A lot of model railroaders have their favorite line (I’m a C&O man myself), but I think PRR fans are the most rabid as to why their line is the best.
Is it because the Pennsy flag was absorbed and destroyed by the corrupt NY? Was their motive power that good or beautiful? Or their use that interesting?
I think it was because the Pennsy was both monumentally huge and very distinctive. Of course, today Pennsy would be dwarfed by the mega-merger roads, but in its day the Pennsy was the biggest in many ways, from track miles (vs. route miles, mind you), to locomotive rosters, shops, passenger fleet, electrification, etc. Pennsy ran a four track mainline (that some places grew to 5) from Philly to Pittsburgh over the Alleghenies. That’s quite a feat.
Over the years PRR bought or built over 10,000 steam locomotives. For example, the PRR decided it liked 2-10-0s. Most railroads bought 1-2 dozen of them. Pennsy built 583. When they felt they’d perfected the 4-6-2, Pennsy shops built 425 in the K4 class. That’s just cool.
Fast forward to the diesel era. Instead of the standardization which characterized the PRR’s steam roster, they bought samples of almost every diesel offered by every one of the manufacturers. That makes for a really interesting layout.
Pennsy also had an enormous electric operation and built most of what’s now the Northeast Corridor. Think fast, silent GG1s blasting through the snow at 90 MPH on a Clocker from Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station to New York’s Penn Station.
Pennsy built a fleet of hundreds of thousands of freight cars. It ran some 50+ named passenger trains on its mainline through Pennsylvania in the 1950s (think the all-Pullman Broadway Limited). It used its own brand of position-light signaling and used relatively unique square-shaped Belpaire fireboxes on its locomotives. Its main locomotive (Juniata) shops covered 13 square miles of Altoona, but that didn’t even include the East Altoona engine facility, the Hollidaysburg engine facility, or even the Samuel Rea car shops, all within a ten mile radius of Altoona. The Pennsy was about size and power. Everything about the railroad from its choice of Tuscan Red a
I don’t think they are the most rabid but I won’t go into who I think are. With that said, I believe it may be due to our location and the number of modelers for a particular road. I’ve not met many Pennsy modelers here in my neck of the midwest, mind you I’ve met some, but they haven’t been “rabid”.
Like Dave said, Pennsy was huge in its heyday, the Standard Railroad of the World. Many of their designs were copied by many other roads. An earlier post hit the nail on the head, if you model any era, especially the 40s, 50’s and 60’s, you’d better have some Pennsy rolling stock as it was everywhere.
Rick
Not rabid, no.
I do a dallop of Pennsy Steam because they are good engines for the job and in HO scale have proven to perform well.
There is some B&O and Reading in the mix as well as the Western Maryland.
The PRR had a good run in thier time. I have my own reasons for keeping the Keystone alive deep in Cotton Belt and UP Country. =)
They’re not called SPF’s for nothing!!! (j/k) Actually, the modellers of the smaller roads are nuts! (being a WM/B&O modeler, I can attest to that) It’s just the PRR was so freaking big, and that it affected so many, the fans are still out there. The smaller roads, one can model their entire roster and still have room for more. Just try that with the PRR!!! (again the WM and their BL2 “fleet”) Or, for that matter, the B&O and their FT fleet.
Corrupt NY?(I assume you’re referring to the New York Central) The NYC/Pennsy merger was a “hail Mary pass” where two troubled companies had approached other viable roads as potential merger partners and had been turned away. They were left with no one to approach but each other and in desperation both managements convinced themselves that a merger would save them; somehow. The collapse of Penn Central had enough dirty linen in the books of both roads to keep forensic accountants busy for years to come. [:(]
Being partial to NYC I never the less can appreciate that the Pennsy had power on its roster that any rail fan could get excited about. K4’s, boxcab electrics, GG1’s, M1a/M1b’s(especially with transcontinental tenders), T1’s, the Q duplexes, steam turbine, centipede diesels, J1’s(kudos to C&O), etc. [tup][tup][tup]
Jon [8D]
One of the model railroader Yahoo Groups I belong to is “PRR-n_scale” with 328 members. Say what? Yes, 328 members and N Scale to boot! Quite frankly, rabid has nothing to do with modeling the PRR.
I happen to like model railroading, N Scale, PCCs & traction, and the Pennsy.
My N Scale layout, the Conemaugh Road & Traction, is planned to model guess what? The Pennsy and B&O as “tracks of a second layout” surrounding the CR&T.
And, yes, I’m just old enough to remember Howdy Doodey, Spike Jones, Groucho Marx, The Lone Ranger, and Your Show of Shows. Somehow, I think they are all connected to each other for those “bigger than life memories” that also includes a 4-track Pennsy and interchanges with the Baltimore & Ohio. After all, who could afford to own your own family automobile, let alone, one of those new color TVs? However, you could afford trolley fares or walking to your destination.
Western Pennsylvania railroading just isn’t the same when the “creative color scheme” of a plain black Norfolk & Southern geep rolls through town on today’s 3-track mainline.
There’s a lot to be said for the simplicity of the times, and the black & white clarity of our values, when the fallen flag color schemes of the Pennsy and the B&O were part of our younger growing years of everyday life.
I don’t know any, and even though I am leaning heavily toward the Pennsy with my current roster of steamers, I am not really a “modeller” per se. I’m a hemi-semi-demi-proto-lancer of a fictitious place where the NYC and the PRR had a common yard at a sub-divisional point. If I may speak as a statistical n of one, I just really like the Pennsy steam. Even though their J1 was a crib from the C&O’s T1, to me it just means that their chief motive engineer knew a good thing when he saw one.
Rabid? Not me, just an earnest fan, and I couldn’t hope to tell you how many bolts were on the front of the J1’s smoke box cover. Don’t care, neither.
I model mainly the Mec and B&M. I decided to build a Penny N scale RR when I have finished for a few reasons. 1. I like the Pennsy couldnt really tell you why it just looks cool. 2. I want more operation, my layout is although 4x11 with a 36x36 extension only designed to run 1 train at a time always in the same direction. Once Im completley finioshed with my layout I will start on the Pennsy layout. Its going to be two 36x84 doors put together to make a T shaped layout. Once both RR’s are done Ill be able to have more varitey in operation. 1 day run the MEC layout the next day run the Pennsy. Happy Modeling in 07
I think the geographical location has a lot to do with which road is seen as having the most rabid fans. In the industrial northeast-mid central US the Pennsy was ubiquitous. Travel westward and by the time you cross a couple of major mountain ranges and a thousand miles of flatlands the Pennsy influence is orders of magnitude less than that of the predecessors of the present UP and BNSF. I have seen passionate discussions regarding SP versus Santa Fe among people who, if asked about the PRR, would reward you with a blank stare.
IMHO, each individual is passionate about a very personal choice of railroad, whether the Pennsy or the Podunk and Northern. Numerically, there are a lot of passionate Pennsy fans (and an either larger number of mildly interested folks.) There are also large numbers who are equally passionate about the SP, the AT&SF, the GN, the NP, the UP… As a group, these people are known as, “Railfans.” A special subset are, “Prototype model railroaders.” More power to them all.
What am I passionate about? You’re kidding, right?
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
“Rabid” isn’t the word I’d use…more like “arrogant”…just like the PRR itself. [:D]
I recently spent a week in Pennsy, visiting Steamtown, horseshoe curve, the Altoona museum, etc., and honestly, it’s like these PRR fans think the sun rose and set because the PRR said so. Jeez. It’s not like they went out of their way to point out their superiority in all things railroading, but that they believed so strongly in it that they had no concept that they might be a tad overmuch in their admiration of their PRR.
It reminds me of when an employee of Intermountain who was a regular over on the Atlas Forum made a comment one time about how the PRR was one of their worst selling roadnames. It was like he declared open warfare on PRR fans, the reaction was so out of proportion. Now, he had the sales figures, he knew the facts. But that didn’t stop a host of PRR fans calling him out for slandering their beloved PRR.
Other fun facts abound. For example, do you know what kind of chore it is to get a PRR fan to admit that the PRR didn’t know how to design an electric loco very well? That it took the New Haven’s EP-3’s to show them how to design the GG1? It’s like pulling teeth from a bear with a toothache and a bad attitude. [;)]
Or how about the PRR’s total failure to come up with a K-4 replacement? Sure, it was one of the finest Pacific classes ever made, but all the K-4 replacements were ultimate failures of design. Even the tour guide at Steamtown was talking about it. And PRR fans, like the PRR, don’t like to talk about it. They just like to heap praise on the K-4 without wondering where the PRR 4-8-4’s that should have replaced them had gone.
In fact, the PRR had a host of failures: The steam turbines, the T-1’s, the Metroliners, their diesel roster, and of cour
When you bill yourself as the “Standard Railroad of the World”, eventually you come to believe it. The territory that the Pennsy encompassed touched the New York elite to the Midwest Rust Belt. If measured by its rivals, the Pennsy was still a power house, but eventually the victim of its own sucess when the nature of the economy shifted away from smoke stack industry to Asian imports.
What a shame it is that electrification ended at Harrisburg, and did not continue on to Pittsburgh and eventually Chicago to be the basis for an American Bullet Train, not just the Northeast Corridor. While the Twentyth Century Limited remains my favorite all time passenger train, the Broadway Limited served the middle Atlantic and midwest well on its trek between New York and Chicago. While at times eccentric in its motive power, the shear numbers of its classes of locomotives and rolling stock have an impact on all of us model railroaders.
Long live the Pennsy, rabid or otherwise!
Will
My Dad modeled the Pennsy. When I was little I kept pesting him to do the Santa Fe, UP or D&RGW. I asked him once why we modeled the Pennsy. His answer was something like “because when I started model railroading I could find more Pennsy locomotive kits than anything else so thats what we have and thats what we do.” I think he was more practical than rabid. Bruce
[quote user=“Paul3”]
“Rabid” isn’t the word I’d use…more like “arrogant”…just like the PRR itself. [:D]
I recently spent a week in Pennsy, visiting Steamtown, horseshoe curve, the Altoona museum, etc., and honestly, it’s like these PRR fans think the sun rose and set because the PRR said so. Jeez. It’s not like they went out of their way to point out their superiority in all things railroading, but that they believed so strongly in it that they had no concept that they might be a tad overmuch in their admiration of their PRR.
It reminds me of when an employee of Intermountain who was a regular over on the Atlas Forum made a comment one time about how the PRR was one of their worst selling roadnames. It was like he declared open warfare on PRR fans, the reaction was so out of proportion. Now, he had the sales figures, he knew the facts. But that didn’t stop a host of PRR fans calling him out for slandering their beloved PRR.
Other fun facts abound. For example, do you know what kind of chore it is to get a PRR fan to admit that the PRR didn’t know how to design an electric loco very well? That it took the New Haven’s EP-3’s to show them how to design the GG1? It’s like pulling teeth from a bear with a toothache and a bad attitude. [;)]
Or how about the PRR’s total failure to come up with a K-4 replacement? Sure, it was one of the finest Pacific classes ever made, but all the K-4 replacements were ultimate failures of design. Even the tour guide at Steamtown was talking about it. And PRR fans, like the PRR, don’t like to talk about it. They just like to heap praise on the K-4 without wondering where the PRR 4-8-4’s that should have replaced them had gone.
In fact, the PRR had a host of failures: The steam turbines, the T-1’s, the Metroliners, their diese
When I was a little boy, thanks to Lionel I discovered only three railroads existed in this world. They were the A.T.& S.F., NYC and the PRR. I loved the looks of all of them. It was a hard choice to be made but the PRR was here in the Northeast so I settled on it. I still remember those train trips behind a PRR steam engine. I guess I was imprinted early in life like most of us.
The Pennsy was so big it offered many choices for the model railroader. I often joke about “the standard railroad of the world” especially when I try to match a color on a particular car or building. The fact is that because of its size it probably had more different versions of equipment than any other railroad in the country.
Well that was many years ago and I am still watching Pennsy model trains running around a track. Some things never change.
Doc
Dave,
As for the NH’s inclusion into the PC, just take a look at a RR map to see the reason why. A PC without the NH would have completely surrounded the NH, siphoning off what little freight traffic remained. The car floats across NY harbor would have dried up overnight, and NY to Boston traffic would have disappeared instantly. The only thing left would have been local traffic, and that would have spelled certain disaster for an already bankrupt NH. The PC inclusion was the only chance for the NH stockholders to get back their money…and they did. Which was exactly what the court appointed NH Trustees were supposed to do. The PC paid off the NH’s $50 million in debts, and took over the RR’s operating assets. In exchange, the PC killed off the NH territory’s freight service. A fair trade, no? [:)]
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
Of the three railroads which eventually committed mass suicide as Penn Central, none were in great shape going in. Oddly enough, most experts agree that had Penn Central actually been allowed by the FRA and ICC to do what they wanted to in order to remain solvent, Conrail may never had been necessary. It took the Staggers Act of 1981 to allow Conrail to do much of what PC had wanted to do. Conrail became profitable as a result.
" that also includes a 4-track Pennsy and interchanges with the Baltimore & Ohio" Hmmmm, I’m guessing you mean the interchange between the S&C subdivision and the PRR @ Johnstown? Near the old car shops? (Yup, I’m a local.) As an O scaler, I see a LOT of PRR equipment, from the “glory days” of the scale. I think the reason is because, in O scale the PRR ran through the biggest population of O scalers (mid-Atlantic to upper mid-west).
It’s the Belpaire firebox - it’ll seduce you everytime. [:D]
Enjoy
Paul
Many PRR fans forget that little fact. They insist that everything got bad after 1968 and worse after 1970. That’s not the case. Because of increased traffic during WWII, many roads–PRR, NYC, and NH included–deferred maintenance on their equipment and lines. After WWII, with increased competition from trucks and later airlines, cash supplies started dwindling as roads tried to be competitive and upgrade their equipment and lines.
Also, things in PC’s leadership weren’t helped by ill feelings between the 2 roads. If you look at the organization’s structure, the PRR staff tends to outnumber the former NYC and NH people. Because of that, they (NYC) always saw the merger as a “takeover.” With feelings like that, it wasn’t surprising that the two sides couldn’t work together. The PRR was simply arrogant because they were, the self-proclaimed “Standard Railroad of the World.”
I hope nobody thinks I’m trying to slam them. That is not my intention, but rather to tell things from a PC modelers view. We tend to get knocked around a bit, simply because our locomotives aren’t Tuscan Red (or DGLE, Brunswick Green, etc.). However, we do not harass PRR fans, or even the NYC and NH fans. To us, they’re all “family.”