How Wide Is The Date Range You Model... And Why?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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I am up way too late, and I cannot sleep. Spicy food is playing havoc on my internals tonight.

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Reading through some old replies on these forums got me to thinking… I model ther most narrow date range possible. I decided to model Tuesday, August 3rd, 1954, at 2:00 in the afternoon. Give or take 30 seconds.

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This is the only arrangement that will work for me. Maybe it comes from all the military dioramas I built in my 20s. These captured a moment in time, and maybe that is the only way I can think now.

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My modeling is capturing a specific moment in time, in a place that never existed. It sounds really bizarre.

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If you model a date range, how do you handle it? Why is your date range as long, or as short, as you have decided.

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If you model the late 50s and early 60s, how many stars are on your flags? You will never convince me it is 1957 if there is a fifty star flag flying proudly in the park.

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What about vehicles? If there is a 1963 Chevrolet parked somewhere… well… so much for the late 1950s.

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I can let all kind of nonsense slip by me, but anchronism drives me crazy.

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Please share your thoughts. I certainly do not want everyone to choose a specific day to model, that is crazy. I am not trying to bring anyone around to my way of thinking, I truly want to understand the different priorities we have as we build our miniature worlds.

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-Kevin

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Picking a specific date for a freelance railroad/layout is different than a specific date for a particular railroad/layout.

For a freelance you can include anything that was in existance on that date. So for a date in 1954, there are steam locomotives from a 4-4-0 on up plus a large number of early diesels. Same for rolling stock. Structures can be anything made up as long it is architecturally plausible for the date.

For a prototype, you include what was on the railroad on that day. Again looking at say a date in 1954, you include only the locomotives present on that day. You would only model the actual buildings that were present that day and their specific colors for that day. Same for rolling stock - only what was present on that day, home and foreign road cars. Carried into operations, you would only run trains for that day. You would include all the cars on the train that day and no others. And so on. The prime example is Jack Burgess and his Yosemite Valley - which has been covered a lot in the hobby press.

The issue I see with a date range is that you can get combinations that are not plausible if the range is great. Say you picked 1935 to 1955, well you could run freight cars from several roads with archbar trucks (outlawed in interchange in 1940) behind your F3.

Personally, I use a cutoff date which I leave vaguely as Fall 1953. Anything that was or could have been present is acceptable. Case in point for the Ma&Pa - their last 3 2-8-0’s (#41, #42, #43) were essentially alike, but one (#42) was retired in 1952. Well, I have kits for all 3. So I will include #42, because it could have plausibily been used in 1953. Operationally, it’s the same, I include rolling stock that was around in 1953 that could have appeared on the Ma&Pa. So trains will be different each time I run them.

What’s not included with a cutoff date. Well, arch

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I have a freelance model railroad and for the most part it is centered arround the steam to disel transion period, with UP, SF, SP power.

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Luckily, the premise of my layout allows me a wide latitude. I model the mid-2000s on a fictional short line. The CGVRR (Clinton-Golden Valley RR) is a subsidiary of the Union Pacific, but the owner is a bit of an eccentric. He rode trains in his youth and fell in love with them. As such, he has acquired a variety of older motive power and rolling stock. He uses these trains for railfanning trips. The destination for most of these trains is the old western-themed town of Sandy Flats. One older train takes family members and freight up to the coal mine, as it is only accessible by train. There is a hotel for guests and a boarding house run by a family that serves as the housing for the miners. The railroad’s primary sources of revenue are coal mining and a small logging operation. Most of the vehicles are of the era, but there are a few older cars that the residents own that they show in car shows.

Most of the buildings are older, which fits the theme of the railroad. There are an older style Pizza Hut restaurant and a 50s themed burger joint.

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I started out like Kevin, very specific. My birthday 1953. But I modified it a bit wider as I grew older. I was 14 years old when I built my first steamer, an MDC Roundhouse 0-6-0.

By the time I got to 18 years old I had become infatuated with cars and fell in love with the first Thunderbird and Corvette.

As I grew older and built my first real layout in the mid 60s I decided to go with the mountainous area of southern New Mexico.

Having grown up in El Paso TX I was accustomed to the 100° plus summers and a trip to Cloudcroft NM into the 9,000 foot temperatures was a very nice place to vacation for a few days. Thus my trestle and Howe Truss bridge in my mountains.

Cloudcroft Trestle in the 1960s, abandoned in the late 40s.

My trestle.

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The only problem with that Kevin, is that nothing should move, once it becomes 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Your layout is a static display, nothing moving past that time. [%-)]

My time peroid is modern, 90’s to today. That’s about the time period that my locos and rolling stock are. Nothing older.

It’s a broad range, but it works for me.

Mike.

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Great job, Mel!

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I quite like the way things are handled in Europe, where ceetain eras of modelling were introduced already quite a few years ago.

  • Era I covers the early years of railroading until the end of WW I, sometimes up to 1925.
  • Era II covers the years between the wars
  • Era III covers the 1950s until 1970
  • Era IV from 1970 until 1990
  • Era V from 1990 until 2006
  • Era VI from 2007 onwards

Most of the layouts are set in era III or later.

I find shorter time spans a little to limiting, especially when it comes to vehicles and accessories for the layout.

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My range is between March 1970 and April 1971, which is there period in which Burlington Northern operated as on railroad and still ran their own passenger trains. But I’m really bad at keeping in that era! I have a GN doodlebug that would have been retired longs before that date, and a GN car that has a COTS stencil on it (which the real car did have, as I learned from a thread here a while back), plus some old wooden boxcars that were probably on their way out at BN time.

I like to model all the Hill lines but I actually currently lack any BN paintEd or patched engines (or cars…) I just say the guys in the roundhouse haven’t gotten around to adding patches.

You would think it would be easy to keep in an era when I have a “plywood pacific”, so lack those pesky things like automobiles and buildings! But I find I usually check out whether a car is in my era after I bring it home, and when I learn it’s out of my era I don’t part with (I do only have 20 or so cars, so they are all a bit special!) Plus almost all my fleet was given to me!

Someday I’ll probably make some redating changes to my cars, like put older cars in MOW service, add patches, and remove COTS stencils an such, but for now I just run them as they are. With the stuff I try to get though, I do get a reasonably go feeling of my date range, and that is enough for now!

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I have two eras, the early 60s and then the 30s, so I can run diesels and Transition Era stuff, but then backtrack to steam and older equipment. I can also have the vehicles of the sixties, which are plentiful, and then pull them off for Jordan vehicles.

I’ve got a few buildings, not built yet, that will eventually take the place of later era structures.

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Kevin, I can feel for you being up all night not the spicy food issues. Hope you get some good sleep today.

I model 2015 after moving it from 2001. The reason I picked a year is that when I started researching for my layout in 2013 I realized so much of my rolling stock and engines turned out to be stuff I liked but not suitable to run together because of so many different eras. Narrowing down my modeling focus has been great. It is stuff I vividly remember, have many pictures and I enjoy researching it. Basically anything I have a picture of from 2015, either my own or Railroad picture sites that is shown in Wisconsin is allowed to run on my layout. Orginnally I was just trying for Junction City to Wausau, Wi., but that was too narrow. I don’t model the exact car number or locomotive number but if I have a GP40’s-2 picture dated 2015 I will allow the GP40’s-2w on the layout, same with rolling stock. I worry about the class of rolling stock not the number.

Tom

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I planned to model the early 1940’s, but given a limited budget, some almost appropriate equipment on hand, and a “good enough” approach to my hobby, that has crept a bit. It still makes me happy. That’s all that really matters.

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Buildings and scenery don’t change much over time, so that gives good bones for swapping out players like locomotives and rolling stock.

I could focus on early 90’s or late 10’s and not have to change much as far as equipment.

I could also model 1962 and not have to change much other than the trains, especially since rural Georgia along the railroad ROWs hasn’t changed much either. Maybe swap out a concrete grain elevator for an old wooden structure.

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I had originally planned to be pretty specific to one year, because of where I was going to model and the fact that a new track arrangement went into operation in late 1956, changing the whole alignment of things. And At that time I didn;t have room to include both alignments. I did come up with a plan that had both, allowing be to go a little more past, as both alignments were used for a period.

Now that I’m not replicating that exact area any more, I’ve opened it out to about 1955-1957. So anything in there fits. In the areas I am modeling, there wouldn;t be too many new cars - so what I need are more late 40’s/early 50’s vehicles, and some late 30’s ones thrown in as well. Rare would be a '56 or '57 anything.

I am not to the point of making sure I have very up to date reweigh stencils on all my rolling stock. Maybe after things are ‘finished’ and I need something to do, I might start down that kind of road, but for now that’s just a detail I am ignoring.

I’m just glad that I am still not adversely affected by spicy foods. Blad food would be the death of me. I am particularly fond of Indian and Thai. I can eat the healthy stuff at home (like plain old skinless chicken breast) because I have a collection of about 40 hot sauces for taste variety. I replenish every year at one of the two hot pepper festivals they hold here locally.

–Randy

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Ok, a few thoughts.

For one thing, I think one can do a good job modeling a real prototype without getting so OCD that you only run trains that ran on that “day” and “place”, even if you have selected a narrow time frame like Kevin has, or an absolute cutoff date.

My modeling is a freelanced road but with interchanges and trackage rights with three prototype roads, the B&O, C&O and WESTERN MARYLAND.

I do not try to model actual places, just capture the flavor of the Piedmont of the Mid Atlantic in 1954.

On my layout it is September 1954.

As previously explained in Kevin’s other thread, 1954 still had some steam on the prototypes lines in question, the ACR can still have as much steam as it wants given plausablity by the N&W in this region who ran lots of steam until the early 60’s. First generation diesels, and first generation PiggyBack were pretty much at their high water mark. Lastly, railroads were still trying to make a go at the passenger business.

Why September? - It covers some specific introductions and advancements in PiggyBack, it allows 1955 model autos, I like the early fall scenery here in the Mid Atlantic (green and lush mixed with the early fall change colors).

For me, 30 days is a reasonable “range” of events for the “in motion” aspect of the layout. And having an absolute cutoff is necessary in my mind. So if it did not exist on September 30th, 1954 you will not likely see it. (Except, there are few exceptions that I challenge viewers to find, or know their facts well enough to call me on them. None of which are glaring or obvious)

The newest locos on the ATLANTIC CENTRAL are EMD SD9’s. SD9 production began in January 1954, September is a plausable time to see them in regular service.

Sheldon

PS - don’t like spicy food, can’t eat spicy food, stomach ulcer was the cause of my father’s passing at only 60 years old, and he did not eat spicy f

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I’m virtually everywhere when it comes to era. I can’t settle on one or two single time periods. Why? Because I like the variety of equipment out there. Going through the different eras, from an 1830s locomotive like the John Bull, to a 2010s locomotive like a GEVO is very enjoyable to me. I’ve always found restricting myself to one thing or another to be irksome. Hope you feel better today Kevin.

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Spicy food doesn;t cause ulcers, it’s bacterial in origin. Thanks to an Aussie doctor who in typical Aussie fashion just ‘went for it’ and infected himself to prove it. Guy won a Nobel Prize for it, so maybe it was worth it.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-doctor-who-drank-infectious-broth-gave-himself-an-ulcer-and-solved-a-medical-mystery

–Randy

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I model up to 1947 on my standard gauge Rio Grande, that allows for Denver and Salt Lake power. I do have a couple of F7’s though. I keep all the vehicles before that time period. This does create a little bit of a time warp for my Colorado and Southern Narrow gauge as the last part on the Clear Creek line ran to Idaho Springs only as late as 1941. I keep it earlier that that on the vehicles. I am considering adding a blue British police call box to explain the difference…

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As far as ulcers: that’s right: h. pylori bacteria are the cause. But I have no doubt certain foods can irritate them.

On to the topic at hand: I model Milwaukee in the 1950s and I cheat. That is, the Milwaukee Road transitioned completely to diesel in 1955 I believe, but I will have diesel and steam. I had originally thought I would model 1955 but the more I’ve researched I don’t see any need to lock it down to a specific year. I’m leaning towards the first half of the 50s because the huge clock tower on the Everett Street Depot wasn’t removed yet and I plan to get that Walthers model when it is back in stock in early 2020. I also like the earlier colors of the MR passenger fleet (orange and darker gray) more than the UP yellow and gray that came in from about 55-58. But if I want to include any Flexi-van trailer service I can’t model earlier than 1959… so I’m just keeping it to the 1950s to include what I want without respect to time.

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Well, I still don’t want to eat anything that leaves a taste in my mouth for more than a few minutes after I am done eating it…

Or that provides any unpleasant sensations while eating it…or to my stomach after eating it…

Sheldon