAPM 2019 Meet at Saint David's School.

I'm happy that the coordinators were able to get the new location on short notice and I understand the Saint David's School needed some renovating with new windows, which required the shift in locations.

I enjoyed meeting up with many old friends and some newer friends.  Plus a couple of people who were attending for their first time.  Over the years, I found I much enjoy the RPM-type meets over any sort of 'contest' meet.  The people are so much more open with techniques, suppliers, vendors, etc to help with your modeling project that they've found.  Instead of the 'If I show you how I did mine, you might beat me next year!' attitude of many contests.  The RPM folks take the opposite stance, 'I want you to bring an awesome model next year, one that I'll be asking you how you did this and that on!'  So if you ever have the chance to attend the BAPM meets, I highly suggest that you attend.

Jason Hill