I’m currently working on my first layout. N scale, about 15ft x 2ft along 2 walls. I’ve noticed a lot of posts here about proto modeling. I’ve won a few things on ebay as well as bought things from my LHS.
While my intention is to make this an all PRR layout, and I’ve bought 1 passenger car, all of my freight rolling stock is a mix. Right now I’d like to get it up and rolling for the holidays although I know it won’t be totally finished by then. I guess I’m just wondering if there’s no room for freelance modeling here or on other boards. I’ve got rolling stock from all over. Are these things that I should keep a hold of even when I have all PRR stuff or look to unload them?
Go ahead and freelance, it’s YOUR railroad, you can do whatever you want… As for the mix of cars, that is prototypical. if you look at a real freight train rolling past you won’t see cars lettered for all one road.
Mixed freight stuff is perfectly fine. The people here are not that worries about prototypical, they want to help you with fun to operate, reliable, and enjoyable for the long term. Keep your stuff while you figure out where you are going.
Hey…it is a layout of your choice, so do what you are comfortable with. Yes. some modelers like detail, and others model ‘specific’ roads, right down to the rivets. But that is their choice. I prefer being able to take my equipment to the club and run it! Sometimes I put UP passenger cars behind my 4-6-4 and I get LQQKS from some of the members, and chuckles from others…but I don’t care! I’m having fun and that’s what it is all about.
Once again it’s yours. Not a hole lot of my equipment is prototypical but I model what I want. Any rivet counters coming over the holidays?? If not most just like to see trains run and don’t know anything about what there looking at anyway.
You’re doing fine. At this stage all you need to do is get sme trains running, and if you want to later on you can make it prototypical, or leave it as is. It’s your choice.
Matthew
I don’t know… I think the Proto Police will be right over to your house! Actually, as others have said, there is no “right” way to model. Hey, I model the year 1925 somewhere in the Finger Lakes Region of NYS. I bought a flat car with a load of Waterloo Boy tractors on it. The John Deere factorys stopped making them in 1924 and they are being shipped direct from the factory on a flatcar that says on it Made in 1929… I ain’t gonna throw it out. Do what pleases you and don’t worry about it. If at some time you decide that some of the rolling stock you have doesn’t fit with what You want to do, then pass it on to someone else. Have fun with your trains!
While there is certainly no best or only way to enjoy the hobby, many people like to be prototypical. This means different things to different people. It can mean modeling real places, having rolling stock and engines of the same time period, operating your trains the way real railroads did, etc. Actually for a PRR modeler, having only PRR freight cars on your layout would be unprototypical since the PRR interchanged with numerous other railroads. For many time periods you would expect a road like the PRR to have only their own engines, passenger cars, and cabooses, but more recent time periods the roads lease diesels to each other so you may see a mixture.
A big part of the learning curve for new model railroaders is figuring out what you like to do.
like the guys say-rule #1 its YOUR railroad,My Canadian National pike hosts my Father-in-Laws Swiss & Austrian stock when they are visiting and my own Brit stock when the mood takes me,much respect to those who can put together exactly as the wx& y was on 1st june 1866but are they having fun? I certainly am-if it works for you,it works,good luck & ENJOY!!! nick
One thing I do have that I’m thinking of getting rid of is some caboosses. I picked up a set of 4 for the PRR one that was in there and now I have 5 extras…3 ATSF, a B&O and another. While I’m not worried about being prototypical, would a train ever have more than one caboose attached?
I would think not, unless they were deadheading it back to another point where they needed one.
Or, get yourself a can of red oxide primer from your neighborhood hardware store and some PRR decals from your hobby shop, and voila, 5 new PRR cabeese. [:D]
Well, when freelancers aren’t welcomer here, I guess I’ll pack up my things and leave. Truth is, I’ve never felt like that on here. Everybody approaches this obsession, uh, hobby their own way.
One rule, though…you must enjoy however it is you approach it!
ya know, everything is up to you. Choose what you like, and run with it! As for cabooses, i doubt that would happen, though perhaps at somepint or other it might have. But interms of freedom, you could do a whole-caboose train, just for fun! Remember, its all up to you
i always thought if i liked it enough to buy it or trade for it im sure gonna run it. i admire proto modelers a lot because of the shear amount of research and dedicated work that it takes to make it happen. but that makes them happy and i salute them.
but im also happy running a train made up of all different roads or having era conflict even jeeps with a consolidation pusher and that whole train is nothing but cabooses.
i did once long ago see a whole caboose train of maybe 25 behind an SCL loco in jacksonville fl. in front of NAS Jax. ill never forget that. i think we all have run one at some time
Mixed fright is an every day thing here in Oregon,I live 4 blocks from the tracks,If I seen and fright go by with all the same cars,I would wonder about it!!!
JIM
Well your not blowing it up like Gomez Addams So I don;t think your being a bad model railroader.
Take me for instance. I model GN in december of 1969. Yet I have equipment from all over the place. Alot of it not compatible with one another if just taking timeline into account. Also While I model the Area around Western Montana and Northern Idaho. The section of track I am modeling is completly fictitious allowing me the creative freedom to design what I am modeling from scratch. I found that trying to model specific prototypes led to to many compromises that I was not comfortable with. This way I can arrange what I want and how I want it. As long as I follow the practices of how the Real GN operated their trains I can execute the illusion of what I am trying to achieve. By the way, my GN layout interchanges with my freelance Wyoming Idaho Oregon and Pacific. Which in my model railroads universe is also owned by the same man who operates the Tyco Valley & Chattanooga Railroad in Minisota & Wisconsin.
On your comment about more than one caboose in a train. Yes there are instances when a train would have more than one caboose. For example in many areas where the PRR operated it was law that trains have a set number of crew members aboard. Even if it were just locomotive movements. So in many places where helpers had to cut on to the train you would see the end of the train. That train’s caboose. The helper engines. and the Caboose assigned to the helper engine. It was often practice when shoving on the back end behind the caboose for the crew to vacate that caboose and ride in the caboose behind the helpers for safety’s sake. If there was a derailment the baboose was often the first to go because it is lighter and easier to derail than the loaded freight cars ahead of it.
Another case of more than once caboose is when ferrying them back to where they need to be. On railroads which have more track in one direction than the other locomotives and cabooses tend to end up on on
Mixing rolling stock of different road names is one thing. It’s prototypical, since railroads never had just their own name on all of their cars.
Now, maybe you are like me, and you mix rolling stock of different nationalities. That’s not prototypical at all! But I love doing so.[:D] Freelancing is awesome, and is only limited to your imagination and creativity.
Do what you want with your railroad, you will break no rules in the process.
So, I’ll just tell you that I am 100% freelanced, with a TH&B Hudson, an unlettered 0-6-0, a PRR F2 A/B set, a UP 4-6-6-4, a White Pass & Yukon 2-8-2, and soon to have a PRR K-4. The 0-6-0 is owned by the Sentinel Mountain Coal Co., but they never got around to labeling it. We’re so tickled at Emerald Creek 'cuz four major railroads do business here.
