I’m curious as how modelers choose the era, setting, etc they choose to model. I gather that many choose based on what they experienced as kids growing up…others model based on the prototype they see every day.
Do any of you model a setting, railroad, or era that you have never seen/experieced in prototype? For example…I might model GN in MN in the 1930s although I’ve never been to MN and wasn’t around in the 30s.
I model a railroad that I am very familiar with, having made dozens of visits over the last 20-odd years, but during an era (1950’s) that I missed out on. For me, its a way of re-enacting a favorite line back when it was busier, and still operated steam locomotives. However, I also have models of more modern trains (ones that I have seen on that line) that I run on the layout occasionally.
Tom
I started out modeling the familiar in the 1970s and 1980s as a teen and twenty something person. The familiar to me was the Southern Pacific running between Davis California (my home town) and Sacramento and up over Donner Pass in the Sierra’s. Since the mid-1980’s I traveled to and through Colorado and have become a fan of the D&RGW and the scenery. The nice thing about that is SP power and freight showed up on Dio Grande trains in 1980’s and early 90’s so I still get to have SP stuff.
The prototype for the Sublime to Redikulus is places I’ve been and things I’ve seen. Through creative use of wormholes and time warps, my little layout covers 1/2 the country and over 60 years. For those who say it is not prototypical, all I can say is they have never been in myhead and seen memory so they have no idea what is there. My layout is kind of a series of dioramas about the best things and times in my life.
Thus, I have two bridges across Yellowstone Canyon with Yosemite Falls in the back and the Queen mine in Bisbee is a Malachite quarry as it should have been and I have found the Lost Dutchman Mine.
The subways which run beneath my layout are out of my memory. Growing up on Long Island, New York, I saw very little freight train activity, so I don’t have much to go by. There’s a bit more where I live now outside of Boston, but still not very much compared to other parts of the country.
I model my childhood time, in the late Transition Era. I’m not much on photographic, prototype modelling, but instead I try to do a good job of creating an impression and evoking other people’s memories of the same time.
My freelance layout is set in the late '30s. I mostly imagine what it was like back then, but I make a couple of assumptions:
Anything that existed prior to 1935 can find a home on my layout, but that I should weather items proportionate to their age (Being a car guy I can’t bring myself to do this with automobiles, so I pretend that the whole population is passionate about keeping their cars in tip-top condition).
Human nature has stayed the same over the years, so all I have to do is subtract the past 80 years of technological advancement and I’m there.
My ficticious railroad (the Blackwater and Butte Creek Railroad) is operated on a shoestring budget, so their equipment was purchased second hand (no diesels or piston-valve steam). The equipment is well cared for, but it is “experienced.”
I chose the era because my parents have told me stories about it (they were children in the '30s). That also makes it easy for them to select items for gifts that will fit in on my layout. My late father would look at portions of my layout and comment “That looks just like ___________ (fill in the blank with any of a number of northwestern towns).” I liked that validation.
I chose to not include piston valve steam engines and diesels because I like the espresso-machine-on-wheels look of slide-valve steam locomotives. Piston-valve engines are more like monsters; slide-valve engines are more like muppets. It’s an aesthetic thing (I also like running short slow trains because it makes my little layout seem larger).
I chose to model the Santa Fe in Texas circa 1969. I was born in '69, so obviously I don’t have any memories of that time, but I’ve been all over the place checking out the lines (especially the Dallas area), so it’s sort of a mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar for me.
It’s sometimes surprising to me that I didn’t end up modeling the SP or MoPac, having lived in Beaumont right between those two lines (and having had many cab rides on SP switchers as a kid). I guess I just liked the look of the Santa Fe equipment better. [:)]
My fictionial line models the old P-line between Portage and Plover WI. As the line was torn up in 1945 and I was born in '72, I never saw it run. I did spend three years running up and down the old line as a crop surveyor for Del Monte, so I know the terrain and saw a bit of what was left of the old right of way.
I like modeling what I see…I like the 70 era because of the short line IPD boxcars …I also like the modern short line and both NS and CSX has became a favorite road.
Even though I can recall the last of the main line steam I am not interested in a era that was filth ridden,trashy and looked shabby with dull boxcar red or brown freight cars and dirty passenger cars as a norm…
I chose a particular portion of the California Sierra Nevada that I grew up in–the Yuba River watershed between Nevada City and Sierraville. Which, by the way, has never seen a train. I ‘imagineered’ the route a trans-Sierra mainline would take and was able to incorporate many of the scenic features of that particular area, the Northern Mine country, Malakoff Hydraulic Diggings, portions of the Yuba River canyon and the Sierra Buttes.
I chose a particular era–1939-53–so that I could run big steam. I chose Rio Grande as my major railroad (with SP given trackage rights) so that I could run my favorite locomotives. Did the Rio Grande ever get into California? Well, not until the 1980’s, and then over SP’s Donner Pass route, but what the Hey–[:P]
Tom [:)]
B:
Now you’re just being mean. [:)]
I like boxcar red / mineral brown, black, and Pullman green, and simple prewar Railroad Roman or Gothic lettering. Those old schemes weren’t flashy, but they have a solid dignity to them that is utterly lacking i the later circus-wagon or hot dog-stand schemes. Not only that, a red boxcar still looks good when it gets dirty and rusty. A faded blue boxcar looks like a discarded Pepsi can, and a rusty white or yellow boxcar looks like a derelict refrigerator in somebody’s backyard.
See, I can be mean too. [:D]
One of my favorite things about Conrail was that they used red boxcars. They looked great.
I model a prototype with which I am very familiar, an area which I only visited a few times and a very specific time period which corresponded to one of those visits.
It is a prototype which has since undergone massive changes, an area which I am very unlikely to revisit and a time now long gone.
I prefer to remember, and model, what was a very happy time in my life. No apologies, and no regrets.
Chuck (modeling the Upper Kiso Valley of Central Japan in September, 1964)
3T:
Interesting…and it makes a good deal of sense, too.
Ulrich mentioned the '30s. I wasn’t around in the '30s, so in a sense, in vaguely using that setting, I’m not choosing something familiar –
–but at the same time, I’m modeling a relatively local area, and one I’m familiar with as it is now. As it is now, there are a ton of bits and pieces left over from then. I guess this is what drew me in - empty ROW, old faded signs, old newspaper photos, piles of cinders, all that fascinating old stuff. I think I have a desire to gather all this stuff together and see what it would be like in its proper context.
One of the best scenes in Back to the Future is when Marty walks into town and sees 1955, not as history, but as the present. Who with any interest in history wouldn’t love to do that with some former era - 1935, 1905, 1855, 25,000,000 BC? That’s what’s so compelling about Pompeii - but imagine what it would be like to walk around it a few years before the volcano. That’s one thing we can try to approach with this hobby.
I took up modeling Southern Railway in 1957, an era way before my time, but in the region in which I live. So, you could say the route/area is familiar. As for the era, well, define familiar. Familiar, as in, having lived through it? No, I can’t say that. Or, familiar, as in, having read books, seen pictures, seeing equipment (and riding it) in museums, recollections of old-timers, and such as that? Yes, I make that claim.
Brad
I do to an extent. It’s easier to model what you know!! All of my layouts (going back to 1972) have been set here in Minnesota. The new layout I’m working on will have an upper level based on the Soo-NP joint ore line between central MN and Superior WI, focusing on the ore dock and ore yard operations. I’ve been to the iron range many times, my sister lived in Duluth - Superior from about 1966-86 but it’s still a few hundred miles away, and scenically is very different from the Twin Cities area where I live.
The lower level will be based on the Twin Cities, mainly to allow for my increasing interest in passenger trains. I couldn’t figure out a track plan to include both 30 car ore trains and the Rock Island Twin Star Rocket so split it up into two layouts.
Time wise the layout(s) will rotate between several periods from about 1940 to 1995. I was born in 1958 (no I’m not 50 yet!!) so remember a lot of it but not all. I’m certainly drawn to stuff I’ve seen, I know my CNW C-628’s are among my favorite engines because I got to see and photograph them just before their retirement in the eighties…but then I like modelling things I missed, like steam engines. (The railroad I grew up next to, the Minneapolis Northfield and Southern, was all-diesel by 1951 - course they started using diesels in 1908 or so!!)
I model what I know. Family worked for the B&O before it went to diesel and cut jobs. My layout tries to reflect my home area where we had B&O dual main to Chicago crossed by the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern (NYC) and EEl River to logansport (Pennsy).
You should see my “Interchange” track area with all 3 lines!!
I model a freelanced railroad in the great plains area of N.Am. in the 70’s/80’s. so i tend to be more freewheeling. In fact, a good percentage of my scratchbuilt stuff comes from places i’ve grew up around/or in/ or on…
I’m the same way. I model the transition era and I definetly wasn’t around then (born 84). What influenced me to model this era was the fact that my father took me to see steam trains when I was little- like when the 611 and the 1218 came to town I saw them both- I have been captivated ever since. I’ve always enjoyed them partially because they scared me as a child. Standing near one and the release valve would go off at random- I almost soiled myself I don’t know how many times.
For me there isn’t anything as great as a steam whistle on a steam loco (when it comes to trains). The horns on modern Diesels aren’t anything compared to those. I enjoy the smoke it makes when it moves and hearing the chuff of the pistons combined with the side rods and drivers when it is moving. I think I model that era because it’s something I wish I could have grown up around.
Somewhat, I model the “Great Western” railroad. A sugar beet railroad in northern Colorado. Their headquarters are in Loveland Co.A city I lived in for a few years.However I didn’t know a whole lot about the GW untill I moved away { Entered military service with the USAF} and studied up on it. I gathered as much information as I could find on the GW. I was fortunate to find magazines and books mostly on Ebay that had the history of the GW. Now I wish I was in Colorado so I could take photo’s of structures along the railroad ect.
I like modeling a line that not everybody else is modeling.
Sure, I model what I’m familiar with on my freelance n-scale layout, but my familiarity with what I model doesn’t always end up faithfully reproduced on the layout, as my imagination sometimes gets priority over my memories. The viaduct (seen below) is much larger than the one I am familiar with, because I wanted to make it longer.
I don’t model the dumps, the slag piles, all the depressing parts of town. I don’t have a homeless camp on my layout, although I do have a campground–one of the first features of my layout, recalling my fun as a youngster and as a parent on lots of camping trips. My layout is, and will be, fun.