I would like to do the Era from the mid 60’s to late 70’s in the deep south, would that time frame be considered the late transient era? I know the basic ERA’s are Steam, Transient (steam and diesel) and Modern. But, as to the exact year span. Now that eludes me. Can some of you elaborate on that for me.
Dunno what you’d call it, that’s well past transition era, into the second generation diesel era. But not modern, which is ever movign forward. Early modern? That tiem frame saw mergers, the decline of passenger service, and the decline of railroads in general. Modern things liek the removal of roofwalks and ladders, and roller bearing trucks.
–Randy
Early Modern Era?
Early Merger Era?
Post Transition Era?
I would call that era The Change Era. I am going to refer to the period of about 1965 to about the mid 80s. The railroads went through some major changes in this time period such as covered hoppers gaining more in popularity, the loss of RPO’s, Amtrak, more TOFCs, and container shipping, and eventually the Staggars Rail Act. Of course some other people may disagree with me, and that’s OK.
Also during that time, many RRs became subsidiaries of parent companies, but this could be earlier.
In the context of railroads, transients are hobos - you mean “transition era”. The transition from steam to diesel was pretty much over by the late 1950s in America.
Mmm - what to call the late 60s and early 70s? How about the “contraction & consolidation era”? This was the time period when many railroads went bankrupt or were merged into bigger entities, branch lines were abandoned, a lot of maintenance was deferred, and it a lot of passenger and mail transport by train ended.
Some possible eras (not “official” in any way):
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early railroading (pre-1840s)
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the trans-Allegheny expansion era (from the 1840 to the mid 1850s) - when the railroads expanded (and beat the canals) as the main form of transportation between the Atlantic and the Mississippi River
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the civil war and transcontinental era (1860s - 1880s) - railroad miles tripled in this era, the first transcontinentals
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the gilded age (1880s - 1920), huge increase in industrial production, railroad miles tripled again
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the depression and WW2 era (1930s - 45)
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Post-war/transition era (1945 - 1960)
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Contraction era (1960 - 1980)
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Modern era (post 1980)
Just a rough sketch - take with large table spoon of salt 
Smile,
Stein
There is no generally recognized set of railroad eras other than the Transition ERA starting between 1945 and 1948 and ending in 1960. Otherwise eras generally reflect the point the author is trying to make.
For example we could have (in the U.S.) The Rise of the Big Four ERA from 1980 when CSX was formed to 1999 when Conrail’s takeover was complete.
Or the Intermodal ERA from 1985 to present.
Or the Amtrak ERA 1971 to present
and so forth.
Enjoy
Paul
Stein has pretty much laid out history for you.
The “transition era” was pretty well done and over by 1960, Steam was done by then and diesels were the norm.
By 1960, even the railroads that were “steam holdouts” or who had steamers waiting in the wings “just in case” for backup had packed up, sold and/or scraped their steamers. 1959 is when the last steamers really saw service of any kind, except to maybe be a tourist service.
The “modern era” really can be from about 1980’s on to now when the current class I’s were/are formed from what was existing.
You aren’t really in any specific “era”, just a more “modern timeframe” I would guess. For some of us, it was a timeframe that is now part of our own “history”, LOL [:-^]
[8-|]
As far as steam goes, most railroads were dieselized by 1954, most of the holdouts were done by 1957, and only a handful of major railroads were still running steam in revenue service up to 1960-1961. I think the last continuous commercial (non-historical, non-museum, non-tourist) use of steam was at the steel plant in Sterling, Illinois, which did its plant switching with steam locomotives into the 1980s.
OTOH, someone, I think it was John Nehrich of NEB&W fame, argued that the steam era persisted past the retirement of steam power. I think his argument was that railroads in the 1970s were still operating much as they did in 1950s, even if they were using diesel locomotives. A lot of vestiges of the steam era did not finally disappear until the 1980s.
Actually, the “mid 60’s to late 70’s in the deep south” seems to me a workable, coherent time frame.
John was right in the aspect that freight train crews were still 4,5 or 6 men.
I think it was the era of lost identity, as mergers and consolidation took many roads from the scene or era of despair as railroads seemed to be falling apart.
Good era to model though, first and second generation diesels, cabooses, foot pilots, no graffiti, no ditch lights, aci labels, some roof walks many without, lots of piggybacks, big automobile parts cars, 50 foot boxcars were more the norm, a lot depends on which end of the time frame you actually model and what road you’re choosing.
An era is whatever the person trying to make the point wants to call it. I would call your span of years the era when Detroit tried to meet foreign competition by introducing down-sized automobiles.
The best thing to do is to stick a pin in a calendar, then research what was going on with your favorite prototype railroad at that time. Some changes stretched out over decades. Others happened, literally, overnight (One day the railroads were running long-distance passenger trains, the next day they were all Amtrak…) If you want a time span, use two pins.
I am the beneficiary of sheer, dumb luck. When I decided to stick my pin into September, 1964, the reason was the timing of a vacation that decided me on a prototype location to model. What I didn’t know, then, was that I had hit the cusp of change in Japanese railroading. Steam was still very present, but would be replaced by catenary motors and diesel-hydraulics that were pouring off the erecting floors in 1964. Likewise, a lot of older motors were running their last revenue kilometers - but were still doing so. Brand-new freight cars, still smelling of fresh paint, were clashing couplers with cars that, having survived WWII, were on the verge of withdrawal and scrapping. DMU trains were replacing locomotive-hauled passenger trains, and would shortly be displaced by EMU trains as catenary was extended. Service was expanding, ROW upgrades were happening, concrete ties and welded rail were replacing jointed rail on wood ties - and I picked a spot in space-time where it was all happening at once.
It takes a certain amount of self-discipline to choose, and stick to, a narrow time span. It also simplifies the buying process. There were no DD15 class diesels in 1964, so that shiny new Kato model will never tempt me. Nor will an E10 class 2-10-4T if anyone ever offers one. By 1964 the last survivor of the class was stuffed and mounted in a railroad muse
Actually that may be 2 different eras since you have the decaying 60s and starting in the mid 70s the IPD boxcar era and the start of the rebirth of America’s railroads though rationalization of the railroad plant and the dawning of the mega mergers,the collapse of several Eastern Railroads and the birth of CR in '76.
The 70s was a very interesting decade in railroad history.
As much as we would like to forget, the 60s and 70s were marked by major social and cultural changes, not to mention the technological ones.In the US we had civil rights, the womens rights movement, Viet Nam, the race to the Moon not to mention the Cold War. Without the technologies that the military and space programs gave us the locomotives that we have today would not me possible. if anything i would say that the time was an Era of Change.
Thanks all. Now that you have given me some food for thought, I will do some research on the loces I like and see what time frame they fall into. So what research site do you like most?
EDIT
I choose the time frame because I love the late 60’s automobiles. Chevy’s '67 Camaro, Ford Mustang, Chevy '65 fleet side pickup, the AMC’s AMX, Javelin, Rambler and the dodge road runner’s. But as for Locomotives I love the paint schemes of the mid 60’s and early 70’s. Loud and proud. The first running car I had was a piece of crud '72 Chevy Vega that I put together from two cars and made $55.00 while doing so by selling off the excess parts. One car ran but no title the other car had a title but did not run. Hence putting the two together making one car that ran and had a title.
And my first car was a '67 Ford Mustang that I never got running and sold in '78. Wish I still had it.
A couple of other thoughts. You’ve picked the late 60s-70s in the deep south. So the RRs there were going pretty strong, not a great deal of run down equipment. SR for example kept their plant in pretty top shape. I’d call the era you’ve chosen the Colorful Era. You still have a variety of RRs represented in equipment. Mergers were happening, yet equipment could be in multiple schemes on a single train. I can recall Seaboard System, Family Lines, and SCL all together. I can also remember Clinchfield yellow/gray. Unfortunately I don’t recall SR green. SR was too good about repainting their equipment into the tux scheme.
In freight cars you still had older cars with roof walks removed while the IPDs were coming in with color everywhere.
Another aspect to the deep south is when you get outside the major cities, many southern towns were still locked into the 30s in terms of local business, structures, buildings, etc and many cars from the 50s were still on the roads. So you can mix these together and be correct.
Still quit a few towns around that on one block look like the 50’s or earlier, but next block are modern buildings like Wal-Mart and Strip Malls. Towns like Fort Valley, Montezuma, Cordele, Waycross almost any town in Georgia. Even Atlanta.
More than anything else, I think the automobiles on your layout “define” the era, particularly to the uninitiated observer. If you set a layout, for example, in the 1930s but run a GP9 and a string of well-cars, your visitors might not catch the discrepancy, but put one Dodge Charger on the street and they will call that out right away.
