1950s-golden age of railroading

[Autobus_Prime]

Folks:

Just the other day I saw a Kalmbach publication with this title at the LHS. I leafed through it; it was a very good book on modeling that decade.

However, the title got me to thinking. It’s eye-catching, but it just isn’t correct. Colorful and eye-catching, the 1950s were, and interesting for us to model, but by no stretch of the term were they a golden age.

Economically, they were was the beginning of the end. We began losing our first marginal Class 1s, and the programs of highway building were quickly eating away traffic. Everything was in decline, and the stage wasn’t just set for the horrific 1960s and 1970s,the play was already starting. (As it turned out, the “end” wasn’t as final as had been feared, and we have a prosperous rail network again…skeletal, but profitable…)

Even disregarding that, the zenith had passed. When you look at a railroad, you see a lot of 1910 infrastructure. Go back to the 1950s and read the magazines. There’s a lot of forward-thinking innovation, but under it there’s a lot of retrenchment: closing towers, closing stations, abandoned branches, yards and repair shops being shut down.

The glory days of steam were gone. There was still steam running, yes, but to really see steam locomotives in their prime, you almost have to go back before the war, and preferably no later than the 1930s. Fifties steam, with some exceptions like the N & W, was a thing of more pathos than majesty; dirty and neglected 4-8-4s on local freights, noble Hudsons on passenger protection, dead steam lined up, steam being scrapped.

Even the scenery was changing. Many of the features we like best about that decade were actually carry-overs from earlier times. Many of the worst vulgarities of our age are very much a 1950s product. Elegant brick buildings were being sheathed in ugly tin or demolishe

[jecorbett]

One of the most astute comments I read about the decline of the railroad industry was that the people running the railroads didn’t understand the business they were in. They thought they were in the railroad business when in fact they were in the transportation business. Once they figured that out, they began to prosper again. They figured out it wasn’t necessary to move every last little shipment by rail. They figured out that trucks moving freight over increasingly better highways made much more sense for a lot of commodities and customers. Railroads began to to concentrate on what they did best. Moving commodities in large quantities from and to a few large customers. To me, it’s much less interesting to model, but certainly makes much better business sense.

Likewise, while the 1950s were not the golden age for the real railroads, it certainly is for modelers. It is a time when steam and diesel were both major players. The decade began with steam power still dominating but ended with steam for the most part having been phased out. Somewhere in between, they were equal partners. While it wasn’t the peak period for passenger traffic, it was the decade when railroads made their last big push to keep long distance travelers on rails. There are many examples of railroads upgrading their flagship trains with the most modern equipment available. By the end of the decade, they could see the handwriting on the wall. Airlines were taking over and passenger service began to be neglected. Freight operations were also varied and interesting during the decade. There was everything from unit trains to peddlers dropping single cars along a lonely branch line. The variety in both freight and passenger operations allows modelers to operate just about any type of train they want. I don’t know another era when that is realistically possible.

[Anonymous]

I bought the magazine as well and noticed a bit of spillover from previous published articles. Then again I pretty much read everything over the years and sort of have a issue with re-gigutated material in a supposidly new publication but wont whine too loudly about it.

I think of the war years the last glory of steam hauling traffic that was probably beyond record levels and will probably be never seen again.

The era was that of Korea, start of the cold war and the Berlin airlift and the associated issues with fallout etc. Ignoring these items for a moment I thought that the magazine was doing a ok job for this issue.

However, I have found Classic Trains and thier Special Issues to be the true meat, taters, gravy and ale from that time period with the recollections of the people who lived it.

Yes there was alot of house buying, car buying, appliance buying etc. But it was also the time where autos boomed aircraft flew and interstates went up. Suddenly labor was not so cheap and pallets would further eat into traffic to the trucks.