My entire layout is modern day except for a UP City of Los Angeles passenger train pulled by an E9 A&B.
York1 John
I used to fret over historic accuracy.
Now,if it all looks good together, it's fine.
Paul
Most of my locomotives are 1950-60s Canadian Pacific units in the maroon and grey livery, but I have a couple of earlier steamers too.
I will justify the steamers by modeling a museum/tourist railroad. That allows me to paint with a pretty broad brush. In addition to my rotary snow plow train, I will occassionally run Thomas The Train and Hogwarts Express (both with sound by the way). Thomas and Hogwarts will mostly be for younger guests.
I am modeling for my own pleasure so yes, I will run what I want
Cheers!!
Dave
P.S. Currently sitting on a balcony in Ontario cottage country. The weather is chilly and it is sprinkling rain, and the fall colours are mostly done, but it is still a wonderful place to be! Great company and great food too!
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
What I model, when I run steam engines, is ficticious. I have the three small railways running under the umbrella of a real one. The rail yard is a real one as is one of the stations.
Having real mixed with fiction has some people believing it is all real.
When I run diesels the layout is the same, but the timeframe jumps 50 or so years ahead. Trains still serve the same places.
Once again bringing the real to the unreal.
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
I don't know how this applies to me but, ...
Somehow 1923 Mack trucks are still operational in my 1970s towns...
Rust...... It's a good thing !
I model the BNSF Pikes Peak sub which runs from Denver south to Pueblo Colorado. In my world the BNSF owns all of the 120 miles of track. UP was forced to sell their track to the BNSF. Amtrak runs the Northwest Limited from Houston to Seattle which is the only passenger train to directly connect the gulf coast to the pacific northwest.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
I protolance. (The logo for one of the roads is my avatar.) A few things I've bent to fit my modeling:
I originally was trying to proto-lance, but I lightened up and decided to call it a fictitious (no more issues with being prototype) ISL in an area sorta resembling an area IN the area I grew up in on the Oregon coast, mid to late 60s. I use mainly SP diesels, probably 1/3 SP cars, true to locality. It has 2 very recognisable prototype scratchbuilt structures that are accurate renditions, BUT were actually in Bend OR, and a 3rd is planned. Another structure planned is from Myrtle Point OR, our home in the late 60s.
To make it even less prototypical, the roundhouse is home to some 1870s and later steam, reasoning that when real steam ceased, the roundhouse and shop was acquired by private owners, who have the means to preserve the steamers. My SP engines are not serviced locally other than fuel and sand, maybe light repairs. The shop repairs and refurbishes small diesels for home use and to sell.
No visitors ever ask about the timeline or locale, but they definately recognise those structures if they saw them before their demolition. Dan
History sometimes if you are modeling a specific prototype is a bit hard to pin down. Photos of towns are not all taken on the same date. I have a couple of buildings in my Black Hawk Colorado scene for example that were demolished a little bit before my chosen year. It would have perhaps helped had that info surfaced before I built them but they are staying. I also have a bit of a time warp as my narrow gauge scenes are set about 1930 and my standard gauge is set about 1945 to 1946.
I have allowed the electrification from the end of the Pennsylvania to the end of the Milwaukee, just to let me run my GG1 to "somewhere" to drop off the GG1 and connect Milwaukee diesel power. The passenger cars and express reefers continue west, while the GG1 picks up its waiting passenger train and heads back east.
And, the prohibition against "billboard" advertising on boxcars never happened, so my string of ice-bunker reefers with beer and meat advertising on them are still allowed in interchange service.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I have considered modeling passenger operations as if the US government decided to pay railroads to continue to operate their own passenger trains rather than forming Amtrak.
What a great topic!
I focused more on home reporting mark (N&W) after reading about what percentage is home compared to away reporting marks. Additionally, I focus on getting away reporting marks of ones prototyplically seen on a southern VA N&W-used layout.
Some could care less about reporting marks but others wnat to make things more realistic. Whatever works. No right way. Fave fun!
As model railroaders, be us prototype modellers, proto-lancers, or free lancers, we all make compromises from reality. Some are matters of convenience or practicality imposed by the real world - curve radii far smaller than the prototype, coupler heads that are far bigger than the prototype, short trains, and small distances between industries are all common compromises.
But, what of compromises made to history? I've heard many a modeller explain what minor changes happened to history for the freelanced, or proto-lanced layout, to exist. More minor still are changes to enable other options of rolling stock and the like. Of course, the only justification we ever truly need is that it is our railroad - but I am sure some of the more retentive of us still worm in justifications - I definitely do.
For my version of the Copper Range Railroad, the post-WW1 copper crash never happened - at least, it didn't cause the mass closures of mines that it did in our real world. This means that I have a wide variety of prototype copper mines to choose from, fewer locomotives have been scrapped, and some more modern power can show up in the 1930s where I prefer to model - I always wanted a Doodlebug, so the more prosperous mines allow me to "justify" having one.
Does anyone else have any similar justifications for why their layouts, prototype, protolanced, or freelanced, are they way they are? Anyone have any general thoughts on this topic?