Tech Bros and Orchards

It’s Christmas, so it’s time for another anachronistic, inappropriate model!

If you’ve been in the San Francisco or Silicon Valley area in the last several years, you’ve seen long chains of large, unmarked buses during rush hour on our local freeways. These buses are the private buses for tech companies. Many of the large employers provide these buses as a way for their workers to commute. They’re especially important for convincing younger employees who want to live in San Francisco to come down to suburban office parks in the Santa Clara Valley. Facebook, Apple, Genentech, Salesforce, and others effectively run their own regional bus lines. The official term is usually “corporate shuttle”, but folks generically refer to these as “Google Buses” for the first company to run the buses.

Tech workers board a shuttle bus in San Francisco. From KQED article.

The “Google buses” are an interesting operation. They provide a way to get employees into offices that might be hard to reach because of the region's notoriously bad traffic congestion, allows the companies to fill the offices beyond what the parking lots or local roads can handle, and gives employees a nicer commute experience by giving them a way to work during the commute, minimize transfers, and be able to have confidential conversations without a competitor’s employee overhearing.

The buses are also a band-aid on Silicon Valley’s suburban growth. Because many of the tech campuses were built in former industrial areas far away from existing public transportation, the buses let employers use older buildings rather than fighting to develop large campuses near existing Caltrain, light rail, or BART, and allows them to recruit employees living in suburban areas that don’t have easy access to existing public transportation. The buses also cause conflicts in neighborhoods. Residents get frustrated by the large buses on previously-quiet streets, the buses often block traffic and city buses when waiting to start a route, and there have been many reports of rents going up in San Francisco neighborhoods when a corporate shuttle route arrives. Although there's less buses around post-pandemic, the corporate shuttles are still running.

Even though the corporate shuttles are much different than your typical city bus, the problems faced by corporate shuttles are the same problems faced by public transit providers. The companies need to create departments to decide on routes, negotiate for potential stops with parking, hire contractors to operate the bus, and negotiate with the cities when they complain about the new traffic. Employees get unhappy with route changes if a particular site refuses to keep providing parking and a bus stop, complain about the infrequent runs, and yell loudly when the Internet connection on the bus isn’t perfect when crossing a mountain range. Riding the buses can teach riders a lot about running a rapid transit service - factoring in the time between arrival at the destination and time needed to get back to the start for the next run, planning capacity and driver hours when most riders want only one or two preferred times, and noticing how most of the time for the route was spent on the surfaces streets before and after the freeway miles. The corporate shuttles also need to plan for disaster - handling broken-down buses, or re-routing buses. Google's bus system melted down one Friday when a concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater clogged traffic so much that the Google buses from the first campus stop couldn’t reach the rest of campus.

It’s hard not to see the buses around here during commute hours. You’ll see the white, silver, blue, and black buses on the carpool lanes, dashing around the streets near the offices, and clustered in parking lots during the day as they wait for the trips home. The buses started out as smaller 24 seat buses back in 2005 or so, but by 2010 most of the company was using full-size (and sometime double-deck) bus coaches. Back in 2012, some San Franciscans got curious about the big white buses going down their neighborhood streets, and started mapping the buses. They ended up drawing an unauthorized route map of the buses used by the different companies.

I spent several years working for one of those Silicon Valley tech companies with a corporate shuttle system, and most of my commutes to and from work was on a “Google Bus”. For the bus spotters among you, most of the routes I was on had the 2012-vintage Van Hool buses that a certain tech company had made to order, mostly single level but I occasionally was on routes served by the double-deck buses. Other routes and companies used the Prevost or even the Turkish-made Temsa. (All three companies are European; I’m sad that the Bay Area’s own Gillig never got into the Google bus business.) When my parents came to a “Bring your parents to work” event one year, they got to tool around between my company’s buildings on one of those same Google buses that I rode every day.

But, of course, I model the 1930’s, so a 2010-era bus carrying tech bros to former orchards and truck farm land in Mountain View isn’t quite my setting.

I’d known there were folks making model buses, but I didn’t know there were folks making accurate modern buses until YouTuber Interurban Era showed off one of Iconic Replica’s 1960’s era Flxable bus in Alameda County’s own A/C Transit colors. I’d seen these buses whenever we went to visit grandparents, so the models caught my interest. “I wonder if they have more modern buses?”

Yup. Iconic Replicas made models of Prevost coaches in HO in a variety of paint schemes, as well as the two level Van Hool buses. The buses aren’t perfect for a rivet counter; the single-level coaches lack the second exit door halfway down the sides seen on most corporate shuttles, and the models mostly tend to be available in eye-catching paint schemes. It looks like the company has made white buses occasionally, but they’re collectible and rare. They certainly haven't done the other colors often seen on Facebook and Apple shuttles.

Once I saw the models, I knew the layout needed some Google buses, regardless of how anachronistic they are.

I managed to find a pair of these models - the Prevost model in a Greyhound paint scheme, and a double-deck in a bright green “Tornado” paint scheme, and decided I’d try to convert these to Google buses.

The first challenge was disassembling. For the single-level model, there were screws on the bottom, and the clear plastic used for windows hinted that the model was actually a lower metal chassis with the upper half printed onto clear plastic. Unscrewing the screws wasn’t enough; it required a little bit of force to pull the two halves apart. The disassembled photo shows the latches holding the clear window section into the body.

Next challenge: how would I paint these? I tried several ways to remove the paint (alcohol, paint thinner, Dio-sol) and none moved any of the factory paint. I considered getting some real paint stripper and “doing the job right”, but decided this was a silly enough project that perfection wasn’t essential. I ended up masking both the chassis and windows carefully, primed with Tamiya primer, and painted with a gloss white from a Testor’s rattle can.

The final step was detailing. Most of the Google buses you see are stark white with a small reporting marks on the right side near the front door. (One common is "WEDRIVEU", referring to the contractor operating many of the buses.) I'd thought of pulling out the inkjet printer decal paper to make some custom, tiny decals, but decided anything I'd print wouldn't be readable. Instead, I grabbed some random text from a sheet of freight car info decals. Some black plastic parts (cargo hatches) break the monotony. I ended up dotting black paint on the model as appropriate, put some orange dots on the running lights I’d painted over, and called it a day. My spray can paint job didn’t hit the nose of the bus, so there’s still a Greyhound logo if you look carefully. I also couldn’t figure out how to strip the paint on the clear plastic, so my bus is going to “NEW YORK NY” instead of the more appropriate and cryptic “MPK” (Facebook) or “MTV” (Google). That's going to be a long commute from Campbell!

My Google Bus isn't my best modeling, but it was a fun project over Christmas. It's also reflects nicely on how Silicon Valley's changed from the 1930's to modern day, and highlights one of the iconic scenes seen in modern day Silicon Valley. I've still got a double-deck bus to do, but need to figure out how to strip the paint off the clear plastic safely first.

I’ll be interested to see whether I’ve modeled a Santa Clara valley detail which is just a reminder of the busy 2010’s, or a sight that future kids will immediately recognize. Although the corporate shuttles have returned to the Silicon Valley, they’re not to the volume of Before Times. Most of the tech companies are having trouble getting employees away from working-from-home and back into the crowded offices. There have also been plans to move tech offices closer to traditional public transportation. Former shopping centers near Sunnyvale’s train station were torn down and converted to office towers for tech companies. Facebook put in considerable effort to help rebuild the Dumbarton railroad bridge from Redwood City to Newark. They’d hoped the line could bring employees from San Francisco straight to their offices via the existing Caltrain line, or bring employees from Pleasanton, Newark, and Fremont across the bay. Google has been working actively on their Downton West plan for West San Jose, buying up properties and preparing for several blocks of offices near the Caltrain station. If I was redoing my layout to model 2020, I’d need to put in some Google office towers. All those projects could allow employees to use existing public transit, and make the Google Buses disappear just like the orchards did.

---

Got suggestion on how to strip the paint off Iconic Replicas models? Add a note in the comments!

3d Printing A Crowd of Passenger Cars: Harriman 60-C-1 to 60-C-4

In any operating model railroad, the engines and the cars are the characters in our play. And just like in a play, crowd scenes need a crowd - only in this case, our crowd are lots of trains and lots of freight and passenger cars. Collecting enough rolling stock for a model railroad can take a while as we build kits, shop, and otherwise put together an appropriate set of rolling stock for our layout.

On the Vasona Branch layout, I’ve accumulated my freight cars over years, slowly getting just the right mix of cars. The layout started out with some freight cars from my teenage years. A few years out in the wilderness of suburban New York City got me a bunch of PFE refrigerator cars, all picked up at Valley Model Trains's great location out at an abandoned mill in Wappingers Falls. I’ve bought and built additional models - some resin, some plastic, but all trending towards the era I chose. I’ve gotten rid of unprototypical cars, bought others that better match my 1920’s California setting, and now my layout has the depression-era look of a sea of brown boxcars. I’ve got my crowd scene.

With the Market Street layout, though, I’m back in the position of not having enough characters for my crowd scene. This time, my problem is a lack of passenger cars rather than freight cars. I haven’t had to model passenger operations significantly in the past, so I don’t own a lot of equipment. And I need a crowd.

My current Vasona Branch layout, after all, only needs two passenger trains - a Los Gatos commute and the Santa Cruz to San Francisco train. The commute is served with some ok 1980’s, Soho brass commute cars. The Santa Cruz trains use a string of 1960’s Ken Kidder cars. Both cars aren’t particularly detailed, but they’re affordable ($100 for the Soho cars, and $40 each for the Ken Kidder cars), take well to modification, and aren’t particularly rare so they’ll turn up on eBay if I’m lucky. I’ve got an assortment of other passenger equipment - baggage cars from the old MDC kits, a Southern Car and Foundry 70 foot baggage car that can’t quite make it around my 24” curves, and one or two odd brass cars - but otherwise that’s it. Great for a branch line out in the country.

The Market Street layout, in contrast, needs a crowd of cars. It needs four or five commute trains, each with at least three cars. It needs several baggage and postal cars that will be added and removed from some of the commute trains. And it needs at least a train or two to represent long-distance trains passing through.

That’s a lot of cars - fifteen or so coaches, four baggage cars, four RPOs, and another train set or two.

Well, I’ve got a 3d printer, and I’ve already made freight cars on it. What could be so hard about making Harriman cars?

These models represent the 60-C-1 to 60-C-4 Harriman passenger cars built starting in 1910. The actual cars were the first steel cars for the Southern Pacific. They ended up in wide use across the SP system. More importantly, they were common cars on both the SP commute and short-distance trains such as the Santa Cruz to San Francisco run. The cars originally had gas lighting, but switched to electrical lights by the late 1920’s - a key detail to add for later cars. The 60-C-1 to 60-C-4 cars were only the first Harrimans; there were other series (both as plain coaches and more comfortable chair cars). But these earlier cars were near-identical and look better to my eye. Later series had different window heights or spacing, differences in doors, and a bunch of other minor differences.

These photos show the first two presentable cars I've 3d printed. There's still some details to get right, and there's still some challenges in assembling them precisely, but these models do show that a crowd of passenger cars can come off of a 3d printer.

The cars have been a bit of a challenge. The cars are too long to fit in the printer, so they had to be made in sections that I'd assemble into a single car body. I ended up making the cars from four pieces: a vestibule and car end, the body in two halves, and another vestibule. I printed the bodies vertically, just like I’d done on the flat cars and Hart gondolas. This meant that only the cross section of the car was supported, minimizing support structure and keeping the support structures off of finished surfaces of the car. The car ends couldn’t be done this way; they print upright, with the support structure attached to the steps and to the coupler pad. The bottom ends up being coarse because the side facing the build platform never quite prints right because of lack of support, but the overall part prints fine.

Like all the 3d models I’ve done, the cars are also challenging because of all the niggling little details I need to understand in order for the car to look right. For example, the roofs on Harriman cars were overlapping steel sheets. The lower sheet always was placed between windows; the top piece always lined up with the windows. That’s a trivial detail, but needed to capture the look. Minor inaccuracies in window spacing is a glaring problem for anyone who's researched the car. Getting the roof curve correct took multiple tries, and I'm still not quite happy. Other little details - like the beading at the intersection of the roof and side - turn out to be more important than I expected. Without the beading, the cars looked wrong, and it was hard to spot the point where the roof curve ended. It also was helpful for brush painting - the brush could be drawn across the bead to paint it neatly, and the bead would stop the brush from going further. I could cheat on any of these details, save myself a bunch of time, and have complete cars sooner... but they wouldn't look right to my eye.

Enjoy these photos of the cars and the pilot models; I’ll talk in-depth about the cars and their construction in upcoming posts.

---

Thanks to Jason Hill - his experiments using Shapeways to print wall sections for MDC Harriman cars inspired me to try making a whole car.

Mystery Project

Hmmmm, I wonder what I'm working on next?

Passenger Car Inspiration

Quick note: I've occasionally gotten interested in modeling the Southern Pacific passenger trains that went from San Jose to Los Gatos. Part of the fun and challenge is figuring out which cars actually ran on the Santa Cruz branch, and figuring out how to make models of those from available plastic, resin, and brass models.

Jason Hill is now sharing how he's customized existing models to match many of the trains going over Tehachapi Pass. Check out his Night Owl Modeler website to see his projects, including his recent work on a baggage / railroad post office car. Jason also has an illustrated guide to Southern Pacific passenger cars where he describes good starting points for each car.

Jason's interest in Railroad Post Office cars convinced me to learn a bit more about mail service over the Santa Cruz Mountains. In the 1930's, one train a day carried a Railway Post Office car. Inside, U.S. Mail clerks sorted mail and distributed it to the towns along the route. Here's hoping I can find some good details on the mail service!