How many of us model a particular road because we like the colors & equipment[%-)] I’m sure many of you model Santa Fe because of the “Warbonnet”, Chief, etc. I model UP because of the Armor yellow/Harbor Mist gray + BigBoy, Challenger, Turbines, etc.[:)]
I model the KCS because it’s close at hand and I loosely patterned my fictional road, the Midland Gulf Railway after the Louisiana and Arkansas which is a near forgotten part of the KCS. I have one GWWR (Gateway Western Railway) loco in my collection and I hope to start to work on a TFM loco in the near future.
B&O, because i like the look of their no-frills steam locos and Vandy tenders. Im also a closet NS fan, and have a few NS locos because i love their paint scheme. Have a few southern, NS, CR, and GT cars for them to pull in the event i run 'em, just cause i love how they look. Dash 9s are pretty locos, might get one in the markings of each road that used them just for the color (modern schemes are great, just wish there was more than 4 major US roads left…i especially miss SP and Conrail)
I actually hate the color scheme for one of my railroads, C&NW. Fortunately, I am going to model the Milwaukee as well. They are two of the railroads that went through my home town in the fifties. Since I’m modeling my home town, they kind of have to be there.
Boston & Maine- It had been in the area. It had a variety of interesting schemes. It had interesting steamers. It rostered Steam, Diesel, and Electrics. It has one of the longest tunnels. It goes through a beautiful area. Uh, yea…
Yep. I always liked the CP Rail and CSX paint schemes.
Well, the New York Central’s primary scheme is white on black. Perhaps boring to some but I think it’s elegant in it’s simplicity. (I guess that’s why I’m sorta fond of the Norfolk Southern scheme, too.) The NYC also had some signature locomotives as well: Hudson (particularly the 20th Century), Mohawk, and Niagara - all magnificent beasts of transportation.
Personally, I think I could find several roads to model and be perfectly happy modeling and learning about them. I just happen to model the NYC. It is convenient that it did go happen to through my neck of the woods here in Cleveland.
Tom
I can’t stand at a grade crossing and not get a funny feeling inside…I just love so much about railroading in general that I don’t mind any of them. It happens, though, that when I first began to get into the hobby and learn of all the steamers that were on US roads, I didn’t care for any of the streamlined ones. They looked toy-like…dunno why…they didn’t fit with my mental image of steamers, I guess. So, I found I didn’t like the Pennsy Duplex, nor the GS4, nor the Hudson or that whacked out Pennsy K4 with skirts…it just left me cold. Give me flying pumps, sandboxes, clanking rods and slow rocking boxcars.
Then, the TI grew on me. I began to admire other engines, whether Belpaire fireboxes or not, and no matter where they worked. I have built my layout to run big stuff, and have such stuff from the NYC, PRR, UP, C&O, N&W, and even the TH&B (did you know the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo had Berkshires? Awww,…now what am I gonna do?). My hodge-podge of engines makes me happy, and whether it is for their paint or their lines, or both, I don’t really care if they would never have been seen in the same yard. They do on mine.
If I modelled the rails of my youth, I’d only be able to use the Bachman Spectrum Consolidations and a very nice brass (?) Garratt because those prototypes are all that ran in the 50’s at 14,000 feet in the Andes where I lived. I’m having more fun this way.
-Crandell
Like Crandell, if it runs on rails (or in a trough, or wrapped around a rail…) I love it.
However, due to finite resources and some strong (very personal) emotional baggage, I have chosen to model a time and place which, IMHO, combines natural and man-made beauty with intense rail action - the best of all possible worlds.
The one thing I did NOT choose for was interesting color schemes. The JNR’s paint specifications must have been heavily influenced by Henry Ford (“You can have your Model T in your choice of color, as long as you choose black.”) That covers the steam fleet and the vast majority of freight cars. Most passenger stock, including EMUs, and all of my catenary motors come in grunge brown with black roofs. A few of the most modern passenger and freight cars are painted other solid colors, mostly determined by their speed or assigned service. Only the Diesel powered equipment (diesel-hydraulic locomotives and DMUs) come in a pleasing (to me) combination of cream, grey and traction orange.
The colors cause the trains to blend into the scenery - unlike the oxide red bridges.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
The New York Central Lightning Striped E units and F units pulling the great steel fleet did me in at first sight in a model railroading magazine. While I was born a little late to appreciate these trains in person I grew up in New York City and do remember the Penn Central. Visits to Grand Central Terminal and the areas north of the city fueled my images of the once great passenger trains snaking along the Hudson River for their trek from city to city. That coupled with the image of some Alco FAs pulling a string of red & gray Pacemakers and the West Side High Line used for freight trains into lower Manhattan also caught my interest.
I model Penn Central and Conrail in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I grew up with Conrail and PC on the Pennsylvania Mainline and since my two favorite colors are green and blue it just comes natrual. Or maybe it has something to do with the brighter solid colors because I also admire the CP red colors too. But I don’t like the white on black schemes of the NYC, PC and NS. Ick!!! That’s why I had to paint a GP-7 in a dark green and say it was a leftover from the late PRR days. [;)]
Hmmmmmmmm, [?] maybe I’ll have to get me a CP loco, we’ll just say that the CR purchased a couple to beef up their fleet. [swg]
I love trains overall. But the thing that got me hooked to the B&O was the color of theirs E’s and F’s and their heavyweight cars. From their it just continued but that is what got me started.
My other main interest the UP, is the opposite. I can not stand armour yellow. That is why I have only a single greyhound challenger and some Big Boys. I do have heavyweights for them, but they are grey. But I can not get my self to like UP diesels so the B&O will win this. They are so much more attractive.
Magnus
I bought my first HO’s when I was a young teen, back around 1960. The engine was a Milwaukee GP-9 made by Athearn. I bought the set at our local LHS, Hobbyrama in Rockville Centre, New York, to start my layout.
I don’t recall what factors influenced my decision. I didn’t want to start with an F7, and I wanted what was at that time “modern era” equipment. I liked the color scheme, but I was probably more influenced by the selection of rolling stock in the train set box.
I still model the Milwaukee Road. And, I’ve still got that original engine. It was rubber-band drive, and really didn’t work very well after I pulled it from its 40-year slumber, but I removed the motor and replaced the horn-hooks with Kadees, and now I can pull it around as a dummy, or rather “honorary,” locomotive.
I model the Ontario Northland because it reminds me of being up north fishing and hunting. Its a beautiful world in Northern Ontario and that is were I plan to retire. I guess in a way I’m modeling my future, lol.
Like Crandell mentioned, the ‘trains of our youth’ weigh heavy on our modeling selections. Since I am old enough to just see the last of steam(age 58), I can still remember RI Northerns and IC steam on passenger trains in Iowa. My ‘teenage’ years of railfanning in the late 60’s saw lots of ‘fallen flag’ roads, and hanging around the St Paul Union Depot meant a lot of passenger train action.
My modeling? Most of my HO stuff is Milwaukee Road or C&NW in the late 50’s. I do have ‘other’ stuff that were special to me, but they generally sit in the display case and are not part of the layout operation. This includes a collection of ‘E’ units in delivery schemes(the way God & EMD intended a passenger engine to look), and some later Milwaukee Road 2nd Generation hood units. At least there is the club layout to run that other stuff!
Jim
It’s an interesting question!! As a free-lancer I based my “St.Paul Route” colors on a couple of real railroads, the dark blue (and red/white herald colors) from the Minneapolis Northfield and Southern, and the light blue from GN Big Sky Blue (although I actually use Rock Island Blue - another paintscheme I liked.) That being said, I do run a lot of equipment from real ‘neighboring’ railroads, and I certainly have bought engines because I like the colors…for instance I have three GM 1949 demonstrators in silver and blue (two GP-7’s and an E-9), an E-8A/E-7B set of Rock Island engines in the ‘as built’ paint scheme (and am working on a set of Twin Star Rocket cars). I even picked up a “Pepsi can” Atlas Amtrak unit.
In fact I think Minnesota has/had quite a few good paint schemes: CNW (especially the original road switcher one with all the stripes in front and back), Milwaukee, Soo (both old and new), original CGW, Rock Island (freight and passenger from the early fifties), Great Northern, NP, CB&Q, M-St.L green and yellow. It’s all good !!
I guess I picked Hagerstown because I like seeing how different railroads worked with each other. It was a division point, so you had the WM’s east and west end traffic coming together, and it was also a major interchange point between the WM, Pennsylvania, N&W and B&O.
I focus on the WM because of the variety of traffic it carried, even though it was a relatively small regional. The bridge route between Connellsville, PA and Lurgan saw all kinds of freight, which added a very interesting dimension to what otherwise was an Appalachian coal hauler.
And while the Red White and Black “Circus” paint scheme is popular with the manufacturers, I always prefered basic black…
The speedlettering scheme is, I think, one of the most handsome applications of black paint ever…
Lee
Grew up with it out west and love it … Bloody Nose and Black Widow units.
I started with wanting a N&W J Loco, then decided to go after the road that it primarily traveled on. I’ve decided with more and more research into the road I’ve decided to model after it. I’m looking at getting a 2-8-8-2 as well as a 2-6-6-4 coal train for a larger layout in the future.
I went the opposite direction and decided my steam locos would keep some color, just because the Board of Directors and Chief Engineer like it that way. Even the most modern engines would have graphite smoke boxes and red cab roofs. Earlier engines would keep their colorful original trim.
…modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it’s always 1900…