Populations don’t matter, if transition era is really as popular as it seems than the PNW would be a haven for Hill line modelers.
I’ll break it down by the four parent roads and the BN
SP&S modelers, generally have NP and GN locos amongst the home road fleet.
GN modelers depending upon locale and modeling area will usually have NP, CB&Q, SP&S, or Both NP and Q.
NP modelers depending upon locale and modeling area will usually have GN, SP&S, CB&Q, or both GN and Q.
CB&Q modelers depending upon locale and modeling area will have NP, GN, or Both.
BN modelers depending upon locale and modeling area will usually have all 4 roads together in the Pacific northwest, GN/NP for the midwest, and Q for the eastern most parts of the BN system.
I’m an SP&S modeler but I have locos from all four roads, simply because the BN in my MR world merged on paper but the companies remained seperate with trackage rights.
It’s simply a confounding issue faced by all four of the Hill line roads modelers, we buy engines and stock like it’s gonna go quick(usually does). Early BN modelers probably get it the worst out of all of us though.
If you add St.Paul into the equasion, the Twin Cities would become 18th on the list, pushing Detroit down to 19th. However, the figures used in the list I saw in “List of U.S. cities by population”, only list a number by the people in the city proper, it does not include the surrounding 182 cities and townships with a population of 3.6 million people for MPLS/ST. PAUL. Certainly, all the cities in the US have populations today far exceeding those shown on the previous list. I will give you that it is likely the population ratings given today, might work for the populations at the time the Northern Pacific was operating.
I wonder about simply thinking that it all hinges on the poulation centers along the route? I say this because Great Northern equipment always seems to be available, so must be more popular than the Northern Pacific! The CB&am
I’ve always admired the GN - and other northwest roads. But the fact is, the GN was a player in a big field, and often got lost. Ha, I could replace your GN with IC and the story would be the same.
Of course the IC did get a song written about it… “City of New Orleans”
The same song could be sung by modelers of a lot of other roads. A few items are produced, but you’re on your own if you hope to represent the whole railroad. You can paint your own diesels, but you’ll run into trouble if you expect to find correct steam locos, cabooses, signature freight cars, and structures. So you look for out-of-production items (brass steam locos, for example) on ebay or at the shows. Some poorly represented railroads are Wabash, Ann Arbor, Bessemer & Lake Erie, Nashville Chattanooga & St. Louis, Florida East Coast, Chicago Great Western, Minneapolis & St. Louis, Central of Georgia, Alton, Texas & Pacific, and many others. Yes, there are individual items that have been available, but it isn’t easy to just walk into your hobby shop and buy a correct depot or caboose or steam loco for those roads.
Actually, N.P. modelers have benefitted from the past production of quite a few brass models, and these pop up for sale fairly regularly. Pacific Fast Mail and other importers sold quite a few. Compare this with the Bessemer. A USRA heavy 2-10-2 could be adapted to represent a Bessemer verrsion. Or an ancient brass L.M.B. DM&IR 2-10-4 could be modifed, but that’s about it. No 0-8-0’s, 2-8-0’s, 4-6-2’s, or anything else has ever been produced. Ask a B&O modeler and he may tell you about the many errors built into “B&O” models by manufacturers who didn’t bother to fact-check during the design phase. Can anybody truthfully say B&O modelers are well-served by those manufacturers?
I’m not saying you’re wrong. It’s true that there is a limited number of N.P. models currently available. But what is available, is very worthwhile; and if everything were available right now you couldn’t afford to buy it all at once anyway. There is a nice laser kit for a cupola style caboose, plus another o
The NP and GN hist. societies didn’t merge their databases(?). IIRC when BN moved from St.Paul to Ft. Worth, they donated a lot of documents to the NP and GN societies. They/we (I belong to both) set up a joint archive of the material at the MN Transportation Museum’s Jackson St. roundhouse in St.Paul.
Re the monad - As I recall NP lore, a company official (possibly in advertising) saw the yin-yang symbol prominently displayed at the Korean exhibit hall at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and liked it. It is / was part of the Korean flag. He started to incorporate it into NP advertising, stationary, business cards etc. shortly after. However, it wasn’t used on railroad equipment until the 1920’s.
How are you measuring popularity? And who are you comparing it to?
This is not a large hobby and includes a lot of collectors as well as a lot of casual model railroaders who just like to run trains that appeal to them. Despite their relative abundance in the hobby press, I suspect that the vast majority of layouts don’t follow any particular prototype.
First we can examine the use of the word “apparently”. If it weren’t there, the above would be a statement of fact. With it in, it becomes a subjective opinion.
That said, it would perhaps be useful to look at the numbers. How many model NP? How many model ATSF? How many model DM&IR? Perhaps the NMRA has this data. Once you have the absolute numbers, you then have to determine what the number SHOULD be. You can’t just divide the total number of modelers by the total number of railroads and say that THAT is the proper number. Well, you can; but I don’t see why one would expect the same number for the UP as BA&P. Once the above numbers are produced, we can compare how the true number of NP modelers compare to the “proper” number.
If ya don’t have the above info, this is all just blather.
So, blathering along, I will put out a possible explanation for differences between predicted and actual numbers:
Remember the Lionel F3? Of course you do. And what were the two main railroads they were lettered for? Why the ATSF and the NYC. And are those two railroads more popular than you would have thought?
While the OP proposes a lack of NP modelers, I don’t think anyone is proposing a similar lack of GN modelers. So, which railroad had practically every steam loco class they owned produced by Tenshodo back in the '60’s? Now, if you’re interested in picking a railroad from the Pacific Northwest, which of the two would you pick? No, not you. I know you’d pick NP 'cause your grand-daddy worked for it. But my point is is that GN was bumped up i
How does your answer to my subjective question ever become something you doubt that would be an explanation I would want to hear? What would put me off of your question. Your doing a little to much thinking you know what I’m interested in, I fear!
I’m just whistling in the dark a bit here, but perhaps to go some way towards advancing this discussion it may be nesseserry to understand why modelers choose any particular road to model or to incorporate into a geographic area that is of modeling interest to them.
I think that for as many modelers there are there are possibly that many reasons that dedetermine the choice. But there will be of course commonalities. From the pragmatic to the emotional, most of these reasons are already well recognized & understood. I can really only be certain of my own personal experience in choosing the fallen flag road I model & that was as random as all get out. It’s often how a modeler relates to a road operating when & where it did, or indeed still does - the familiar or the exotic.
As a Southerner & flat lander my natural leaning is towards RR’s of the south east. Anything with a higher elevation than gopher diggins sets off my vertigo -just kidding!
If you are looking for an easy answer to your question then I think that you will find that slow in coming if in fact one exists at all. Which is perhaps why the side issue to your question has settled on the availability of models for the, NP.
Take heart, all is not lost, just enjoy doing your modeling.
I love the NP and the Milwaukee Road, (western portions mainly) as I grew up on the GN mainline and the NP and MILW were 60 miles south of me in Montana. Both railroads ran parrallel for miles through Montana, and the NP rails over Homestake Pass into Butte, through very unusual rock formations and clinging to the hillside, is still awesome to look at. MRL is my favorite current railroad (which uses the old NP mainline).
I agree that Raymond Loewy’s designs and the NP railroad stations (Livingston MT for example) were classy, and the best looking railroad schemes there was.
Perhaps the lack of layouts has to do with the lack of locos? I am unsure why it is this way? Perhaps Walthers will release a “North Coast Limites” trainset in the future.
Maybe it’s a lack of locos, the NP had a huge fleet of F units(and two FP7’s) same for the GN, and Q. I’m happy I’ve got atleast 4 NP F units. I wish I had some GN ones, my fleet could use atleast an ABA set.
Along with my impetus to ask why the N.P. appears to not be a very popular modeling focus was to see if I could shake any other N.P. modellers out of the wood work. I knew that Gary (BN24) modeled the SP&S. I also knew that there were a few other “N.P. heads” out there. Grinell is a new name I did not know was an N.P. Modeller.
As far as the availability of N.P. locomotives, I have quite a few: I have an F-7 A-B-A set made from old Athearn Blue Box B.N. F-7s, I have a Stewart Baldwin VO1000 switcher, I have three GP-7 one from Athearn Blue Box and 2 Life Like Proto P2K. I have a Stewart RS-2 and an Atlas RS-3. For steam I have a G-2 switcher from IHC, A brass PFM Y-2 consolidation, a Kit Bashed W-3 micado built from a Rivarossi Mike. I have other locomotives for my shortline RR. So, I feel I have a collection of N.P. motive power addequate for my layout.
I am no sure what scale you model, bu Hornby has announced the GE U%C. They will be painting it in the Northern Pacific colros with two numbers. It will be DCC ready and the picutres on therir web site look good.
Possible reasons for a ho-hum view of Northern Pacific (inserting tongue firmly in cheek):
Lack of 4-8-2’s. All the really popular railroads (ATSF, UP, SP, Pennsy, NYC, B&O, NYNH&H etc.) had 4-8-2’s. No 4-8-2’s = a lack of interest. Granted having 4-8-2’s doesn’t guarantee overwhelming popularity (e.g. BAR, CV, CofG), but there seems to be a very high correlation coefficient between 4-8-2’s and a railroad’s popularity. Incidentally, GN had some very nice looking 4-8-2’s.
Lame premier passenger train name. GN had “The Empire Builder”, UP “The Overland”, MILW “The Olympian Hiawatha”, ATSF “The Super Chief”. NP had “The North Coast Limited”, which really doesn’t tell you much and is an oxymoron to boot. The US has no North Coast. Canada does, but the NCL didn’t go to Canada.
Uninspired leadership. After all, the GN had James J. Hill. Who did the NP have? There were several CEO’s before NP’s golden spike was driven in 1883 under the leadership of Henry Villard. How many here know who Villard was?
Mundane motive power. While reasonably attractive and lacking the mud fence attributes of some roads’ motive power (the appalling esthetics of Maine Central steam power comes to mind), NP steam lacks the panache of GN’s. Yeah, an NP W-5 is attractive, but when compared to the macho looks of a GN O-8, there’s just no comparison. Even the Z-5 2-8-8-4 wasn’t that big a success. Even the Milwaukee Road, which had eminently forgettable steam power, at least had the virtue of fielding some awesome electric power, one sample of which (the EP-3) was the basis of the locomotive in the novel “Tom Swift And His Electric Locomotive”.
No support from Hollywood and a fairly tame history. A number of movies were made featuring the SP, UP, Santa Fe, NYC, CB&Q (“Silver Streak”) and the D&RGW. Even the MILW got into t
I would consider the Northern half of the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts to be the U.S’s North Coasts. My guess is that all Americans and every map maker in the world would agree. I guess Andre wouldn’t be happy with the “Mainstreeter”, either. Oh what was I thinking picking the N.P., which I believe has the best looking steam engines in the world?
Just since it was mentioned a couple of times…the NP didn’t build tracks to Chicago, but NP and GN together owned about 90% of the CB&Q, so NP passenger trains did run to Chicago behind Burlington power. If you model the Burlington’s line from St.Paul to Chicago, you can run passenger trains of GN, NP and the CB&Q, all with Burlington engines (like E-units).
Which brings up a point - maybe there are a lot of us that don’t exclusively model the NP, but have layouts where NP equipment is used at least sometimes? Although I free-lance, the iron ore part of my layout (under construction) is based on the NP-Soo joint operation between Superior WI and the Cuyuna range in central Minnesota. So I have some NP engines, cars, and cabooses (well caboose - just one so far) but I’m not exactly ‘modeling’ the NP.
When deciding a road name you tend to go with what is avalible. Went with Southern Pacific, not because I live in their teritory (I don’t care about that) but because I can get what I want in their name without a lot of work. I model the late 1930’s and their is a lot of stuff for that time period in SP colors.