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Why most layouts I come across are situated in the 1940's / 1950's?

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  • Member since
    January 2017
  • From: Southern Florida Gulf Coast
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Posted by SeeYou190 on Saturday, January 23, 2021 12:09 PM

angelob6660
New York Central is the railroad I like in this era because I always wanted to go New York State to see this railroad in action until I realized it ended in 1968

I love NEW YORK CENTRAL steam locomotives, and not just the Hudson. These locomotives had a unique lean yet brutish look. I imagine that the tunnel clearance requirments had something to do with this. NYC locomotives just look like they are there for business.

-Kevin

Living the dream.

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Posted by mbinsewi on Saturday, January 23, 2021 2:16 PM

This thread has jumped the shark multiple times.  Still nothing from the OP.

I'm full of popcorn.

Mike.

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Posted by cats think well of me on Saturday, January 23, 2021 4:25 PM

My main thing has been the PRR in the '50s since my teenage years. Sometimes I got into N&W, and B&O, but the '40s-'50s era for railroading has always been my favorite. Mainly because I always liked looking at photographs of railroading in those eras and seeing the "changing of the guard" as one poster put it of steam being replaced by diesels. I've no desire to have lived in that era and have read much on how society had been at the time. I hadn't been alive then either as I was born in 1983. My memories are mainly of Norfolk Southern and some Conrail depending on where I have travelled too. But spending time looking at Don Ball's Trackside Pennsylvania Railroad 1940s-1950s, O. Winston Link photography books, and others showing trains and railroading from that era has always captivated me. The aesthetic of the cars and trucks is always a plus to for me. 

Alvie

 

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Posted by angelob6660 on Saturday, January 23, 2021 8:21 PM

SeeYou190

 

 
angelob6660
New York Central is the railroad I like in this era because I always wanted to go New York State to see this railroad in action until I realized it ended in 1968

 

I love NEW YORK CENTRAL steam locomotives, and not just the Hudson. These locomotives had a unique lean yet brutish look. I imagine that the tunnel clearance requirments had something to do with this. NYC locomotives just look like they are there for business.

-Kevin

 
Basically the reason why I loved the railroad. 

Modeling the G.N.O. Railway, The Diamond Route.

Amtrak America, 1971-Present.

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Posted by SeeYou190 on Saturday, January 23, 2021 8:51 PM

angelob6660
Basically the reason why I loved the railroad. 

Unfortunately, the NYC steam locomotives in brass command a premium price. Otherwise, the STRATTON AND GILLETTE locomotive fleet would be based on NEW YORK CENTRAL prototypes.

I decided to go with USRA standard designs instead. I can get 3 or 4 USRA Mikados in brass for the price of one NYC Mikado.

-Kevin

Living the dream.

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    November 2012
  • From: Kokomo, Indiana
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Posted by emdmike on Saturday, January 23, 2021 9:54 PM

My opinion is it covers the transition from steam engines to diesel, so moderlers can have both on the layout at the same time.  Filthy black steamers working out their final days and shiny new streamline diesels and early switchers from various builders make for interesting modeling.  From Big Boys to the classic EMD E and F units with the bulldog nose and Alco PA/FA series.   Mike

Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome

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Posted by jeffhergert on Sunday, January 24, 2021 3:09 AM

mbinsewi

This thread has jumped the shark multiple times.  Still nothing from the OP.

I'm full of popcorn.

Mike.

 

Is there a rule that once you start a thread that's really just asking a question, you have to respond again?

I came to read this thread late, or I might've chimed in on a few things.  IMO, the original post was a question that the OP probably didn't expect to get answers and comments that go on for multiple pages.  Reading them, he may not wish to comment further, or has nothing really to say.

For the record, while my modelling is in a state of hiatus, I model the Rock Island in 1978.  I have some era creep by allowing passenger service on the section that I model that ended in 1970.  I model it because it was my teen years when I hung out at the local depot that was still a train order office.  Time Table and Train Order operation is one of the things of that era that appeals to me.

Jeff 

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, January 24, 2021 10:34 AM

jeffhergert
Is there a rule that once you start a thread that's really just asking a question, you have to respond again?

I'd agree, and I read the original post in that sense: he wanted to read about other people's ideas of why the transition era or 'boomer childhood years' or whatever was such an attractive timeframe ... for modelers who cared to post about it.  As I recall, specific and personal ideas.  There would be little reason for him to keep replying -- other than to defend himself against starting drive-by disaster drift, which clearly (at least to me) wasn't his purpose.  It may be that he's actually been 'disincentivized' to reply now.

Many is the thread I started to read answers or wisdom, not to post (except for clarification or expansion).  Any new thread asking purely for readers' opinions or experience would be in that category.  Now there are plenty of posters who promptly jump into such a thread to deny the idea that the era is the one to model, or to go off on some more or less chestbeating tangent about why they model something else, or to drift the thread into the politics, racism, etc. of the era as perceived by the poster... but thise are occupational hazards of posting almost anywhere on the Internet, and really have been as long as the Internet has been 'open to the public'.

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Posted by emdmike on Sunday, January 24, 2021 2:21 PM

I also think alot of it, is you model what you were exposed to as a child, for many in the hobby that would be the early diesel years and not that long ago was the transition time frame.  Locally we still have a few guys that are active that can remember the end of steam, but they are in their 80's age wise.   This opinion will vet itself out in the coming years as the younger generate that did not see steam in regular use, or even F units/early diesels, chose their era to model.  The 1970s and forward might become the new focus, only time will tell.   Atleast the ATSF modelers cannot claim "Warbonnets" for a layout stuck in the 1950s era as that paint scheme returned in the modern era for the "Super Fleet" engines that handled the crack stack trains, UPS TOFC and most anything else that was "hot", a few still roam the BNSF on whatever train they get stuck on.  But I still stick to the ablity to run both steam and diesel being the main reason for transition era modeling if one wants to keep to some sense of realism.    Mike

Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome

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