The Penn Central boondoggle sounds like the Sears-Kmart merger!
Sort of. I model what is near me. I grew up around the UP/BN, but moved to Indiana then Georgia. So the shortline I protolance is a derivative of the NS/CSX. If I moved back to where I grew up, I would probably be compelled to make my shortline layout UP/BNSF based.
- Douglas
Well, I have answered this before, but here goes.
I do model the model the general region of my childhood (and adult life), but I have no interest in the era of my childhood.
I model a time 3-4 years before my birth, so a decade or two before any serious train memories.
So I do model the railroads of my youth, but in a time long before I ever saw them.
My own experiance in this hobby does not suggest that most people model the trains of their youth at all.
I know a 65 year old who models present day and a dear friend who passed recently at age 70 who spent his life modeling 1910.
I'm 60 and model 1954, another friend my age models 1947.
In fact, in our local round robin, when I was active in the group, only about 5 of 25 guys modeled the era and locale of their youth......20%
Sheldon
Technically, I do model the era I grew up with. Before I started going to school, and maybe earlier, my parents bought those old documentaries of trains like the Super Chief, California Zephyr, and 80's Amtrak. I took a liking to those documentaries so much, I lost all of the discs (I wasn't good with remembering where I put things). Then RFDTV (for those of us that have DirectTV) started showing train documentaries, so I started watching those. Now, seeing as I have ready access to the Internet, I spend my free time looking up information on prototypes for all equipment that I plan to get in HO Scale.
Fun Fact: I was born on the 56th anniversary (September 29, 1946) of the "even-day/odd-day" service of the Super Chief and El Capitan.
My Currently Paper Railroad is loosely based on the area I grew up in (Central Virginia), in the time I grew up (1990s to early 00s)That being said the location within Central Virginia is a bit farther north and freelanced at that.
riogrande5761 Of course modeling steam era D&RGW is simply out of the question because ALL of the main steam engines run by the D&RGW are a "brass-only" proposition and I know I can't afford to buy enough brass D&RGW steam engines to properly model that period.
Of course modeling steam era D&RGW is simply out of the question because ALL of the main steam engines run by the D&RGW are a "brass-only" proposition and I know I can't afford to buy enough brass D&RGW steam engines to properly model that period.
There are two that can be had in plastic: the Proto 2000 L-107 (hard to find now) which was mainly used as a helper, and the UP version Challenger, which of course Rio Grande hated...
I like steam but later freight cars, and will just be forced to run what I like...I dont like steam era freight cars either, and will have to pretend the changeover took a lot longer...no other solution will work for me.
riogrande5761 ... and others model things they didn't ever see or were alive for, like steam or railroads far away geographically just cause they find it appealing.
... and others model things they didn't ever see or were alive for, like steam or railroads far away geographically just cause they find it appealing.
I had a Conrail train set that I saved up for. I was fascinated with their blue paint. Too bad that spilt during a few months later.
I never did model it fully back than. Than what I'm doing now, a nice decent roster of freight cars.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
Yes, I get it. Not everyone follows the "typical" path for model railroading which is what this thread is apparently about. For most, it's partly a way to relax and forget the stresses of the real world, including the stresses of a real RR, but rather sort of "rail fan" their favorite RR, or operations too. Many do that modeling the PC or RI without re-living the bad parts.
Visual appeal definitely plays a major role into why many choose a RR. Even though I really like the paint jobs on the PC box cars, the black PC engines for me are also unappealing. As a matter of fact, the north east scenery is boring and unappealing to me, but I realize lots of people like north east scenery well enough and model their favorite NE RR. Heck, my ex-wife used to prefer all green, and preferred northeast to the dry west, but I find the west very pretty personally.
Scenery played a major role as to why I picked the D&RGW to model, and many others for the same reason. I also saw it when I made a number of trips to and through Utah and Colorado so I have a two-fold attraction to it. The engines are black too, but with the orange lettering and chevron stripes, I'm good with that.
RC Farewell published a book called "Rio Grande Secret Places: Ruby Canyon and The Desert, which I added to my colletion of Rio Grande books. Back in the 1980's, he also published a feature article in Trains magazine entitled: The Unknown Rio Grande:
https://picclick.com/Trains-Magazine-July-1985-The-Unknown-162146215151.html
I still have that copy of Trains and it's one of my favorite articles. It is one of the things back in the 1980's that inspired my ongoing desire to model that part of the D&RGW.
I bought "Zephyrs thru the Rockies" back around 1990 and brought it along with me when I road the Amtrak CZ thru the Rockies that summer. I was already familiar with many of the areas along the route from reading the book. I'm also a geologiest by training (BS and MS degrees) but it's the visual impact of the massive standstones in the area that I have chosen to model the D&RGW mainline west of Grande Junction colorado. BTW, I just destroyed 3 modules of my layout which had desert scenery going on for that area, but my wife wants to move so the layout is coming down. I'm hoping to build a somewhat bigger layout after we move.
One other book for D&RGW desert fans is Rio Grande in Color, Volume 2: Utah, by James Sandrin. It's also a favorite of mine and has lots of color photo's in the desert parts - really a must have for west end standard gauge Rio Grande fans.
Of course modeling steam era D&RGW is simply out of the question because ALL of the main steam engines run by the D&RGW are a "brass-only" proposition and I know I can't afford to buy enough brass D&RGW steam engines to properly model that period. I don't care for the freight cars of the steam era so that seals the deal for me, even if steam is sort of cool.
Me being a child of the '70's, born during 1968, a year or so prior to PC going bankrupt, I am and have always been attracted to the bold 1970's colored paint schemes, the Railbox and other IPD boxcars, the IC/ICG orange era paint schemes, the Santa Fe blue and yellow warbonnet freight era.
Thats part of the reason I have chosen the late 1970's D&RGW. I get the aforementioned scenery and I get the colorful freight cars which include a lot of fallen-flags, like PC (woo!) and ATSF, and PRR, GN, NP, BN, CB&Q, and all those colorful per diem box cars which were introduced starting around 1977 and later.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Because I have read history--and railroad history--somewhat extensively (but never read The Wreck of the Penn Central) it is difficult for me to separate or compartmentalize the history from the models or toys we play with. I tend to lose interest in the diesels that were "unreliable" in favor of those that were, yet I like steam which I never saw, and which was highly labor intensive and less efficient, so go figure.
Maybe it has something to do, also, with the boring black paint of Penn Central (and now Norfolk Southern) locomotives. I understand it saves NS millions of dollars to have that very simple paint scheme, but I can't ever like it. Passing Enola Yard several times per day for gym, baseball, work, etc. one cannot help but miss the sea of beautiful Conrail blue motive power that is long gone (but was visible when I moved here).
I have stood atop the cut at Cajon Pass Summit during 2001, and on the dirt access road to Sullivan's Curve (followed some old photographer in an actual imacculate VW bus to get back there--who was he????), and above Tehachapi Loop. I saw the remains of Santa Fe all across Arizona, at Phoenix, Williams, etc. and I just find all those places infinitely more interesting than Horseshoe Curve and other places in the east. Not that Horseshoe isn't great, I just like the west a whole lot more...
The same reason I enjoy walking the streets of Tombstone, Arizona, I guess...I like the history and geology of the region. I would like the western end of the Rio Grande in Colorado--Ruby Canyon and all the places that were so rugged and remote they were rarely photographed, especially during the steam era when roads were few.
I think Zephyrs Thru the Rockies is one of the best railroad books ever for its outstanding coverage of the scenery along the Rio Grande.
I just find the grey limestone and green forested areas of PA as not that exciting, by comparison to the Painted Desert, at least until fall comes, then it is actually amazing...
John
PRR8259 No absolutely no. I grew up with the disaster of Penn Central and early Conrail. No thanks. John
No absolutely no. I grew up with the disaster of Penn Central and early Conrail. No thanks.
My guess is a large precentage of model railroaders do model that they grew up with, regardless of the financial health of the RR - and thats what I tend to observe as I see what others are doing.
Of course, there are always some who don't follow that trend for many reasons. A few have bad memories of the RR like John (above) sort of like a taste aversion syndrome, others like to freelance - like Navarch does with his "modern imagining of the PC, and others model things they didn't ever see or were alive for, like steam or railroads far away geographically just cause they find it appealing.
Penn Central still seems to be, despite it's historical vagaries, pretty popular to model it from my casual observations. Ive noticed some PC rolling stock selling out pretty fast too. Maybe it's a morbid fascination or maybe people just like to model what they saw and ignore the gritty realities of the RR itself, the latter is probably the most true.
I'd guess most model a RR to have fun and escape reality, and not dwell on the negatives of what the real RR was experiencing. Another example is the Rock Island, which was another sad story - a RR in financial distress and decline into bankruptcy - yet it has a fairly major big following also.
I am modeling the D&RGW and I never lived in Colorado, however I did get to see it on various occasions in the 1970's and 1980's as I visited or traveled through Colorado. I grew up in and lived in California from age 6 through 24 in the 60's thru mid-1980's so SP is really what I grew up with, and I do have a good deal of SP rolling stock including about 22 engines and 10 cabooses.
From above, was it PC passenger, freight, or both???
1. Idiot management at 2 bankrupt railroads each thinking the other was in better shape and could save them.
2. Idiot management caring more about their retirement than running a railroad, who raped the railroad for cash on their exit.
3. In 1947 the idiots at NYC spent over 400 million dollars on east to west long distance passenger trains when an honest accounting would already tell you passenger trains were dead and ridership was plummeting. PRR made similar mistakes but not as bad. The equipment bought, well they never got their money's worth out of it.
4. Idiots at both railroads failing to see and plan for growth along ne corridor, where they could have better spent money.
5. Vast sums wasted on postwar passenger service east to west financially crippled the railroads.
6. 20 years plus deferred track maintenance to prop up stock as ailing railroads slid.
7. PC failing to pay money owed to neighbors took down whole region into bankruptcy.
8. Alfred Perlmann, the one senior manager actually trying to save the railroad while others only wanted to line their pockets, was forced out along with his underlings. All they then did was save ailing Western Pacific in a couple years!!!
9. Two computer systems incapable of talking to each other.
10. Red team versus Green team hatred.
My uncle was a senior person at Mellon Bank...what the idiot managers did to both railroads and PC while lining their own pockets was nothing short of criminal.
I wish I could model the railroad and town that I grew up in but that's just not possible. I do however own some of the locos and cars from that period (Southern Pacific).
I grew up along Chicago & North Western's Altoona Subdivision. I vaguely remember seeing some of the green and yellow locomotives going through town as a kid. I was 10 when the railroad was purchased by Union Pacific. When my interest was sparked to get into model railroading, I remember sitting in some of my high school classes watching the trains go past each day. It was all Union Pacific with a few Norfolk Southern or CSX as run through power. My mom is involved in the historical society in my hometown and has many items from the old C&NW days in our home.
Another railroad that interests me is the Wisconsin Central. I was too young to ever remember this railroad as it's line from the Twin Cities was a few miles north of my hometown. There are two others that have also piqued my interest lately. The Dakota, Minnesota, & Eastern was a railroad I saw a lot when I was in college. My apartment was near one of the DM&E lines. The other railroad is the former Minneapolis, Northfield, and Southern.
As I started to get more into creating my layout and going beyond just randomly laying track for fun, my plan is to incorporate the four railroads mentioned above. My ideas go back and forth constantly, but I think it's because I have no permanent layout yet. My wife and I have a house, but there is no room to create a permanent layout. At this time, I have three modular sections that are empty slates at the moment. In the future, I'd like to plan a joint Chicago & North Western and Wisconsin Central around 1994-1996. Whether it is freelanced in terms of cities and towns or follows a prototypical design is up in the air at this time. I believe this time period would allow me to have a lot of different motive power types and railroads. I could easily make it a bit more modern, too, if I decide.
I'd also like to incorporate my fictional railroad, the Erris & Spears. It'll operate as a shortline in some capacity on the layout.
I look forward to planning something for a future layout with a few railroads from my childhood, my time in college, and some that have captured my interest recently. In the meantime, I need to continue learning on the modules, collect locomotives and rolling stock, and learn as much as I can about the railroads. It's an enjoyable hobby that allows you to do anything you'd like and make it your own railroad.
PRR8259 No absolutely no. I grew up with the disaster of Penn Central and early Conrail. No thanks. I model what I never saw...articulated steam in freight service. John
No absolutely no. I grew up with the disaster of Penn Central and early Conrail. No thanks. I model what I never saw...articulated steam in freight service.
I remember the Penn Central being fodder for Johnny Carson's monologues way back but I never knew what exactly their problems were. This was of course back when the Tonight Show was in New York. Was it their passenger service, freight service, or both?
NYBW-John I'm always amused when these old threads get revived but since others are commenting I'll join in the fun. The short answer is no. I grew up in Omaha, eastern terminus and HQ of the UP. The Burlington's east-west route from Chicago to Denver went through as well. Other railroads also used Union Station. All of that happened on the south end of town and our family rarely traveled there. The one rail line that went through the north side was a major branch of the MoPac. It paralleled Saddle Creek Rd. for much of its route before turning northeast and terminating somewhere in that direction. When traveling to the west side, most often when going to Peony Park, an amusement park with a huge swimming pool encircled by a man made beach, we would often get stopped at the crossing on California St. Saw mostly F unit lashups. My first two layouts were freelanced UP pikes but not because I had any memories of the UP growing up. I think I was attracted to pictures of their Armour Yellow passenger trains. Since then I have switched to a fictional eastern railroad. The one thing I've incorporated is my fondness for F units. I have lots and lots of them.
I'm always amused when these old threads get revived but since others are commenting I'll join in the fun.
The short answer is no. I grew up in Omaha, eastern terminus and HQ of the UP. The Burlington's east-west route from Chicago to Denver went through as well. Other railroads also used Union Station. All of that happened on the south end of town and our family rarely traveled there. The one rail line that went through the north side was a major branch of the MoPac. It paralleled Saddle Creek Rd. for much of its route before turning northeast and terminating somewhere in that direction. When traveling to the west side, most often when going to Peony Park, an amusement park with a huge swimming pool encircled by a man made beach, we would often get stopped at the crossing on California St. Saw mostly F unit lashups. My first two layouts were freelanced UP pikes but not because I had any memories of the UP growing up. I think I was attracted to pictures of their Armour Yellow passenger trains. Since then I have switched to a fictional eastern railroad. The one thing I've incorporated is my fondness for F units. I have lots and lots of them.
I was curious to see if I had replied to this thread ten years ago when it was created. It turns out I did although it was under the name jecorbett. I found it interesting that what I wrote then is pretty much what I just wrote this morning. Below is my original reply.
"The short answer is no. My first layout was a fictionalized UP line which ran through the Colorado Rockies as an alternate main to their Wyoming route. That became somewhat prophetic when the UP acquired the D&RGW. I grew up in Omaha and even though that was the eastern terminus of the UP, it had little to do with my choice of the UP. I remember the MoPac running north-south through Omaha and the Burlington passenger trains but can't ever remember seeing any UP trains because we didn't live near their line. I'm not sure why it was I chose the UP for my first layout but it certainly had nothing to do with boyhood memories. Now I am modeling a freelanced eastern railroad. I certainly had no exposure to eastern prototypes when I was growing up. I just became interested in them after I got into modeling by looking at pictures of those railroads, especially from the trainsition era. The settings just seemed more interesting to me than the wide open vistas of western railroads."
I would have to say yes. Even though I'm going a little further back in the railroads history to model Great Northern instead of Burlington Northern because I really like the Steamers. It's definitely influenced from my childhood. This is a picture of The Trestle. Our kind of Tom Sawyer area where we grew up. It was the mid-seventies Burlington Northern had 3 high-speed taconite lines where there is now only one. Sorry about the picture quality it's off the Internet. If you look to the right you can see an old easement coming down from the upper track the rails are no longer there. If you look down the center of the track you can see the IDS center Minneapolis I watch that thing being built from the ground up you'd see the steel beams going up a little higher everyday.
I definitely will buy the green and black Burlington Northern Locomotives as I used to watch when I was a kid. No big deal I'll just change it up once in awhile.
This thread was started two years before I joined this forum, but It is certainly one that deserves to be resurrected after being dormant for a decade!
My answer to the question is yes and no.
I started mxy model railroader career with a Marklin train set, which grew into a small ping pong table sized empire over the following years. The locos and cars of course followed what I saw on the tracks in my neck of the woods, which was Deutsche Bundesbahn - the Federal German Railway.
My current layout is based on the Swiss Rhaetian Railway, a mountain narrow gauge network of lines in the canton Graubünden. I have only faint memories riding a train of that railroad as a 5 year old, so I certainly cannot say I grew up with it.
An old thread but a good one. Yes, I model the New York Central and the Central Indiana Railway. They are both railroads that passed through Andeson IN. One for the long haul and the other a short line. In addition, I have taken on another railroad that didn't exist, but certainly makes the railroad more interesting, the East Central Indiana. Hoo Haa!
Roger Hensley= ECI Railroad - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/eci/eci_new.html == Railroads of Madison County - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/ =
Wow, I had the same response. So many members we've lost track of.
Well, yes and no to the OPs question. I grew up on Long Island, New York. My "local" railroad was the Long Island Railroad, the "Route of the Dashing Commuter." It ran some freight, but where I lived it was a commuter line running 3rd-rail passenger trains. I guess some of the resin modelers make those now, but not back then.
On the other hand, when I got back into the hobby I found the Life-Like subway models, which were always my first RR love, anyway. So, I built a subway system beneath my "normal" railroad. Above ground, my equipment is the Milwaukee. Just like the trains I had when I was a boy.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
At first I didn't notice that this thread was reserected and I thought how good it was to see some of the memebers I remembered from years ago posting again. As happy as I was to think that when I realized this wasn't a current thread I then I began wondering what happened to them.
Back to the subject. My town hosted the B&O, the PRR, and the local shortline the Winchester and Western. I have some of all of their locos as well as those that merged with the B&O, the C&O and CSX. But I prefer the Chessie because of the paint scheme.
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
Digging deep for an old thread here...
But no. I grew up with the UP and BN. I base my modern era freelance modeling off of the railfanning I can do today, which is the NS CSX and their predecessors since I now live in Georgia.
Grew up during the 90s in central Victoria Australia on what you'd call probaly a granger line with the local interesting paint job of candy colors of tangerine and grey diesels with the Words V/Line down the side the sucessor to Victorian railways or a reformed new look of the old. Would see maybe two grain trains a month with 40-50 car grain hoppers going up north to of my place and coming back fully loaded to port down south, and would see the the odd steam special. The tracks being a 100 meters from the front doorstep of my place I had a good view of all the action.
I model in the 20s & 30s in the golden years of steam and its steam that captured the mind, I model the South Australian Railways with their 500s 4-8-4s the 720s berkshires, the 520 northerns (think a 4-8-4 PRR T1) and the 600 & 620 pacific and the the 700 & 710 mikes. Not only that I had Great unlce that was a driver in the heyday of steam for the SAR and drove every class mentioned. Its alive, it breathes and it make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I'm enthralled and a diesel can't do that for me.
Well thats my worth
CAM
Somewhat. I remember seeing Cotton Belt and Southern Pacific in the Tucson yard. Not much action, their was a lot SSW locomotives than SP when I visited a few times before the merger.
My main interest is Amtrak mixed with CR, UP, BNSF, NYC. They all have different reasons why I model them.
My main focus is modeling the G.N.O. Railway and making it a reality. I made it into existence in 2002.
Sort of. The line I probbaly saw the most was the Lehigh Valley's Easton and Northern branch, as it ran right past my grandparent's house. We also had the CNJ run through town, and the LNE which switched the cement plant we always passed going to my other grandparents. But seeing locos in those liverys doesn't really stir up any memories. The ones that do the most would be Reading, even though the closest they got to my home was the next city over. I do remember at around age 4, camping at Hersheypark, the Reading line from Hershey to Rutherford yard went right past the last row in the campground and every time I heard a train I would run down there to watch it.
So in a way, I do model my memories.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Nope. I grew up in a rural area of Louisiana in the 1960s/70s. The nearest railroad was a single track mainline of the Kansas City Southern. The track was about a mile from my home and at night time with the windows open, I could hear the airhorns at the grade crossings.
I model the New York Central, circa 1950. I chose the NYC because sitting in my father's lap, he would open his book of North American Locomotives and go first the builder's photo of a J-class Hudson. "See here Johnny" he would say, "This locomotive is perfectly balanced, a real beauty". From then on, I was a New York Central fan.