Hey, I was wondering how many, if anyone has ever built a layout with the idea of supporting different eras. For example, I model the CP on a fictional extentsion of one of it’s brach lines. It is a 11x4 layout based on a fictional yard in a town along the fictional rout. As a began scenery work I noticed that the layout could posibly play host to eras fro the early 1900 to modern time, with variation of equipment and some scenery variations. Has this been done already, if so do you have pictures?
I’m not sure if It counts, but I am modeling a Tourist Railroad in HO. Engines are from Shays, Heislers to the SD38’s and a SD40T-2.
Most of the diesels are one of a kind, and unique units, such as SP’s S-12 with the box headlight, and a CN SW1200 with the weird numberboards.
I try to stay with a mostly ALCo fleet which includes a C424, RS-3, FA-2, RS-11, and a S1, but there is plenty of Baldwin and EMD power.
Buildings–I have a Pizza hut and Burger King downtown, and there is a Walthers Sterling Consolidated Dairy at the other end of town. (The dairy is (in my world) owned by the historical soceity)
I try to make the eras blend in, as my railroad is in a town like Gettysburg, PA. They have a ton of old buildings, but they now serve a new use.
I do plan on extending the existing benchwork to have a small lumber railroad, based after the ‘historic’ operations of the Cass Scenic Railroad. So, I have 1900’s, 1940’s, 1970’s, and 2000’s in my layout.
Maybe making the layout a Tourist Railroiad is cheating on what to buy, but this way I don’t need to weather the engines.
Phil
Yes I do it. I model the PRR from about 1950 through today with GE AC4400s, E60CFs, E60CPs, AEM7 and others. When I operate I hold to an era but the hard part is the keeping the cars authentic not the engines
Yep! I model a 10 year time span from 1990-2000 I’m more in the 1990-1995 period but I do have WC equpiment that is painted over that shouldn’t be. Like the only SD35. If I modeled form 1990-1995 I would have to have it painted in the old southern colors. But If I modeled 1998-2000 I would have to have the SD40-2s in WC paint but I don’t want to.
This has always been the plan for a “Hall of Time” exhibit in the modelrailroad museum.
3993
IN my last small layout I was modeling MEC and B&M around 1980. When we moved to a new house with basement train room, I did not want to demolish it; and dispose of all my 80s stuff; but also wanted to model early 50s that I was doing in the layout before last. As a compromise, one side of the layout will be 1980 and the other 50s with a part in the middle that can be either with the change of 1 building and some vehicles.
One of the Neat things about modeling the town of Thurmond
is it has not changed in over 100 years with the exception of the hotel
which burned down in the late 50s
There are no streets no gas stations so there is little to identify
a time period
Thanks for the replies. Keep them coming.
One layout I can remember that did multiple eras was the layout at trainland in Colfax, Iowa. I enclosed the url, not sure if the link is active.
I’m planning to run dual era - 1960’s like I have now, and then 1930’s so I can run more steam. I’ve kept my buildings “20th century generic” so all I really need to do is swap out the engines, rolling stock and automobiles.
I’ve ordered some pre-WWII gas pumps for my filling station. When I installed the more modern ones, I made sure they were on an easily-removeable base so I could swap them easily. I’ll have to do something about a couple of 1960’s movie posters on fence, but it shouldn’t be too hard to make up a cover piece with earlier films on it.
This was my photo-fun contribution a couple of weeks ago:
The 1930’s autos are the new offerings from Athearn, by the way, and most of my 60’s vehicles are the cheapos from Wal-Mart.
I do i model BN from 1980-1990 every thing from F-units to SD70Mac’s. I love because you can have so much variety. I have a 5x9 board and thats really about it im trying to detrmine the right track plan to use but it will all come together!
Yes…All of my industrial switching layouts are generic.I can model the C&O in the 60s or the NS in 2007.MY C&HV can fit between 1978-2007.
I use to switch out the vehicles but,on my last few I.S. layouts I just switch out freight cars since I wasn’t paying any attention to the cars and trucks.
luckily, i don’t have any scenery yet. all i have is unknown era cars, an S3, and a pacific. i was thinking about having the era 1966-1970s because Canadian Pacific Railway changed their identity to CPRail in 1967. because my pacific is fairly expensive, i don’t want to get rid of it. i also have some heavyweight cars too, equiped with lighting and detail parts. CPRail got rid of their steam engines in the 1960s, so my steam era will probably be the 40s.
thats my [2c] worth.
If you’re ever at a railroad flea market where someone is selling old railroad mags, and you want to waste some time, try tracking down the Feb 1983 RMC. It has an article I wrote called “The Fast Time Calendar” where I talk about building a layout designed to rotate between several different eras. I originally talked about moving ahead 12 years every actual year, and taking time to change more than loco’s and cars - autos, buildings, billboards, etc.
Based on what I found out with my last layout, the new one is probably going to change maybe 15-20 years at a time, but change every 3 months or so. So it would be kinda like Jan-March, 1940; Apr-June, 1958; July-Sept, 1976; Oct-Dec, 1994.
My small switching layout will be generic enough to be appropriate for operating from the 1950’s thru the 1980’s. So far all the support accessory vehicles are from the late 70’s so if I want to operate loco’s from the 50’s I’ll have to get some older vehicles. I already have rolling stock appropriate for either era.
Bottom line is I am building this for me so I really don’t care if every detail is not correct for the loco’s and rolling stock that happen to be on the tracks on any given day.
I have posted some of this before, so long time readers can skip my post.
I started with the idea of advancing my model railroad as sort of a living history. I was planning to start 100 years ago (this was in the late 1970s) when my fictional prototype would have started construction. Each year, I would advance my model pike one year, always remaining 100 years ago.
Several things caused me to throw this idea out:
-
my hobby budget of the 1970s and '80s couldn’t stand multiple sets of locomotives and rolling stock, even when drawn out over years
-
I didn’t understand how fast US businesses, including railroads developed and changed. As I learned more, I came to realize that by the mid-1890s, almost nothing built in the 1870s was usable without major modification or rebuilding, track included. In the days of wood cars and non-treated ties, replacement/rebuilding was generally required at less than 20 year intervals. Even today, with the technology much more mature, very little prototype equipment is used for more than 30 consecutive years without major rebuilding. It wasn’t just a matter of updating rolling stock and locomotive rosters as the modeled era changed - track, structures, and the way the railroad operated would all change significantly with time.
-
now that I understand the scope of my original vision a lot better, and have more $$ to throw at it, I don’t have enough modeling years left in me to accomplish what I wanted to do. In my '50s now, I have become much more interested in narrowing the scope of my vision to something I feel I can achieve to a satisfactory level of detail and completion over the next 20 years. Having a large living history isn’t as interesting any more as doing a good job of focusing on a specfic “theme” - to borrow Dave V’s term.
these are my thoughts, yours may differ
Fred W
DFerg,
Sometimes a multi-era layout is a cop-out for ‘I bought a whole bunch of stuff and it doesn’t match’. Since I got into the hobby knowing I had a limited budget, I had to pick an era and stick with it. (But I’m not as smart as you might think I thought I was - almost NOBODY makes 1900-era stuff for $10 or less.)
If you want my advice: build some turn-of-the-century type industrial buildings and plan things out so you can change the identifying signage. The old buildings are often still in use, by another owner. Victorian houses look neat, too; and when you go modern-day, one can sprout a front yard sign that says “Bed and Breakfast”. Start small until you get a feel for what all you have to change to make you happy and look authentic. Be sure to leave extra room for your 87:1 size fingers to get at anything that needs moved.
A few years back MR ran an article about a guy with a huge Pennsylvania layout that he can run as PRR or Penn Central (the only thing he needs to change out is the locomotives) or Conrail (has to change out more cars too).
So it can be done. If era changes are important to you, plan the layout around them - and questions like access to details, modular scenery, extra storage space.
Modeling diferent eras on the same layout isn’t as simple as it sounds. The wider the difference in time periods, the more drastically things change. A ten year stretch is feasable (say 1954 and 1964), but much beyond that means wholesale swapping out of ALL of the engines, rolling stock, buildings, signs, cars, people, industries, signals, roads and even foliage.
Case in point is someone wanting to model 1920 and 1990, so they can model both “modern” equipment and “steam era” stuff. Besides a couple of buildings, which themselves will have a MUCH different paint job between eras, and likely a few additions, NOTHING will be the same. The roads will have switched from dirt to brick to asphalt in that 70 year stretch. In 1920 the lineside will have been void of all trees, while in 1990 70 foot elms will be growing. Even such mundane things like switch stands will have changed.
So if you DO want to swap eras, be sure to keep the variation in periods small (15 years max), or be prepared to make all of your buildings and trees removable!
I do want to eventually try modeling both 1916 and 1949, and have started collecting engines and rolling stock for that earlier period. But it’ll take a lot of effort for me to make things like billboards changeable, so it won’t be easy. I’ll ignore the fact that 90% of my roads should be dirt in 1916!
Well, I now realize how many details i was over looking. Chances are I would have noticed them as I went about working on the layout, but a heads up is nice. Thanks! i think I’ll still proceed with making my layout multiple era however. Thankfully it’s a small layout![:D]
That’s exactly what I’ve done. It’s easier if the towns you’re modeling are older. Mine is actually set in the mid 70s, but I have steam because of railfan trips. So, I have GP38s, GP15s, Santa Fe 4-8-4 #3751 that passes through, along with the Frisco light Mikado and the UP 4-8-4 #484. My pike is a fictional short line, so there’s only one 6 axle unit. You can also use any vehicle up to that time frame. There’s always “Ol’ man Jenkins” that refuses to separate with his 1955 Ford pickup. It’s a little hard to model the mid 50s with the 2007 Corvette sitting at a stop sign.