Spaces mouse started putting the idea in my head about picking a era to model… Then after chatting with SpitfireV12 RR I knew what I wanted to bulid and fits most of my engines and what I want in the way of Steam Power. 60% of my engines are Santa Fee War Bonnets F-7’s A, E-6’s and Erie Bulit, I think they where used in the time frame?
A lot of fighter training was done out west like Area 51 so the Santa Fee line should have been in the area. Most of my buldings should fit right in, PK More buliding, Maw and Pop store, passanger stations and repair buildings for engines and cars.
What I want to model is a HO air feild and drop off point for air craft on flat cars.
I know where to get the huts for pliots and Cadree, cranes to lift the planes and bulidings to put them together in.
Main thing I am looking for is 1/87 th planes. P-38’s and B-17’s are my love’s. (got a ride in a B-17 G when I was young 27 and could fit and lift my self feet first up the pilot door in the nose). Open to other Fighters beside the P-38. If not to be had in HO what would be the next best scale? I have seen 1/72 I think?
All so would not mind links to Armor and Guns.
Not real worried about the right rolling stock at this point, could not tell the driffness betten rolling stock made in 1912 and 1998…[:I]
You may have to resort to a little historical distortion. The F-7 didn’t go into production until 1949, by which time most of the P-38s and B-17’s had been reduced to aluminum ingots and most of those still around belonged to Hollywood movie studios. Of course, that’s in this mundane universe. Maybe on a different time line EMD started producing them in 1942 (and all those 567-powered destroyer escorts used some other form of propulsion.)
Area 51 wasn’t served by rail, since the Las Vegas and Tonopah had been abandoned in 1918 and no other rail line was ever built anywhere near it. On the other hand, the now-BNSF line east out of Mojave, CA, runs along the northern border of Edwards AFB. In your era, that would have been the Santa Fe, and Muroc Army Air Corps Station. A spur line runs several miles into the base, to the supply warehouses and POL storage. It was probably built about the same time that the base was.
Since your main modeling is done in HO scale, you should look for that scale or smaller aircraft. Walthers offers some in HO. 1:96 is a popular scale. Reason for smaller is that you can use forced perspective with models in a smaller scale (it’s not small, it’s just far away.) 1:72 models would just look too darned big, since they’re closer to S scale than to HO.
Actually, there’s another large air facility at Mojave - civil aviation now, and a storage yard for out-of-service airliners (as well as Bert Rutan’s Scaled Composites hangar. Imagine having The White Knight and SpaceShip One on your layout!) During WWII, it probably served as a training base. Again, the Santa Fe is right across the road, but to the south.
Lots of possibilities in the idea. Let us know how you sort it out.
Ken, that should help you determine what locomotives you have will fit in the era you want to model - unless you end up changing history at bit like Chuck mentioned.
Great links…I have my timeline (1948-1956) or so and I am always having to dig around in multiple books to find if the diesel was around then? You have any resources for steam? I use:
And this works great, if you model any of the steam listed…(which I do). The Classic Era for UP lists when certain steam were added and retired, as well as diesels…
Cuda Ken, My world may be similar to yours and equally dis-similar to the “real” world. I models things as I remember them, and as I think they should be(should have been). I am waiting for a pic of a train delivering P-38 parts to an assembly plant. That is a great theme. I really like the idea and look forward to the early results.
Keep in mind that just as railroads didn’t dieselize overnight, the air force didn’t go 100% jet overnight. In fact some propeller driven planes were still being used during the Vietnam war. So if you go for more a Korean war era than WW2 you should be OK. My brother-in-law was still teaching pilots to fly B-25 (propeller powered) bombers in 1954-55 when he left the USAF.
1/72 is fine i’m staring at a pre Dec. 7 1941 model on the runway at boeing field. Its a great seen, five or six guys in suits standing in a semi-circle and one mechanic repairing it in a pool of hidrolic fluid. The landing gear was broken when I got it so I rebuilt it and it came out shorter than origional. B17 by they never fall from the sky again. [:(]