I made a major change in my modeling focus a couple of years ago. I have always modeled MoPac because I grew up around a busy MoPac main and remembered them from my childhood. Then I lived in a town for 4 years with a busy BNSF main just after the merger. When I moved from there I ended up in another town with a BNSF main and industrial area that I though simply begged to be modeled. I have always modeled fairly modern timeframes (was 1980’s, now 2000), but I have switched roads completely. I moved again about a year ago and am building a new layout, my first in BNSF. I still collect MoPac memorabelia, but my models are packed away.
I am curious how many people have made a major shift in the railroad they model, the time period, or the part of the country during their model railroading career. Let us know about your experience.
Never ‘changed’ roads, but I’ve added some. Started out with Rio Grande when I was a kid, have always kept it my main focus. Added SP, since I live in what was SP territory (Northern California) and have added some WP and GN since. Since I model 100% steam in the '40’s and '50’s, I can always ‘borrow’ from another railroad if I want, so I’ve ended up with some Eastern and Midwestern prototypes from time to time. Actually, what I’d do if I were you, n2Mopac, is unpack your Missouri Pacific and run it occasionally as a ‘time-travel’ line. A lot of model railroaders I know who change Eras, keep some of the older-Era equipment for ‘nostalgia’ runs. I’ve got an old 1880’s D&RGW Consolidation and a few mixed old freight and passenger cars that I run as a ‘Movie’ train, since the Rio Grande appeared in so many hollywood productions during the '40’s and '50’s. It makes for some interesting contrasts.
Tom
I haven’t changed roads but have added them to stay prototype…it was exclusively SP at one time until they bought out D&RGW…then they were added to the layout…then UP bought out SP so here we go again…SP, D&RGW and UP all rolled up into one layout…Chuck[:D]
I was at the point where I simply couldn’t commit to any one railroad. Every Railroad has something I like about. (The basic steel wheel on the rail for starters) that I simply couldn’t commit to any one prototype. My favorite one and the one I get most exited about is the Great Northern in the late 1960s. But I am also a big fan of the B&O, the MILW, the CB&Q, The NP, the SP&S, the N&W, the C&O, and Union Pacific (Yes I am mad at them, but only because I am a fan) While my favorite era was the late 1960s, I collect stuff from all eras, so you will see the 4-4-0 “119” running down one track with the comparitively huge DDA40X heading up a train on a paralell track. It is my goal to by the time I die have modeled the entire North American Rail Network as it was in the late 1960s. If I get that done, I will do another as it was during WWII.
So in closing, I never had to change roads. I never could commit to one to start with.
I am one that definate changed roads, even changed continent:
when I was young I used to model the european DB ( Deutche Bundesbahn ) at age 17 sold everything,
Started over some years ago, now I could afford the US engines I could only dream about browsing the Fleischmann and Marklin catalogues when I was young.
Changed to model UP ( but have some Santa Fe as well )
I started out modeling Southern Pacific as I grew up around it and then changed focus to Union Pacific later as I spent a lot of time living near the UP mainline. More recently I have been focusing on the UP in the late steam era. But I still love the SP, what can i say, I’m like most modelers, I like modern and steam era and i like multiple roads.
Six years, one house and one fiance ago, I was happily modeling a freelance West Virginia coal hauler, circa 1958. Since then, I’ve moved, married someone else, and become a proto-based modeler. I’ve got very little left from my old layout, except a few dozen twin hoppers. Basically everything else, from the benchwork, to the track, to what runs on the track, is brand new.
It might hurt a bit at first, but it’s worth it in the end, so long as you have a clear direction, some sort of gameplan, and a real, long-term desire to make the switch. I’m extremely happy with the choice I made to change eras, prototypes, and locations, but it wasn’t an impulse. Now my appeal for On30 is DEFINITELY an impulse, and one I’ve resisted (so far!)
I modeled the Erie Lackawanna for years but 1996 I was at a point due to lost of almost everything I had I had to to start over mostly from scratch. I still had a few buildings. When I started to design the new layout I tried to decide why my last couple layouts where short lived. Then I thought about the fact that I had been modeling the same RR for 20+ years and the east coast for longer than that.and it was just getting old.
So I looked for a new idea and after reading a lot decided on the BNSF in the southwest.
The change in RR and era was just the thing I needed to get me going again.
I believe if I had not changed I would have dropped out of the hobby.
So don’t be afraid of changing it might keep you interest going,
Not yet but I don’t think I will.
I’ve been in love with the CPR for too many years to want to switch.
As others have stated here, I’d probably add railroads before I’d change.
But if I were to switch, it would probably have to be the Ashley, Drew & Northern
I went from BN in Montana/Idaho to a fictional road in Pennsylvania.
I went througha weird period where I bought a bunch of CB&Q stuff even though it didn’t fit in and then a CP Rail phase. Sadly a bunch of my CB&Q and CPR stuff in a box I can’t find and all my bathtub gons were in there.
Thanks for the tip. I had thought I would do that from time to time, once the main is up and running on the new layout–that may be another 9 mo’s to a year away. I can actually use a lot of my rolling stock as there is a UP line paralles to the BNSF line I model and I used to see a lot of old MoPac equipment running on that UP line. I am modeling that UP line and an interchange with UP, so I will have some use for much of my MoPac rolling stock.
I have not changed roads. but trains and loco. I always love the Pennsylvania RR and still do. My favorite loco is the GG1, and my favorite train was the
ACL’s champion, But over the years I fell in love with the Athearn F7 and it became my main loco on my Eastern RR. Also end up modeling the Super Chief and not the Champion.
I’ve been hooked on the B&O and Chessie for quite some time. However last summer I almost switched over to Rock Island. I had line on a couple of RI engines but I came to my senses once I realized the cost associated with the switch.
I did once model a fictional SOO line route on my first layout, because that was my first engine, but then I found my true love in the Wisconsin And Southern.
when i started out i was modeling the current Union Pacific in Southeast Texas and i had tons of modern locomotives and freight cars. but a year or so ago i decided to switch to modeling the Southern Pacific line between West Colton and Indio set in the mid 90’s after watching the Beaumont Hill video by Video Rails. it was a pretty hard choice, but those SP diesels are so much fun to model, and i love running long trains with tons of locomotives. so the Beaumont Hill route works perfectly.
just about all my more modern locomotives and freight cars ended up on ebay. but there were still quite a few that i could use (had to renumber a few of them)
Changing roads is a constant situation with me as I can’t quite get sufficient focus on era and region. Case in point…for my birthday this year I received an Athearn ATSF GP60M/GP60B set, a Proto2000 B&M S-1, and two Kadee PS1 40’ boxcars and I like 'em all. As long as I don’t pull the PS1’s with the Geeps, I’m not totally hopeless, right?
Sort of… I started out modeling the Chessie System, mainly because one of it’s former C&O / Pere Marquette mainlines ran about 1/4 mile from the home I grew up in and my grandfather worked for the railroad. Of course that was a small fictitional layout in my parent’s home’s basement, but with lots of Chessie locos and cars. Sometime in my late teens, I got bit by the steam bug and the strictly prototype bug too. I chose to go back to 1946, the year before the C&O takeover of the PM, because the C&O rapidly dieselized the PM and the PM was essentially a Michigan railroad. I have been building up my collection of PM equipment and hope to start building a good sized layout in my new basement soon. (The basement needs to be finished first.)
I would like to offer the related notion of a “radical change of paradigm” in the design of the model railroad without rebuilding the whole thing. My railroad was completed, complex-looking with a long main-line run, though in essence it was a loop; operation became sort of boring. The Erie Limited was back home in six minutes.
I had put an addition on the house which gave new basement space with one wall between it and the railroad. With ultra-careful planning, I rented a jackhammer and put four different holes through the cinder block and added four 12-track reverse-loop staging track levels in that new basement room, each level connected to the old mainline at four different places. The old railroad remained totally intact, except for some configuration changes at the four meeting places. The major change is that it is now by design totally impossible to have continuous running out there on the basic railroad. Trains appear from one of the entry points and can and must exit at any one of the other three, after having a pretty good run and exposure. My “railfanning” kind of operation is now so engrossing. (The technical aspects of occupancy detection are for another venue but I can summarize by saying that it can and is pretty simple.)
The point here is that I have truly exciting railroading that probably saved my interest in the model railroad. I collect mainly Erie and E-L but I have lots of other roads represented because I have loved them or rode them. It is now easier to have them all on the system at one time, because now I can hide on the staging loops, say, a couple GN trains and save them for a time when I want to pretend my eastern cliffs are the Front Range.
Moral: never fear a big paradigm shift, whether it be railroad modelled, your trackplan, or some other aspect of our great hobby.
I started off modeling a fictional railroad, loosely patterned after the Sierra Railroad set (roughly) in the 1920-1940 era. Later I switched to the Sierra firmly entrenched in the 1940’s - 1950’s era. When that layout had to be torn out for a move I let the hobby go fallow as career and family took priority. I am now able to free up some time and work on an On30 model of the Empire City Railway operating out of Lyons (on the Sugar Pine/Pickering) to Empire City based operations along the North Fork of the Tuolumne River. This one wil be focused on a “what if” the ECRy. continued operations into the 1920’s - 30’s and actually moved into some of the territory that the West Side actually logged.
So, while I changed specific railroads, I never left the geographic area of Tuolumne County. Of course being born and raised in Sonora and spending my childhood watching the Sierra, West Side and Pickering may have had something to do with my preferences [:)]
Hi Ron, I had several favorite roads for either their steam loco rosters, diesel paint schemes, passenger equipment, or the type of freight a road predominantly hauled. As it turned out, I found on a national map of U.S. railroads, a common location where most of these roads converged upon. Would you believe Kansas City Mo.? I was able to get detailed prints on the K.C., Mo Union Station along with many pix of the buildings in the immediate area. The Depot (fourth largest in 1914 U.S.) became the focal point of my layout and a rationale for the diversity of different roads found on my pike. Of course, this precluded some eastern roads that are favorites of mine as well. What I couldn’t bring myself into, was creating a road name (or two) of my own, thus having the liberty of choosing any locos and rolling stock I fancied. As far as time frame? Unless you have an extremely wide preference of say, wood burners to EMD SD40t’s or Bullet Trains, you can always get away with some pretty old vintage steam locos (std. hvy. wt. cars, etc.) run as “rail fan excursion” trains. Personally, I placed a 1950 date limit on my layout and found it covered most of the steam, steam turbine, diesel and overhead electric locos plus standard, smotth side, fluted side passenger cars going back to the late 1920’s. I’m afraid anything passed the 1950’s puts constraints on much of the finest steam, and rolling stock which I could not live without. By the way, MoPac, as you know, ran its’ Eagles through Kansas City , Mo. Good luck and happy railroading. Bobfarkus