How finicky are you on build dates
E.G. If you are doing up to the end of the Steam Era and a boxcar has a original build date 0f 1946 but a rebuild date of 1964 on it will you have it on your layout ( even though without picking it up and reading it you can’t tell and nobody but you would know ) or how about one built in 1960 but of the same style
I’m finicky with build dates for cars I use during operating sessions. I take pride in what I display and how my railway is perceived in the eyes of the guys I hang around with.
It sounds like you are talking about the date WRITTEN on the model car. If I don’t like what’s written, I can redo it. I am more concerned with actual appearance and construction of the car. I stay up late at night tracking car history. I can’t even READ the little date on this car. I know that the big tall Santa Fe emblem was used on Santa Fe boxcars after about 1960. But I also know that most of Santa Fe’s wood cars were rebuilt with steel sides or converted to MOW or company service use by my 1957 layout date. And I also know that Santa Fe had no 40 foot double-sheathed cars of this general appearance ever.
So this sits, unused since I bought it 35 years ago (notice old Rapido couplers) until I figure out a suitable use. Thought it just needed a repaint but my research showed otherwise.
I have a batch of Concor SFRD wood-side reefers-- which were all converted to steel or downgraded to company service use before my ,layout date. I run a couple cause I like them, but as a sizable portion of my reefer fleet, I just wouldn’t be satisfied. I’m going to redo one or two as ice service cars, and I dunno about the rest.
I fudge dates a few years, run one or two of something that had disappeared in real life. But not the other way. I can’t see running a roofwalk-removed boxcar in 1957 or an 80-foot high cube.
I don’t get excited about a date that I or no one else can read. I started out long ago trying to change them, but got lazy when I discovered that no body ever noticed or even cared about the blt date when they visit or operate. I hate the idea of scraping off lettering on a car and replacing it, risking the chance of ruining the paint job in the process.
I know I may have the NMRA jerk my MMR for “revealing this shocking truth” but when you are 75, you don’t get as excited as the younger modelers. I get more excited about a car with a paint job that was no longer around in the era I model which is 1989. But to each his own.
Note: if you happen to visit my layout when an open house/region event is going on and I am on tour in Kansas City, please note this warning that I just don’t care about the built date so if you are faint of heart, or afraid of having sensibilities disturbed, don’t visit.
Bob
Hi!
While I am in no way a “rivit counter”, build dates are something that I feel strongly about for MY layout and collection. I originally used 12/57 as my newest allowed date, but eventually realized that 12/59 allowed me to bring in some desireable cars and locos (i.e. trailer flat cars, RSD15s, etc.).
When my collection of HO kits and cars was at its max (600 plus) and I finally decided to thin out (and upgrade where practical), build or “rebuild” dates after 12/59 were the first to go. Yes, I can and did redo some dates - but only where the car itself was in existance prior to 1960.
By the way, I picked up the “Official Railway Equipment Register” for 1/60, which has greatly helped in deciding if a car “stays and gets redecaled, or goes”.
Oh, I also feel the same way about the vehicles, which is easy (for me) regarding autos, but took some research for trucks.
The date it sounds like you’re referring to is a reweigh date (the one next to the LT WT stencil). I try to avoid having cars too new for my era, and don’t really like having ones with later reweigh dates. Provided the car and paint scheme are appropriate for my era, I can use decals to easily change the reweigh date, along with the adjacent LD LMT and LT WT amounts. Most of our layouts have too few cars with obvious re-stenciling for this anyway. The new stencils often don’t match the original scheme, so finding matching decals isn’t necessary.
Yup the “BLT” built date stays the same unless the car goes through an extensive rebuilding, but the car gets new reweigh dates every so often. When built the car will have a BLT date and a NEW date that are the same, but the next time the car is reweighed the NEW date will be added next to a three or four letter code for the city it was reweighed or otherwise worked in, like “CHI 9-66” or “LA 2-47”.
For modeling purposes, what can be confusing is that a car could be built in 1925 but repainted in 1947 into a new paint scheme, so the car couldn’t be used on say a 1940 layout even though it was built long before. Plus, some cars keep their original scheme for a long time. I photographed a GN “Big Sky Blue” boxcar with original paint and GN reporting marks in service in 1990 for example.
My mother used to worry about one of our family members being carted off to the hospital while wearing dirty underwear. I worry about rivet counters finding their way into my basement and having to view my managerie of cars and engines. As much as I love trains and model railroading I am resigned to the fact that I will never have the time, money nor energy to indulge such particulars.
Fairly finicky, but not fanatical. [:-^] When I decided to shift my layout’s era to the “late '30s”, some stuff had to go and some stuff got re-lettered - usually older versions of the paint and lettering schemes. so this C&O car:
…became this:
…likewise for this CNR boxcar:
…or this Nickel Plate car:
…which got a different number with its older style lettering:
Some cars, like this USRA doublesheathed boxcar (modified Train Miniature), built in 1918 for the NYC are still too modern for my layout, as the TH&B didn’t get the car from parent NYC until 1941.
Even at that date, the cars hadn’t yet received the TH&B herald. Still, I model an interchange with the TH&B (my favourite road and from my