Little Time, Where To Begin With Available Roads?

[wallyworld]

I have modeled in every scale except Z. Probabably I am one of those who constitute a majority in that we have little enough time as it is, let alone time for this hobby. One of the great draw backs to this hobby relates to chosing a prototype road to model rather than to freelancing one. If you do not have the time to all your hand craft road power and rolling stock, it brings dreams of a model pike to a dead stop. Now what do you do? Again, not having any spare time and wanting a reasonably varied amount of rolling stock, one has to be practical when choosing a prototype. Some roads you would think would have a variety of commercial models to chose from, in reality, have few. How many of us have had to resort to looking through the often extremely fine print of ads, trolling the internet or peering at endless boxes to determine if there is enough commercially available stock to model a prototype? I suggest that this fine magazine and it's sister publications produce a once a year guide to all commercially available models all listed by scale, model type, road name ( most important!), and manufacturer. That gives us a huge head start if we are not modeling the Class 1 roads. I love the Illinois Terminal. If I chose that road in HO, I'd have some lonely hopper cars waiting for road power that will probably never arrive. Come on Kalmbach, you would really encourage more purchases and I am sure the model companies would really get behind this.

[Anonymous]

"you're not from around here, are you!"

if you want to buy a complete railroad off the shelf, you will probably be best off with the pennsylvania or new york central. all the other s will be the same with just another name attached.

manufacturers produce only what they produce, and any list from them will reflect this. next year, next month that list will change. in this game you get what you can when you can. eventually it adds up to a railroad line you may want to emulate.

myself, i chose the hard way to go. hardly anything was available for a 19th century "western railroad". i began with the virginia & truckee because that stuff was available, and that's where i lived. the v&t was dirty and short, so sometimes i would call myself the central pacific because they had more adventures and a better selection of equipment. the santa fe was cool and they had gunfight for control of the wolfcreek pass. sometimes, i'm the missouri pacific in abeline meeting the cattle drives up from texas.

life is short. don't stifle yourself.

[Anonymous]

I agree with Rick: Probably the most oft-produced models are those made for the Pennsy, followed by the New York Central. In western roads, it would likely be the Santa Fe, followed by the Union Pacific (whose models may cost you more due to the licensing demands of UP these days).

If more contemporary roads are to your liking, in the East I guess that Norfolk Southern and CSX would lead the pack, and in the West it would be BNSF and UP.

But the truth of the matter is that there are plenty of items out there for just about every major (and many minor) railroads these days. Regardless of what prototype road you choose, you should have little problem finding more than enough stuff to stock a good-size layout and to bust your hobby budget.

I'm also like Rick in the respect that I really am drawn to mid- to late-19th century items. They are definitely not all that plentiful in O gauge--particularly if you want to model a specific road--but that sure does help to keep the budget in check. Besides, I just like to combine my hobby/modeling interest with my interest in studying prototype railroading of that period.

It also depends on which scale you are planning to model in. You mentioned HO in your post. If HO is your thing, then I would recommend placing your post on the MR forum, since that's where the more scale-oriented folks can be found (HO and N scale, primarily).

As for a comprehensive guide: That's sure not something I would want to undertake if I was back in the model railroad publishing business. It would be very difficult (and labor intensive) to compile, and very difficult to keep up-to-date and truly comprehensive since models come into production all the time, and go out of production just as often.

You said that "one of the great draw backs to this hobby relates to chosing a prototype road to model rather than to freelancing one." I guess I see that as more of an opportunity than a drawback, since researching the prototype roads and selecting one to model (if that's your thing), is not only fun, but educational. Furthermore, most of the greatest model railroads ever constructed have been based on freelanced roads and themes.

[cnw1995]

'Wally', what you seem to want is pretty close to what Walther's offered in their massive catalogs for different gauges, especially if you are interested in HO. The 'search' for roadnames et al is one of the fun things in the hobby for me - even if I can't indulge my every wish - nor have the time to peruse every resouce. CTT is a pretty good start - I spend a month reading the mag on my long commute (by rail fortunately). Frankly, I am a real fan of some relatively minor roads (in terms of product offerings).

[brianel027]

I do agree with wallyworld in that the modern current roadnames are very grossly underrepresented on tradtionally sized starter type 3-rail trains. Which is the one area where you'd think there would be some current roads. I've seen this at train shows, where the kids had a instant connection to and recognition of a Conrail engine over lets say a PRR one.

I've been making points about this for years, and gave up long ago and started doing extensive repainting. Fortunately Microscale has no shortage of decal selection in Conrail, Norfolk Southern, CSX, BNSF, CP Railway. Ironically this is the first year in the 15 years I've been in the hobby where Lionel is currently cataloging 3 current roadname cars in their starter selection: a CSX Waffle Box, a BNSF Ore Hopper and a NS 2-bay Hopper.

Before that there was a translucent blue unpainted plastic Conrail gondola from Lionel and a blue Conrail box car from K-Line under the Train-19 banner. Ironic too, that Conrail freight cars came in a variety of colors, of which CR blue was the exception.