in today’s society it is said that people entering the work force will change their careers a number of times during their life. So that begs to ask if you have changed the Railroad(s) that you model or if you are contemplating a change in the near future.
In my case I changed from the Deutsche Bundesbahn - The West German Federal Railway of the 70’s to the CPR of the 90’s.
I find it very fascinating how the North American Railways operate and survive. Also, there seems to be more life to a Diesel locomotive then a Electric locomotive.[:)] The Diesel locomotives also move so much more with so much less HP in comparison to their European electric counterparts.[:P] So this journey into the modelling of the Canadian Railroad with its ties to the rest of the Railroads in North America is a wonderful experience.
I have several times, from a railroad operating between Springfield, MA to Albany NY. Then I realized CSX does the exact same thing and started looking for a new railroad to model…
I will change it again on my next layout, I’ve already got the route picked out and everything…
My fictional road is the Midland Gulf Railway and it’s loosely based on the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway (fallen flag) that KCS absorbed in the 30’s. I changed it radically. Instead of steamers I run diesels and instead of running in the 20’s and 30’s I run in the present day using locos from E units on up to an AC4400. I’d say I changed it.
My one constant theme:freelanced. I went from 1970s shortline in SC, to a major class 1 in the southeast, to kicking around ideas for a regional in Indiana, then a regional in Pennsylvania, but I finally settled where my heart is: a shortline RR (modern day) in South carolina, w/ the town’s name as Aiken. Of course, i still have time to change my mind (not gonna happen).
Wooden set was first when I was a pre-schooler, followed by American Flyer (I was in elementary school, then HO by Tyco, followed by more HO, then an early n-scale layout when my kids were younger; now my freelanced n-scale is being moved and expanded. [:)]
I find the wooden brio set much more gratifying. I can get in there “hands on” and play with my trains. I don’t have to worry about DC or DCC and the trains never stall! The magnetic couplers work like a charm!
I was a fairly serious Pennsy modeler for 3 decades – carefully gathering the equipment, the books and other printed resources, slides, collectibles – then LifeLike released the very SW9 switcher that I used to watch switch in my old home town as a teenager, and immediately I became a C&NW modeler with an entirely different focus for my layout, and for my railroadiana collecting, and I’ve never looked back.
Lemme think - I started out wanting to make a pretty much exact copy of Scot Osterweil’s “NYC Highland Park” switching puzzle in a 2x6 shelf in my wife’s craft room, thinking that was the only space available in the house.
Then, inspired by David ‘Zoo’ Zuhn’s very nice “St Paul Bridge and Terminal RR” (and spending time in the Twin Cities every summer - my wife is from there) I decided that I wanted a layout based on a real location in the Twin Cities, and started planning a “some day” design based on the very interesting prototype Minnesota Transfer Railroad (MTRY) ca 1962, and based on “some day” totally clearing out my 6 1/2 by 11 1/2 foot workshop and taking it over completely as a train room.
I went through many iterations of this plan: from my own first pretty horribly overstuffed designs until I ended up with (after a lot of good advice both from people around here and from the Layout Design Special Interest Group - LDSIG yahoo forum) with something that probably would have worked reasonably good operationally, although it was probably a bit too ambitious to build for me.
Then I successfully negotiated with the wife the use “for now” of shelf space along a wall in our living room and started planning a 2x7 shelf industrial switching layout that I expected I would be able to build.
I kept the name MTRY and the vision “midwest urban industrial switching ca 1960”, but it really was a pretty generic freelanced urban shelf switching layout
I started with a freelance line in SE Pennsylvania, then the PRR, then the PC, then the LV, then the RDG circa 1970, then the MP, then the RDG circa 1950 and now the P&R circa 1900-1905.
Pretty much all in East or SE Pennsylvania, but several different roads over 60-70 years of history.
On the other hand I will have 30 years in with the same company next year.
Not recently, but in the distant past I moved from Lionel Lines (about which I wasn’t given a choice) to a general hodgepodge of New York Area protolances, to Specifically Pennsy, to the freelance Phoenix and Northern Arizona (which demonstrated my ignorance of the actual geography) to the New York Central.
Then I was assigned to Japan, and the Tomikawa Tani Tetsudo was born - inspired by a declining coal-mining area near Fukuoka in Kyushu.
Some months later my wife (who wasn’t at the time) asked why I didn’t just model the Japan National Railways. That put a JNR interchange at the low end of the TTT. Like the legendary camel, the JNR gradually expanded into the main railroad. The TTT remains as the antethesis to the totally standardized JNR, a laid-back operation of teakettle tanks, obsolete JNR castoffs and coal hoppers of no known ancestry.
Lurking in the wings are two 762mm gauge prototypes, the Kiso Forest Railway and the Kurobe Railway, which may pull the camel act if I live long enough to double deck my ‘last in this lifetime’ layout.
I don’t really count the Lionel and Tyco stuff from the childhood. As a teenager I modeled Penn Central, tracks ran right past my house/ Got my first “real” engine at 14, an Athearn U28C for Penn Central. However, I’d always had the urge to model the Burlington after I saw an RMC cover with a beautiful E unit on it for the CB&Q. After dabbling in PC black for a decade or so, I finally made the switch to Burlington and never looked back. Even traded an Atlas SD-35 (PC) shell for a SD-24 shell (Burlington) that fit perfectly on the SD-35 chasis so I could get my first Q engine.
Lionel/O gauge from age 6 months (my dad was a railroad man) until 1954, graduated from high school. started college, switched to HO, a mixture of what was available. 1971 began modeling a freelance railroad, the Mojave Western/Oklahoma Northern. 1988 began modeling Santa Fe in earnest, still model Santa Fe but added an Oklahoma Northern line to the mix which in theory replaced the Santa Fe Orient branch in 1989, but continue to model Santa Fe in Oklahoma. No plans to change.
Frank … hmmm… I modeled a fictional 1930’s shortline in West Virginia for nearly 25 years until a larger space brought new opportunities. I’ve switched to the C&O (1950’s) a few years back - still in West Virginia - with no regrets.
I haven’t and probably never will. I model the Ontario Northland Railway and my layout is “loosely” based on it. It has or will have features that you would see on the ONR in Northern Ontario but I’ve also added a few features of my own that the ONR just doesn’t or never had. For example I’ve always been fascinated by old Railroad Museums like Steamtown in Pennsylvania so I’m in the middle of building my own version of it.
I think change can be a good thing. 20 years ago or so I was starting a slide in interest that might have lead to me dropping out of the hobby. A change to a different scale reignited my interest, and it’s been very high ever since. Currently I’m in the early stages of a new layout caused by a move. I hated to tear down the old layout, but working on the new one and trying out new ideas is proving to be fun.
I think changing railroads would do the same thing if you find your interest dragging a little. I’ve been primarily interested in iron ore railroading for years now, but the new layout allows me to incorporate more mainline trains, like passenger trains and long non-ore freights too, and include some more urban areas than I’ve had in the past. 25 years ago passenger trains were a minor interest to me, now they’re maybe second to the ore trains, so I want to be able to run long passenger trains in a realistic setting.
