When I took down my strictly 1950s Santa Fe layout in 2008, the reason was to build a better one and convert to DCC. I knew that was a good transition point to change RRs, so I gave that a lot of thought before I started on the "new and improved" layout.
The only other class 1 RR I considered was the Union Pacific, mainly because of its big steamers and western rails. The Illinois Central was/is a favorite, but to be honest the trackage is kind of "blah" to me.
The other consideration was to dump HO and go to On3 and model one of the Colorado RRs. But I had so much in HO rolling stock and equipment, that was just too much of a change.
And lastly, I thought about just bringing in my collection of Lionel postwar and running those, but I couldn't bring myself to removing them from the display cases and dealing with 70 year old mechanisms.
Sooo, the decision was made to continue with the Santa Fe, and I did, and had the new layout up and running in a year or two. It was really nice, and for me one heck of an accomplishment. But due to various issues, I took it down in 2021, and that was the last layout.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Perhaps people change layouts because of a move or realize the supply of cars/locos is not what they thought?
I grew up along the UP Kansas Division, so I'm naturally partial to the UP; however, the Santa Fe, Rock Island, and MP, were also in close proximity. I liked ATSF bookends scheme, and 1st gen CRI&P maroon with the white striping. When I lived in SoCal, I developed a liking for SP, so I'll run UP and SP together. I find I'm attracted to the paint schemes. As a result, I also like GN's Empire Builder scheme, but I didn't like the Sky Blue scheme. I have several BB UP and SP locos plus 1 ATSF bookends and 1 GN Empire Builder. That's several railroads, but I'm content with that.
Jim (with a nod to Mies Van Der Rohe)
caldreamerDue to the fact that Microscale has and continues to have problems with the yellow that they use on the BNSF striping and the fact that we now live close to a busy Norfork Southern line I am in the process of changing all of my motive power to Norfork Southern.
Not quite sure I follow the logic here. There are plenty of pre-dec BNSF engines available, so you don't really have to paint and letter your own.
Second, it's not like 100 years ago where only say NP engines ran on the NP. Check out some of the railcams at the Virtual Railfan website. You'll see trains with NS, BNSF, and CPKC engines all on the same train...running on UP tracks! Your BNSF engines would be perfectly at home on NS tracks. Maybe just add NS (and other railroad's) engines to your BNSF roster?
https://www.youtube.com/@VirtualRailfan
Nope, I've wanted to model the D&RGW since I visited Colorado in the 80's and also wanted to model the Rio Grande Zephyr. I do have a few side trains to run because I have a secondary interest in the SP because I grew up with it in northern California.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
jjdamnit Hello All, caldreamer Have any forum members changed railroads and what was the reason for the change? I didn't "change" but rather "expanded." My freelance pike is based on a branch line coal operation on the Western Slope of Colorado--near the Grand Mesa- -between the 1970s - 80s. Because of the limited size of the pike allowed by "She Who Must Be Obeyed" my motive power is limited to four (4) axle diesels. I didn't have the time to repaint and decal all the motive power to my livery. So, I "added" the services of the Santa Fe in the "Warbonnet" livery for the longer coal drags in and out of the mine. Because of location the Denver & Rio Grande Western, along with Souther Pacific motive power can also be seen on the rails. There are also some repatched "orphans" from other railroads. I would not consider this a "change" per se, as the original freelance livery still rules these rails. Hope this helps.
Hello All,
caldreamer Have any forum members changed railroads and what was the reason for the change?
I didn't "change" but rather "expanded."
My freelance pike is based on a branch line coal operation on the Western Slope of Colorado--near the Grand Mesa- -between the 1970s - 80s.
Because of the limited size of the pike allowed by "She Who Must Be Obeyed" my motive power is limited to four (4) axle diesels.
I didn't have the time to repaint and decal all the motive power to my livery.
So, I "added" the services of the Santa Fe in the "Warbonnet" livery for the longer coal drags in and out of the mine.
Because of location the Denver & Rio Grande Western, along with Souther Pacific motive power can also be seen on the rails.
There are also some repatched "orphans" from other railroads.
I would not consider this a "change" per se, as the original freelance livery still rules these rails.
Hope this helps.
I too have "expanded" my interests. 30 years ago I started out as a CBQ/BN fan, with just a few locomotives and rolling stock. Then a few years later the Santa Fe, with its navy and yellow paint scheme, caught my attention. So my protofreelance layout became an interchange emphasis between the two. Now the DRGW/Rio Grande has captured my attention, with 3 locomotives and 2 cabooses and a SP locomotive on preorder. In my world they all share trackage rights somewhere in Colorado.
Regards, Chris
My 1st laout had a Sante Fe loco DC powered. I changed to DCC and wanted to replicate more of Virginia from the 1980s. This called for N&W.
A few years ago, two things happened in my modeling world. First, I "sunsetted" my 4X6 layout and started building a larger layout (7X11). For my first layout, I focussed on a logging branchline, with small, prototypical steam engines. Since I expanded to a larger layout, I quickly realized the limitations of my approach. So I expanded to include two major carriers (CN and CP), and took a few liberties with my branchline operation, which is no longer prototypical.
I certainly have no regrets about that. Especially that it coincided with the second major thing that happened : I joined a local model railroad club, that has a rather large layout. That allowed me to run my mainline locos. It also led me to expand my timeframe. While I run mostly steam at home, I run a lot of diesel at the club, where track conditions are, lets say, more of a challenge.
Needless to say that these changes expanded the enjoyment as well.
Simon
I was bent on modeling a freelance railroad for quite some time. I even began collecting GP38-2's to paint in the home road scheme. In the end, a grand total of one locomotive and one caboose received the paint and lettering I had planned. I ended up switching as I decided to roll back my era to approximately the 1940's and to a railroad I had always liked, the New York Central. The fact that I could find factory painted NYC engines and rolling stock sealed the deal.
Mike
TRAITOR! There is THE railroad and everything else
caldreamerHave any forum members changed railroads and what was the reason for the change?
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
When I was younger, like a teenager, I was never a "proper" model railroader who focused on one railroad. Perhaps it's because I lived on Long Island by the Long Island Railroad, "The Route of the Dashing Commuter." The trains I saw were electrified coaches, no locomotives and no freight. I chose to model the Milwaukee, because I liked the paint scheme.
Fast forward a few decades, and I had a number of non-functional ancient geeps and F-units. I decided to stick with the Milwaukee, though. I bought new geeps and swapped out the hoods with better F-units. I still had the totally inappropriate Athearn cabeese, but Walthers started selling prototypical ones for the Milwaukee so I picked up a number of those. Then I discovered that Accurail was producing Milwaukee box cars. I was hooked and built a lot of them for my road.
I never built a prototypical passenger fleet, but my coaches are not road-specific so that's good enough for me. I have a few Ann Arbor cars and other freight local to the Milwaukee Road. I have a water tower marked with the elevation of Green Bay.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
For a variety of reasons (some not very good ones) I was a transition era Pennsy modeler even though no PRR lines ran in my state and I had never actually seen a PRR (or PC or Conrail) train run on [ex] Pennsy rails. Obviously a lot of stuff was (and still is) available painted PRR although the more you know the more you realize that most of it is incorrect either in the paint scheme and numbering or the model itself. In that sense it is a misconception that Pennsy modelers are or were "lucky" that so much was available painted for their railroad. There is SO much to learn to be even a moderately accurate Pennsy modeler. And I was somewhat at a loss for coming up with a track plan or decide what part of the Pennsy to model, since specific rolling stock did not make it to every corner of the railroad, particularly in the transition era. The electrics are an obvious example, but also some steam was highly localized and passenger cars also.
The epiphany came when LifeLike (pre- Walthers) introduced their Proto2000 line and issued their EMD SD 1200 in C&NW paint and lettering and it was available with the very number that I used to see in the 1960s on the local that served my home town. At about the same time David Barrow started to write about his "domino" approach to benchwork and layout planning and in a short time frame I had my new prototype and new ideas about how to model an area I actually knew something about, and which some of my friends knew about even more than I.
And subsequently LifeLike Proto200 came out with a nice variety of diesels of my era in CNW paint and lettering, although far too many have the Route of the 400s and similar slogans, which were all but gone by the late 1960s particularly if the power was in the Chicago/Milwaukee/Twin Cities pool.
Somewhat ironically, given the OP's problems with finding correct paint for his BNSF -- one thing you learn as a C&NW fan (particularly vintage C&NW, pre 1970) is that a case can be made for or against just about every C&NW yellow paint ever made! I don't know whether it was the prototype paint color itself that varied from batch to batch, or whether different color films and slide processing each had their own way of reacting to the yellow.
Dave Nelson
I changed from PRR to the Maryland & Pennsylvania. I decided I liked small shortlines more than class 1 railroads.
Plus, smaller motive power and shorter passenger cars work well with limited space.
Paul
I have been modeling the BNSF, specifically the joint line from Denver south to Pueblo. Due to the fact that Microscale has and continues to have problems with the yellow that they use on the BNSF striping and the fact that we now live close to a busy Norfork Southern line I am in the process of changing all of my motive power to Norfork Southern.
Have any forum members changed railroads and what was the reason for the change?