jwhitten And I liked what Phil said too, about how all too often model railroaders paint things 'rusty' when a better choice would be dingy, dark and gray with some grit in it.
A lot of that is era and industry. A lot of the grey and grime is due to burning coal. Any area with moderate industry will be gray and dingy due to the ash and smoke from coal burning. It may be the associated industries that drive the dingy grey not the railroad itself. There are a lot on dingy grey areas along railroad tracks even after steam engines are gone.
[quote] Thank you Phil-- that it one of those little gems that doesn't occur to you (well, me :-) until someone points it out-- and yet it is so obvious and true and right under your nose. So many of the railroad places that I've seen seem so sharp and super-crisp and have a gritty element I've never really been able to put my finger on-- but I think you just did it. It's the grit and grime and soot and dirt that gets stirred up and deposited all around the railroad that helps give it it's character, it's flavor, and helps (literally) to make it stand out-- accentuating every line, deepening every crevice... {/quote]
That's why the classic weathering treatment is a wash of black paint.
However a "hard-working" railroad town is likely different-- where the railroad is deeply embedded in both the town and the town's memory and inhabitants, and how "wrapped around" the railroad they are. That's why Altoona seems (at least to me) so representative of the genre.
But if you travel one block away from the tracks, the town will look like any other town in a similar area and similar era, regardless of whether there are tracks through it or not. The effect of the railroad only applies to the area immediately adjacent to the tracks. Once you leave the tracks the city looks pretty much the same for blocks beyond that, and the real changes occur not because of the railroad but the era when the area was built up.
The hard part is finding a non-railroad served town of a similar size that that was founded before the 1950's. And that may be the real mark of the "railroad town". It exists because of the railroad and the services provided. It would be difficult to find a significant city without rail service.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
larakKeep in the back of your mind that a town/city can host multiple railroads.
Here's the Johnstown railroads (circa 1956) -- a Pennsylvania 3rd Class City:
[1] Pennsylvania Railroad -- 4-track mainline including the Broadway Limited and Union Passenger Station (surviving today as a Norfolk & Southern 3-track with the Amtrak Pennsylvanian).
[2] Baltimore & Ohio -- Freight spur with a freight station and GP 9s (CSX today).
[3] Conemaugh & Blacklick -- Bethlehem Steel's industrial railroad serving over a dozen miles of steel mills including the Freight Car Division (now FreightCar America) and home of the BethGons.
[4] Johnstown Traction Company -- the US's largest PCC fleet in a 3rd Class City.
[5] Johnstown Incline Plane -- world's steepest inclined plane (70.9% degree slope).
Note the diversity of railroad types: Class I freight & passenger, Class I freight spur, steel industrial, freight car construction, city PCC traction, and mountain-side railroad to escape devasting floods in the valley.
Also, not to be undersestimated, is the scope of "the neighboring" PRR's locomotive shops from Altoona to Hollidaysburg that rivaled the size & scope of the Bethlehem Steel and US Steel mills in Johnstown.
About the only way to begin to model, or capture the flavor, of each railroad community is to think in terms of either town's operations by using backdrops in the distance and to model a specific industrial neighborhood in the foreground.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
When I was a kid I often spent time visiting relatives in a town called Revelstoke. I played Hockey on outdoor rinks made by the railroaders next to the tracks. All talk in town and in the house was railroad talk. The town was there only because of the Railroad. Any other business was there to serve the railroad. To me this is a Railroad town. Revelstoke is what I am trying to model at one end of my layout. Here is a short film that talks about Revelstoke. I have two of those Canadian Pacific Pocket Watches they show in the jewelry store. One each from my two grandfathers.
http://www.nfb.ca/film/railroaders
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
BATMAN When I was a kid I often spent time visiting relatives in a town called Revelstoke. I played Hockey on outdoor rinks made by the railroaders next to the tracks. All talk in town and in the house was railroad talk. The town was there only because of the Railroad. Any other business was there to serve the railroad. To me this is a Railroad town. Revelstoke is what I am trying to model at one end of my layout. Here is a short film that talks about Revelstoke. I have two of those Canadian Pacific Pocket Watches they show in the jewelry store. One each from my two grandfathers. http://www.nfb.ca/film/railroaders Brent
Cool videos. Thanks for the links. Even the name of the town is cool!
John
In my previous post I pointed out the importance of water stops with regard to the genesis of railroad towns. I’d like to add a couple of additional comments that relate:
You can see evidence of the influence of water stops on the remaining Transcontinental Railroad roadbed that extends from the golden spike site and runs about 140 miles to the west. There are signs marking the locations of communities – in particular: Lucin, Terrace, and Kelton. These locations are all just about 50 miles apart, similar to the towns of Cheyenne, Laramie, Medicine Bow, and Rawlins, Wyoming. In this way, the steam era left a permanent imprint on our 21st century maps.
By the way, you can drive the old roadbed if you have a decent off-road capable vehicle. Most of the old trestles are still standing, and you can see old wyes and bits and pieces of Terrace and Kelton. The cemetaries are somewhat intact, and the terrace turntable pit is easy to distinguish. It's an interesting day trip for a properly equiped rail fan and/or historian (bring water and two spare tires - those old railroad spikes are rough on tires).
My other comment is that the railroad in Cache Valley, Utah is a sort of “counter-point” case. It came after the towns were entrenched. Thus, those communities have a different kind of spacing – the earliest towns: Wellsville, Mendon, and Logan are all 6-8 miles apart (a reasonable day’s travel with a horse-drawn wagon). These towns were established about 150 years ago. More recently established communities have greater separation, presumably because roads and wagons improved in the late 19th century.
The railroad in the valley (originally the Utah Idaho Central Railroad) is essentially a loop of track and it runs through each town with connecting lines toward Salt Lake City and Pocatello. This line was never steam; it was originally electric and it is now diesel, so there never were water stops to influence the location of any communities, and there are no remnants of the steam era.
Phil, I'm not a rocket scientist; they are my students.