John Whitby Allen

Who was John Whitby Allen?

John Whitby Allen was an American model railroader who created the famous HO scale Gorre & Daphetid model railroad in Monterey, California and authored numerous magazine articles on model railroading starting in the 1940s. Allen was renowned for his skill at scratch building and creating scenery. He also pioneered the technique of weathering his models for a more realistic appearance. In addition to his superdetailing of locomotives, rolling stock, structures, and scenery, Allen was known for populating his model world with scale figures of various kinds which helped him present humorous scenes to visitors to his layout and viewers of his photographs. Other techniques Allen promoted were realistic train operation and the use of forced perspective to create the illusion of a model railroad layout larger than it really was.