Great Biffys of Model Railroading History
The pictures included here are brazenly lifted from the NMRA Bulletins of the early 1970s. Whit Towers was the editor, and one of the chief proponents of the use of Outhouses, or Biffys as they became known, as a featured accessory for your railroad. They played an important role on his Alturas & Lone Pine Ry., and it became a really big thing. So much so, that the general NMRA membership tired of the continual promotion and rose up in revolt with letters to the editor and lots of calls for Whit to resign from the Bulletin, and the NMRA.
Many of the cartoons of the Bulletin of that era were done by Milt Moore, and outhouses were easy subjects for his wit and pen. Here he pokes fun at the expense of the eminent John Allen...
Typically, plans were published to make scratch building a bit easier. It's not too late, boys and girls, use these plans to build your own outhouse for Nick's Big-Train Outhouse Contest... This one is fairly generic.
but wait... there's more!
Like Trollys? Whether a Trolly or a Tram, this one is... well... cute!
Perhaps to spark your imagination, here are some creative samples that graced the pages of the Bulletin in those days of yore...
Finally, here is the great grand-daddy of all outhouses... a rotating roundhouse kind of thing... motorized for your layout enjoyment, from the pen of Milt Moore.
Shown below are two outhouses from the Precision Products samples kit. They are actually wood siding glued to a solid wooden block, thus demonstrating that even Decker can build an outhouse. The whole building is done very quickly this way, but you could build it up on a regular frame. Get their 28 page catalog for $3 to:
Precision Products
Dept. GR
763 Cayuga Street, Unit #2
Lewiston, NY 14092-1724
We hope you have enjoyed our breif visit to biffy-land. Your contributions are welcome, we'll add them to this site.
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