Earl Lloyd Moore (March 14, 1898 - August 12, 1979) was an American model railroader who published over a hundred pieces in various American model railroading magazines between 1955 and 1980 under the name E. L. Moore. His articles dealt primarily with scratch-building HO scale structures from low-cost, simple materials, primarily balsa wood. Moore prided himself on being able to construct complex models in little time for little money. He often noted that his projects could be built for a couple of dollars worth of materials in a couple of weeks of evenings. Moore undertook this work while a resident of Charlotte, North Carolina.
Moore concentrated on depicting the buildings and life of rural America in the 1890s and early 1900s - the period around his boyhood - in accordance with his personal view on the era. Moore's articles are notable both for their subject matter as well as their style. Along with the model under discussion, Moore would write the text, shoot and develop the photographs, and draft the plans. The accompanying photographs would often include one or more detailed staged scenes depicting everyday life with the building, and the text often wove in a humorous fictional story about the building and its inhabitants. He did not concentrate on modeling particular real railroads as is the norm for model railroad hobbyists, but focused on modeling buildings of both railroad and non-railroad subjects, as well as scenery.
Pre-model railroading biography
Early life
Moore was born and raised on a farm in rural southern Michigan. The farm's exact location is unknown, but in Moore's biographical piece called Early Century Field day he noted it was within a 9-mile radius of Bangor, Michigan, about 2 miles from a two-room school he attended as a boy, and there was a windmill and water tank about 2 1/2 miles away where one could board a Chicago bound 'flyer' while its locomotive stopped to take on water.
His father was the school treasurer, and on the first of each month one of Moore's chores was to deliver the teacher's paycheck. Treasurers were known to handle money, and one night Moore's father was held up at gunpoint and forced to open the safe in his parents' bedroom. The robbers made their escape by breaking open a nearby railroad section house and stealing the handcar. The next day the handcar was found abandoned down the line about a dozen miles away.
Moore served in the United States Navy on the USS Georgia in 1917 and 1918 during World War I. He was an honorary chaplain of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Little is known about Moore from the time he left the Navy until he arrived in Charlotte, where he set up a photography studio specializing in baby and child portraits. The few factoids that are known about Moore's life prior to his emergence on the national scene as a model railroader include: working in a paper mill in the northeast; working as a furniture salesman; and, during the 1930s, living as a self-described vagabond.
Photography studio
Moore was a photographer, and starting sometime in the late 1930s or early to mid 1940s he ran a photography studio in Charlotte that specialized in baby and child portraiture. Over the years it operated from several locations. It burned down sometime between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s. Moore then retired from business and devoted himself to model railroading.
Model railroad publications
Moore's model railroading activities were intertwined with his work as a freelance contributor to various US model railroading magazines. His work appeared in Model Railroader, Railroad Model Craftsman, Model Trains and Railroad Modeler. Moore's publications can be divided into three distinct periods.
Period 1: February 1955 to March 1962
The first period ran from February 1955, when his first publication appeared in Model Railroader, until March 1962, when his article on how to build an HO scale model of Disney's Grizzly Flats depot was the cover story of the final regular issue of Model Trains. During this time he established himself as an author capable of writing on a range of model railroading related construction projects that included structure building, rolling stock construction, scenery, lighting and scene staging.