Sheldon, I will say a 10-12 year window would be a better block choice.
Also I agree a lot of changes can take place in five years.
What are we attempting to accomplish here by naming ‘eras’? Serious question.
In my experience eras are only generalizations and quick reference points used to quickly/conveniently categorize and describe the style of railroading you model or are interested in; similar to using pronouns in conversation instead of constantly referring to a person by name. Also eras are commonly used for marketing purposes and surveys to group styles together.
So if for example you model contemporary railroading, you don’t waste your time looking at golden era of steam products or discuss operations of that era or vice versa.
When it comes to detailing your layout, era is meaningless as you need to focus much more narrowly if you are trying to model a prototype time period. For example, a Kennedy-Johnson campaign poster is inccorect detail if your layout is dated prior to August 13 1960 or after November 22 1963. Likewise you better not have Spring foilage in New England if set in the Fall. While I’m not one of them, there are rail historians that can similarly date photos to a very narrow time range just by looking at the type of diesel unit being used. While these are important details, they are well outside the scope of Model Railroad Eras.
Sheldon (ATLANTIC CENTRAL) started a thread asking everybody what “era” they model, but he did not provide a list for anyone to choose from.
I did not want to throw his thread off-topic, so I started a new thread to see what eras we have to choose from, and what they are called.
I model the “transition era”, which is a term that everyone understands, but I do not know if other eras have names that are as obvious.
The “modern era” keeps changing.
This is really just a light discussion, nothing to change the world.
-Kevin
Well, OK.
The OP, Kevin, and myself, are pretty specific.
He has a set date and time of day, despite being a freelance modeler.
I have a set month and year, despite being a freelance/protolance modeler who also models three real railroads as closely as practical.
“era is meaningless as you need to focus much more narrowly if you are trying to model a prototype time period”
Everybody in this hobby decides for themselves just how “accurate” or “fussy” they want to be about stuff, “need” is a strong
Another interestnig question would be “why did you decide to model a specific era”?
The answer for many would be “I didn’t”, and that is fine.
The first STRATTON AND GILLETTE did not have a specific era. This was mainly because the N scale equipment available in 1982 did not allow for too much era selection, especially on my budget.
Then the SGRR went to 1968 because of the excellent equipment Kato was bringing to the market. SD-40s, GP-40s, GP-35s, GP-30s, and more. Add to that the Atlas SD-9s, and it was 1968 heaven.
Then after two more N scale layouts I switched to HO. The HO scale STRATTON AND GILLETTE was originally 1968 also, but my desire for steam, and ability to live without anything newer than a GP-9 made that happen. The date ws moved to 1954.
I model a specific date because I hate anachronism. You will not see any equipment on my layout that could not have existed in 1954 (The SGRR went into TOFC service early and heavy).
However, I play fast-and-loose with everything else. The location of my layout is purposefully impossible to nail down. It could be the midwest, Georgia, or Oregon. No one knows, and I do not say. I have regional things from all over the United States, but I don’t even claim the layout is in the USA.
But… all the flags have 48 stars, and there are no 1955 Chevrolets anywhere.
-Kevin
I believe Kevin and MJ54562 have hit on a reasonable breakdown on era. I model transition era(with license). I guess my upper limit is defined by autos. No models past 1956 are on the layout. I do fudge a bit on rolling stock.
Your model railroad defines its own era by the inclusion of the most modern piece of equipment you run on it.
Most modellers want their railroad to represent something as that is the fundamental basis of the hobby. It qualifies as art when the execution reaches the levels seen in photos on this site and in MRR issues.
A model railroad tells a historical story whenever a train runs, almost always a fictional story but it needs to be real in some sense in order to be satisfying. Even science fiction must be real to have any relevance.
If you like, the “era” idea separates our childhood train operations from those we prefer as adults. Mind you, children experience real life when they play, contrary to how adults perceive such play, so the distinction is really in the correlation to reality which has to be much higher for an adult than for a child.
Simply put, Era conformity satisfies more than the other alternatives to running realistic operations. How real it needs to be for you is entirely up to you.
We try to avoid the terms “serious model railroader” and “real model railroader” in these forums because it always brings the conversation to a bad place.
If you want to discuss what makes someone a serious model railroader, please start a new thread, and then it will be locked very soon, but I do not want this brought up in my thread about eras.
Thank you.
-Kevin
Woops, never thought of that. Did not mean it in that way at all.
Thanks for the heads up. Edited.
I model the Transition Era, (1947-1963) and little bit of the Present Day, (1980-2017).
Sometimes I don’t join into a thread when I just don’t know Kevin.
My way of thinking whether right or wrong has always been…
Old west steam, wood burners and darn near everything was made out of wood, horses and no cars.
More modern steam when they started burning coal and started building steel Bridges, also Stone Masonry, abutments, portals Etc. Oil is discovered and people start putting around in thier Model T’s and model A’s. Industry begins.
Pre-transitional steam when they started burning mainly oil, concrete forming and structure without Stone. Steel-framed everything. Industry starts booming.
Transitional era.
Modern day era
And double stack modern day now.
So I guess it looks like I think six[swg]
I have a railroad roster of both transitional and modern-day. My plan is to be able to clear off the layout and switch eras once and awhile.
I sure like the old west steam though. My plan is someday when I finish the layout I’m on is to start an HON30 layout in an old west logging town theme. The kind of layout where you can fit bigger into smaller not having to worry about radius and grades as much and it still looks good.
TF
Kevin, Serious model railroader isn’t as bad as many think. You and I are indeed “serious” modelers in the way we choose to model.
I am very serious when it comes to have era correct cars,you enjoy collecting freelance railroad cars so, you too are “serious”.
In short everybody is serious in their form of modeling.
As I historian, I tried to avert my eyes from what I knew would be a trainwreck. Era definitions are artificial constructs with a useful goal to help better define how one thinks about history. Beyond that, don’t get too hung up on them. History doesn’t care, because it’s mostly about facts with a big helping of argument about what those facts imply. By the act of choosing how to define eras, no matter which way you turn, you’re making an argument about history with the facts. And your era definitions are only as useful to you as you can make them and only as persuasive to others as you can build credible evidence for. There aren’t really right or wrong answers here, it’s more about how good a case you can make from your POV.
There are literally hundreds of eras in RRing alone. Big, broad eras, like steam vs diesel are easy enough to bring up if not precisely identify.
Consider that every major RR and many smaller ones each have their own set of eras defined by technology, people, money, and the economy they operated in. Then confuse things a bit more by throwing in outfits like the Rio Grande, which operated modern stuff at the same time they ran steam, through the 70s, the 1970s.
If sufficiently motivated, you could model any give year, or any month of that year, since the first commercial run of Stephen’s Rocket.
Some would interest me more than others. You would probably like a different time.
They cannot really be used outside the topic they are describing.
I don’t think any model railroaders model the “Napoleanic Era”, but a lot of military buffs have that as their main interest.
Grouping years together that are visually similar is very handy for descriptive purposes. It makes it easier to commmunicate with one another.
-Kevin
You may be correct, but some steam modelers would break this era down into early steam, civil war, 19th century, TOC19, Pre-depression era, and depression era.
Yeah, sometimes it does and that’s usually when people discuss the stuff involved, rather than spending a lot of time trying to fit things into somewhat arbitrary boxes. Among historians, such discussions are thought of as part of historiography or the “history of history.”
While it can be a helpful device to open a discussion, I tend to find it boring and dry when it gets stuck on that and really doesn’t advance understanding because people focus on their disagreement on how to classify things rather than dealing with topics that often can’t be reduced to. A discussion about which somewhat arbitrary slot something goes into is relatively less interesting than looking at its overall significance to me.