I have a few questions hopefully someone or ones can give me some direction. I have a decent collection of train engines, cars and buildings spanning from my grandfather, to my father and 2 uncles as well as my own equipment, all HO scale. I am having trouble trying to decide what era to model for my train set that I have been building for the past 6 years. I keep rebuilding it and tearing it down every time I take a break and then return to it. I have old brass and wood freight and passenger cars of my grandfathers. I have lots of passenger cars mostly heavy weight and some stream line ones, from my uncles, and I have freight cars spanning all time frames. My motive power is about 20 ish steam era engines and about 10 or so transition diesel engines. My main focus that I like is the more modern diesel engines with the gp 9 and gp38-2 being a primary focus. I love the DT&I RR and Pennsylvania are preferences. My problem is I cant decide what to use or not to use and what era to model. I feel like if I dont use my late grandfathers equipment I would be letting him down since he loved it and would want it to be used, but I dont seem to have the room for 60 plus engines on my layout. I really like the modern diesels and dont want to let them sit either, I mean they are all really neat but some are pretty old. Also I am having trouble deciding what I like to do, switching or main line running. (pro’s and cons would be nice??)I am the only person around in my location that is interested in this hobby, and as of lately, in the past year both the local hobby stores have closed, so I really am just looking for ideas and helpfull hints so I can finally make a real decisionand get my train set “on the right track” you might say. any ideas or suggestions would be of great help, thanks alot.
The only advice I can suggest is possible modeling something around the time that the steam era ended and the start of the diesel era. The time where they were still using both locos.
Hope this helps alittle
Norman…
I see no dilemma whatsoever…
Lay some track, do some landscaping, pick out some buildings you like, and run every engine you own! 
problem solved…
or…if you want to be a bit more “plausable proto-freelance”, then go modern-era, so you can run your modern diesels, then have a large railroad museum on site that runs every historic steam engine and diesel they own out on the mainline…(like Steamtown)…make a nice big roundhouse with lots of radial tracks to store the museum’s historic loco collection…
Scot
Not a problem. Some operating sessions use modern equipment and others use older equipment. There is no requirement to keep all your rollding stock on the layout at the same time. Put whatever the layout will hold on the layout and put the rest in storage or in a display case or whatever.
Railroads expected a forty year service life from rolling stock, so any train might have brand new cars and forty year old cars in it. Steam engines did just about everything up thru the end of WWII. The few exceptions were passenger streamliners. The transistion era started right after WWII and lasting thru the 1950’s. For instance the B&M retired it’s last steamers in 1957. By 1960 just about all the steamers were scrapped, except maybe the Norfolk and Western which was proud of it’s steamers and ran them to the bitter end.
Buildings and bridges and structures are also designed for a very long service life. You can model the 1930’s thru the 1990’s with the same buildings. The only things that really date a layout are the cars and trucks, and some advertizing signs. By switching out some vehicles and signs the same layout can be anything from the 30’s to the 90’s.
Just for laughs and giggles try reading my beginner’s guide clickable in my signature. Might help you decide a few things.
Anyway you might just eliminate a lot by setting up an oval and running your engines. My guess is that some locos are choice, some are mediocre and others might convince you to break them against the basement wall. Find the good runners and make a display shelf for the rest. Selecting a road name and era just might settle itself.
Mr. TheStarWarsGuy, I owe you a great big “Thank You”. Lately, I have been in the doldrums (just a bit), singing the blues (that’s OK, I like the blues) about where to go w/ my layout. What/when to model, was this prototypical, did this really happen, blah, blah, blah… then, I went to a model railroad club open house the other day, just east of Louisville, KY. They had a modular layout, operated in a structure that won’t be there in a couple of years, but those guys were having fun. There were modern diesels, older freight jobs, hey, one of the fellows even had 3985 (UP’s 4-6-6-4 Challenger). Man, did my stock go up! I talked to a member, asked about the ‘theme’ of the layout. I loved the response. “We run what we like to run.” It really cleared my head.
I love the old logging days, but I would like to see a Big Boy pull a mile long coal train (I know, it never happened). I have a picture of my grandfather in the cab of an F7A #933, Cotton Belt. If I decide he will pull that freight thru my 4% grade, hollering at Shays and Heislers to get out of the way… he will do it. I have decided that life and even most model railroaders will forgive me for getting some smiles out of my layout.
I don’t know if I have given you the slightest bit of enthusiasm, but thank you for reminding me that this is our hobby. We can take it where we want, we can do what we want, no matter if it actually happened or not. Take what gives you the most boost, and run with it. As far as being the last one standing… this may be a good opportunity to open a hobby shop, or be the cornerstone of the best model railroad club in Ohio in the year 2012. You may be the one, Skywalker…
Take heart and best of luck to you.
Duke
Hey, Space Mouse. Where is the Central Indiana Model Railroad Club based? I looked over your site and really enjoyed it. Thanks
It’s in the Episcopal Church on 9th and Philadelphia.
Some people make their layout “multi-era” with the changing of a few building or other details. It probably isn’t ideal, but it might be more plausible than running the steamers in the modern era.