IF you model an ERA like 1950’s why can you not have any rolling stock from any road on it. Before you fire up the branding iron think about it.
What tells the viwer wher in the country you are tring to show? Town names mostley and or a specfic scene for that area. Other than the actual railroad buildings (Stations and switch towers) your 4-8-4 Northern pulling the correct type of cars acorss a farm scene area OR a GENERIC town would look just fine.
You take off the 4-8-4 and put in a Big Boy pulling a PFE string across the SAME area of the layout and it is now a Union Pacific scene. What I am driving at is that if you are modeling for the sake of Histroy and want to run the Cab Forward or a J3 Hudson the scenery will tell the story or does the TRAIN Tell the Story?
I have gone off the deep end and have decided to break up the layout into a bunch of Generic Towns so i can run anything I want. The point being that I can spend hours detailing an Erie Lackwanna Passenger train and pull it with the RS-3 like they did and then Have the H3a haul a coal drag from the coal mine to the port. This is looking like more fun in my eyes than being locked into ONLY rolling stock and locomotives from just the PA area.
Not starting a flme war but this subject was discussed at length during my visit to Florida and talking to club members 18 years after starting on the CAL-NEVA railroad which was supposed to just be of the fruit area in the California area. Well 18 years later and they are now running anything they want on the layout. One week it is ATSF the next week is Southern and then it may N&W night. Sounded like fun to me.
It’s not like they didn’t have interchange in the 1950s or anything. Having a mix of rolling stock roadnames would be perfectly typical. I think that reefers and oil tankers were the only real “unit trains” of the day.
What would be atypical would be one of the “rainbow” consists of locomotives that you see these days.
Just remember - NYC and PRR were pretty large then, so they ought to be represented.
Interesting perspective. Your initial point on having a broad range of rolling stock is well taken. I model Pennsy in the 1950s so I can run equipment from virtually any railroad (as long as it was in interchange service) correct for 1956. While having an emphasis on railroads from your locale is good for establishing region (I have a lot of RDG, LV, CNJ, etc.), you will want a respresentative sample from across the US.
There is always the First Rule of Model Railroading, and that’s “It’s Your Railroad, Run What You Want.” I know to suggest otherwise is heresy in these forums.
Might I suggest, though, that focusing on a specific region as well as era makes your layout more believeable? I model generic towns too, but they have place names and industries typical of central Pennsylvania, and the scenery is distinctly Eastern. I think a focus on location and era also helps focus your efforts and your hobby dollar. I like, for example, Colorado narrow gauge, but I don’t spend my money on it because it doesn’t fit in with my theme. My hobby dollars are not being split between multiple interests, so I can maximize them. And no one has to wonder why a Galloping Goose is passing the eastbound Broadway Limited. But again, It’s Your Railroad, Run What You Want.
Just an alternate, alternate view, no flaming intended or desired!
Dave, if people read this and get what you got from the comment, it was worth the post.
I have a model of every large steam ever built so you know i will run it!! Building up a fleet of cars that belong behind the Cab Forward or the Y6b or the Big Boy. I also have some 1895 Camelbacks with some 36 ft cars for them. It is just for fun anyway and we have enough stress in life with the idiots playing with nukes!!!
A very good point that the consist goes much farther toward realism than the scenery… I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen 40 ft boxcars with roofwalks behind a SD70MAC or modern airslide hoppers behind a steamer. That irks me; we all know better than that. So, you’re absolutely right about matching the cars to the loco and keeping a theme with the train.
I’m not quite as sold on the generic scenery, though. You can generalize Eastern, Western, Midwestern, or Southern towns and get away with it, but to go completely generic is difficult to pull off convincingly. I’m sure you’ve been to the big train shows with the big modular layouts where the builders of each module have tried hard not to depict a specific place. Those are sometimes really good and sometimes really bland (but then much of the countryside is). What doesn’t help is when those clubs (thinking N Trak here) have a downtown scene adjacent to a desert scene followed by a steel mill followed by farmland adjacent to the seaside, etc. My point is when the scenery looks like something we’ve seen (jee, that looks like Illinois… or is that Iowa?), we can tell a better story than the all-too-common random grass, rocks, trees (ala Woodland Scenics’ demo dioramas) and sign-less DPM kits.
I am in the throes of building my second layout, and it has been a major task. For me, the layout has to look good enough that I will be fooled into thinking that I am on a hill looking down at a real town in the distance and watching a train roll through it. It doesn’t have to be showcase quality, but it should look “good”. So, I will never get to Bob Grech’es style or involvement…it is beyond what I mean to do for myself. And, like George, I like some of what many corporations ran in the early-to- mid 1900’s. I therfore have a UP Challenger (where did that come from?!) with my greater stable of NYC and PRR stuff. I think my one caboose is Great Northern…can’t remember since they are all packed away awaiting open rails. I actually have two identical TH&B boxcars, and CPR Harriman style coaches. I like the hodge-podge.
Maybe, in time, I will decide that I need to grow up in the hobby and evolve to a more serious modeler. Right now, I daren’t use the term for myself.
The train and the scene both convey the ‘story’ on your layout. One point - Trains back in the 50’s had just as much ‘interchange’ traffic. A typical ‘mix’ is that 50% of the freight cars are ‘home road’, 25% are connecting lines, and the last 25% are non-direct connections or private cars(like tank cars & reefers). The ‘rule’ breaker in modern era trains is the ‘unit’ train…
Modeling different era or regions has been done before, and is quite do-able. I agree that pulling a string of wood side PFE reefers with a GEVO really does not cut it. My old club had 2 ‘pull’ trains just for members to exercise their new engines. One had 50’s era cars, and the other had modern 70’s era cars(TTX flats/Grain Hoppers/Etc)…
A couple of thoughts on the basic theme, with tongue firmly in cheek.
The only truly “generic” scenery is found under the Plywood Pacific, or the Foamtop and Fugheddaboudit. As soon as you arrange contours and add foliage (or the lack of it - typical for my area of residence) you have identified a geographic area. I strongly doubt that I’m the only person who can guesstimate a location by looking at a scenic photo.
Buildings are second only to trains as a visual clue to location and era. There are certain kinds of structure which used to be confined to certain areas. Salt box houses were pretty much a New England phenomenon until latter-day developers scattered them all over the landscape - many of them improperly oriented (the tall side is supposed to face south.) Spanish-style architecture is still mostly southwestern (I saw one in rural Tennessee, where it looked totally out of place!) Of course, in the 21st century anything can be found being built just about anywhere, so the old “look” is breaking down.
While specific locomotives ran on specific railroads, most of them were built in the East and had to cross the country to reach their final destinations. Since Baldwin was located on the PRR I don’t doubt that a lot of Santa Fe and Southern Pacific locos found their way around Horseshoe Curve - westbound. Question for one more knowledgeable - did all those UP Alcos travel westward on the Water Level Route?
Of course, what most people know about prototype railroads is confined to the mundane universe [defined as Universe 3, Neil Armstrong (Heinlein) or 4th level Euro-American (Piper.)] By moving to a parallel universe (or alternate time line) the modeler can do whatever he pleases, and no prototype policeman can say him nay.
Chuck (who models with rolling stock that operated everywhere - in Japan)
My layout well use NS or CR Style Signals, and will be run using NS symbols and practices, but will be genric enough to be able to run anything. Besides, like its been stated Its your RR you run what you want. My layout is going to have alot of NS, unpatched CRs, CNW and a trio of SP SD40T-2s, Sou and N&W. I would if I had them, run 611 and 1218 with my SD70Ms