Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
Hey fellas, One of my first issues of MR was the Aug 87? issue featuring the Yosemite Valley RR as modeled in a given month and year, I forget which. In any event, this was quite an eye opening experience for me. I had no idea at the time that you could model time as well as locomotives and structures, etc. I was changed forever. Over the next ten years, I would become fixated on different times and places and research what I could about them and make drawings and take photos and such to represent what I had been a part of when I was there. In a couple of cases, I created my own railroad to fit into the time and place I wanted to model. I was never really completely happy with any of my railroads, although I've always enjoyed the models I built during those times and kept almost all of them. It wasn't until my Grandfather, the man who got me into this wonderful hobby, died this year and I inherited his collection that I understood what really works for me as a model railroader. I am relatively young (under 30) so I don't remember steam power actually working the rails (aside from the Durango & Silverton two blocks away) during my lifetime. So I suppose it's natural that I model diesel powered trains exclusively. And I should add that I've lived from Texas to Colorado to Georgia and Florida while most of my family lives in North Dakota, so you may imagine I have every railroad represented from Norfolk Southern to Burlington Northern to Texas Mexican to Canadian Pacific. I model whole trains more than anything else; in other words, whichever locomotives, freight cars, caboose, etc. were on the train on a particular day are what are modeled. Sure, I'm particular, but it's fun for me. The thing I was never happy with was not knowing what to do with my August 6, 1991 BN grain train from North Dakota on the same layout with my NS pulpwood train from Newnan, Georgia in 1993 which sat next to my Santa Fe intermodal train from July 1997 in Fort Worth, Texas. My problem was never so much "what" I modeled or even "when," but "where." When I inherited this collection of models assembled from 1950-2000, I received a dilemma which made my previous trouble seem nitpicky. How could I justify all this equipment representing turn of the century steam to modern diesel on the same layout? The answer: freelancing. This was what my Grandfather did. His models were all superb and well representative of their prototype, but the collection is really just what he liked. I can assure you, the closest thing resembling reason to his collection was his childhood spent alongside the Louisville & Nashville and the single L&N locomotive he owned. But bringing this collection to my home and examining it and all the other reflection you deal with when losing one of your closest friends and family members really made me think about my own enjoyment of the hobby. I enjoy the extreme realism I get by modeling a specific train from a specific time and place. I enjoy reproducing these memories. I have too many favorites to model or even list. But just as my favorite memories come from different times in my life, so do these souvenirs, these trains. Just as it requires a certain amount of imagination to recall events from grade school in the same breath as those from college, it requires imagination to model different times and places on the same tabletop (or soapbox, which I have inadvertently climbed upon tonight). In a nutshell, we're all freelancers in some respect (even the most nitpicky of us). --> me <-- Thanks for reading this. I didn't intend for this to be a tribute to my Grandfather or anything, but I certainly owe him a great debt of gratitude for teaching me that "model railroading is fun."
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag

Update Reply

Subscriber & Member Login

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

Model Railroader Newsletter See all

Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter and get model railroad news in your inbox!

Subscriber & Member Login

Edit post

Post Body

Tags (Optional)

Subscriber & Member Login

Users Online

Search the Community