Just a silly question on a Saturday morning, but has anybody ever modeled or heard of someone modeling a prototypical layout of say 2040 or 2080? OK I know it sorta silly, but seems like a pretty interesting kitbashing project from some of the folks on this board who are really good.
I guess the discussion might be what will railroads look like in 30-50 years?
OK back to cartoons 
There’s no such thing as a “future prototypical” layout. It’ll be freelance. And I’m sure SOMEONE out there’s modelling the future.
My vision of 2030
Rusty old rebuilt SD70Ace’s
No Amtrak
Scrapyards filled with GE P42’s
SD90MAC’s pulling UP excursion trains
Increased use of Green goat type small switchers
Dave
Never mind the future, that will be here soon enough , probably sooner than you think.
Personnally , I have enough problems keeping up with the past . See you in the future !!! CPPedler
Depends who wins. If the people who think the U.S.A. is the root of all evel then maybe we would see all hygrogen fuel cell powered SD250’s and the name of the railroad might be the European Pacific. Just something to think about. Joe A.
I remember a GM project layout that the company had touring the country for a while back in the early 90s about intermodal and mag-lev technologies. I saw it in Chicago years ago but it was set in 2020 I think. All of the trains, even the freight seemed to be inspired by a cross between ICE trainsets and automobile designs.
My personal line is set in 2008, but that’s not really that far in the future. All I really did to make it seem more advanced in the timeline is create some freelanced bilbords for products that are not out yet (like household chore robots and a G6 Mac computer.) These actually started out as a joke but if anyone asks I just say it’s 2008 on the layout to avoid explaining a complex in-joke.
~METRO
Wonder how many of the old EMC/EMD carbody units will still be around then? I’m guessing most preserved examples will survive, though some may have been rebuilt with later power units, traction motors, etc as by then the oldest survivors will be 100 years old. I think BN may have done this with a couple of F units and an E (now at the Illinois Ralway Museum) as according to their website they’re “rebuilt to 38-2 specifications” - guessing this means all mechanical parts swapped for GP38-2 versions?
It’s a pretty cool way of keeping an old loco going to my mind - the “back story” to the Erie-Built on my layout is that it was bought as a hulk then repowered with an EMD unit and fitted for HEP so it now offers roughly the same power as when built (but with a more reliable powerplant for which spares are easier to come by) and can now work excursion trains as well as the C&NW Bilevel cars it usually hauls.
Article in April 1978 Model Railroader
Hey Brit, quite a nice idea you’ve got there about the C-liner
My PA-1s have a simmilar story. I say they were found down in Mexico (as some actually were) and were rebuilt with components by GE-Alsthom at the Selenian Lines shops before being put into service pulling the luxury commuter train (I think those are a purely Canadian endavour after riding American commuter lines) from Selene to Toronto. (modifications to the model include modern GE AC-style trucks, repositioning of the roof details and a P-42-style radiator fan.)
I’ve been trying to justify a DL-109 the say way, saying one was found rusting in a scrap yard in New Jersey and then rebuilt.
~METRO
It’s really quite easy to create a futuristic rail scene depricting railroading in 2040 or 2080…just model a rail-trail! MR did so for one of its recent April (April Fools) issues. I was also going to suggest the Lunar Railway layout MR did back in '78, which was meant as another April Fools joke, but DSchmitt beat me to it. Incidentally, several readers took the latter idea seriously and actually modeled the lunar scene! I seem to recall one example even won a science fair award!
CNJ831
Modeling in 2040-2080?
Just ask John Titor - He knows: http://www.johntitor.com/
Giant Articulated diesels mabey?
Yah. We ran out of oil, the only thing left was either coal or atomic power, atomic power was too dicey, so we’re back to coal. Baldwin and Alco and Lima re-opened their plants and are turning out very neat ‘retro’ looking steam. GE is back in the electric locomotive business, a lot of catenary is being used in the Northeast Corridor, and even over some of the dicier mountain routes out West. Since the adhesion factor has lowered, the freight cars have reverted to 40 and 50 feet. Since there’s no jet fuel available, air travel has become a REAL luxury, and people are flocking back to passenger trains to get anywhere. Naturally, since battery-powered automobiles are pretty limited in range between re-charging stops, there’s not near the highway traffic there used to be, so light-rail and trolley cars have come back big. Oh, and since rail traffic has surged, UP has been forced to re-open Tennessee Pass and re-lay rail on their abandoned Pueblo-Kansas City Mopac line. There’s also talk of them re-opening the Modoc Line in northern California and taking back the Siskiyou Line. Even a branch from Colfax to Nevada City along the old Nevada County Narrow Gauge roadbed is being considered. Things are looking VERY nice and retro.
Tom [:P][:P][}:)]
twhite: And let me guess, thanks to the popularity of the PT Cruiser and the Prowler, new automobiles all look like 1930’s prototypes, despite having hydrogen fuel-cell engines, and conservative dress styles have come back into vogue, with women wearing Thirties-style dresses and men wearing hats and ties all the time…hmm, the future is starting to look familiar to those who model the golden age of steam!
By 2040-80, scrap all your hoppers because you won’t be needing coal unit trains any more. Get more tankers though. All those fusion plants need their hydrogen fuel They’d also need something to ship all that helium out too. You’d also need to come up with some kind of new type of car to ship all the collected neutron radiation out to the waste repository. Closer to 2080, you won’t even need those. But you could occasionally have a special train of several huge (say 15,000 horsepower) locomotives moving a train consisting of an old passenger car rebuilt into a control station or some kind, a few cars of security forces, an ancient 86’ autoparts boxcar rebuilt into a mobile fusion reactor, and a new type of car coupled directly to the control car. The new car would probably be fairly short and have probably four six-wheel trucks and look like a boxcar or a tank car. Inside it would be one or two quantum singularities, fresh from the supercollider, being moved to their new power plant where we’ll harvest the energy from them as they decay into nothingness.
Solar Powered Steam Engines!
Don’t Laugh, after all the made diesel engines work!
Fergie
I’m one who is modelling in the future but I have a retro mindset. The timeframe of my benchwork and trackage is circa 2050 but it’s been laid there for nearly 70 years and the rolling stock and loco power are those that would have been popular closer to the turn of the century. Maybe my friends and visitors think all this nostalgia is lame by today’s standards but, bless the stars, it’s an era I’m comfortable with and that’s just the way it’s gonna be.
On a side note: I saw in the paper today where a cyber graffiti drone was destroyed when the Sydney Limited morphed into the newly rebuilt Grand Central Aerodrome last evening. Gawd, when will these kids learn that it’s not art, it’s vandalism and besides with the current widespread use of personal situational awareness goggles no one who doesn’t want to sees that crap all over the sides of a worm hole jetting gondola unit any way.
Also, (second side note), I got the new Athearn SD99K nuclear unit last week. Admittedly, $40K for the unit and necessary time/matter transponder was a bit steep but it was well worth the cost to hear the wife scream when that puppy appeared and raced across the counter while she was preparing breakfast this morning. Tomorrow I might try to run it across the neighbor’s dashboard when he’s leaving for work. Gotta love the new technology even though my artist’s heart is still locked in the past.
dwRavenstar
Fergie, i can see that very well, after all that’s how solar power is used in homes to create the electricity.
But, it’ll probably be fuel cell driven locomotives in 30-50 years. For those that don’t know, a Fuel Cell is a special tank that takes water and splits it into it’s hydrogen and Oygen components, the resulting energy is used to drive an electric motor. This is called a single Action Fuel Cell, and would require frequent refueling with water,. But they are experimenting with a Double Action version, that is, it would take the water, convert it to H and O2 molecules then recombine them back into water. There would be some loss from the system, but refueng would be minimized, compared to a single action Fuel Cell.
Of course there is no desire by companies to produce these in mass quantities, as hundreds of companies would instantly be out of work. but then again, in 30-50 years our oil supply will be so shot that we will be forced to do drastic changes.
Solar powered trains will never happen. The volume of solar cells you need are far, far too numerous to ever even consider.
[:p]Nah, not 'thirties style dresses–ugliest things I can think of. Shorter skirts and shoulder pads. Retro '40’s. The Joan Crawford look is back (but thank God, SHE isn’t!)
Tom[}:)][}:)]