new railroad modeller

[Anonymous]

Hello all
i am new in your community . I'm modelling aircraft for 20 years now but i begin to be fade-up of static things.That's why i decided to start in your hobby.
My problem is the following : i'm living in Belgium and after check with some major hobbyshop it appears that the market is poor about US train.
As i want to make a american based collection can you give me some species from american train ( references books-info etc...)
Thanks for help
Ps my period will be the transitional one (1960) steam and diesel[?]

[der5997]

Bienvenu! [:D] I'm not the best one to give you all the information you need, but I thought that I would say Hello.
When I started in model trains I found that the Model Railroad Magazines, such as Model Railroader, gave me lots of information. For Prototype (the real thing) information, Trains Magazine would be hard to beat as a place to start.
Can you get those in Belgium? Je ne sais pas, but you could buy them online, and get back issues as well I expect.
You choice of period is good from the point of view of availability of models to build or buy.
Have you chosen a particular Railroad yet, or are you waiting to see what looks good when you have read some more? I mention this because choosing a Road to model gives you a focus, like you period choice does.
Hope this helps, and that you have fun. [8D]

[leighant]

Bonjour, Rhenin. Or maybe I should say "Howdy!" (I'm from Texas.) A general reference on US railroads of the transition period- boy that would be a wide subject! By the way, I think of the transition period in US as early to middle 1950s as far as Class 1 railroads. One good reference might be the Walthers catalog. They call it a "reference book" to justify the big price, and it actually IS a reference book of sorts. More than an ordinary catalog. Give you a lot of ideas AND give you product reference numbers in case you have to go mail order to find what you are looking for. But a good reference is the Walthers website, www.walthers.com which I would guess you can access from anyplace with internet. It will give you a picture of many hobby items, whereas other websites of dealers only give you a price list, and you have to already know what the procut number means.
I am a Texas modeler of the Santa Fe, circa 1957, in N scale, diesel only on the Santa Fe line but I have a place for a steam loco only by a private lumbering railroad. I live 150 miles from any model train hobby shop.

[Anonymous]

Thanks all for your welcome.
I think that supported by such a society i will enjoy this new hobby for a long time
and i hope with very nice result
rhenin

[Anonymous]

What means'' wich road i want to reproduce''?
is it quitly different ?( i mean there is no union pacific that can be found on the same tracks than central pacific or conrail ?
Here in belgium we have only 1 company ( societe nationale des chemins de fer belge- sncb)
How is it working in the state : different trackway for different companies?
rhenin[?][?][?]

[der5997]

It seems to me that railroads grant each other "Rights" to run over each others tracks. How these are arranged, and what the costs are, I will leave to some one with more knowledge to explain. What it means for you as a model railroader is that you can research a number of different railroads to see who granted what rights to whom in the period you are interested in (1960s). Then you make your choice as to the principal railroad to model, in what area of the country, so as to include the other railroads that had rights to run over those tracks. (Ask questions at the "Trains" Forum, for instance.)

The other approach is to "pretend", and invent a sub-division of a railroad that "gave" rights to as many of the other roads you want to model. Remember, it's your ( missed the "r" both times in my first post [:I]) hobby and your "empire", so you can do as you please. I don't know if you built your own designs of model aircraft, or only exact scale representations of actual prototypes. In model railroading there are those who will only model as exactly as they can the prototype of their choice; and there are those ( the vast majority, I expect) who comprimise with a prototype, or just free lance and have their own personal roads. I tend to by this latter kind of modeler. I think life is too short to get all worried about every last detail of how a particular railroad looks or works. For me that isn't fun! [:D]

[Anonymous]

In the USA, each company bought the land and paid for the tracklaying. Usually there was only one line thru each town, a franchise if you will. Railroads used to have industrial development departments that would persuade companies to locate their plants along THIER railroad, thereby giving them the traffic. Where competing lines crossed would be a "junction", usually the second road to get to the junction would have to pay the costs of the crossing trackwork, and the personnel to keep the trains from crashing. Often there would be an "interchange" at the junction, where cars could continue their trip on a different road. That's how, say, beer got from the brewery in Milwaukee, to points all over the US. Hope this helps explain the differences from the American way to what you are used to.

[Wdlgln005]

The routes the RR took depends on the state that it's in
Surveyors may propose a route from A to B thru C
They may get a state charter to build the road
Then try to get money from poor farmers & city folk to get the RR thru their town
Hopefully, the RR draws enough business to make money or gets bought by a bigger line. Or else the line goes bankrupt & somebody else with money takes over & operates it. Competition comes from a different route between A to B via D.

You may be able to find some history of an area or state & read up on how the RR developed in an area. Then check out a color guide to the RR you are interrested in. This should give you an idea of how things should look.
The folks at this site have many good tools to use + links to the others
Have fun model railroading!

[Anonymous]

Well if you want to do 1960, I don't think there were many steam locomotives left. Of course it depends on which railroad you model............

[dehusman]

In the US there were several thousand separate RR companies at one time, each with their own liveries and tracks. The companies competed with each other for routes when building the railroads. Over the last 50 years the smaller roads have been consolidating until there are only 4 large railroads in the US, 2 in Canada and 2 in Mexico (plus many other smaller railroads).

[eastcoast]

Welcome to our world. Pick up a copy of the latest Walthers 2004 catalogs and dream away. I have been model building for 14 years and I also build model planes and have joined the two into one complete scene.