I have been vacillating quite a bit on the exact year for my layout. I have it narrowed it down to between about 1961 and 1973. I have done a lot of research but still cant decide. I am open to others opinions and pros and cons of each year. Many of you know the “year that this or that changed” off the top of your heads and can give me things to consider. The layout has a fixed minimum radius of 24" so I would like to keep car lengths down. That keeps me pushing toward the earlier times, but how many larger freight cars were there really being used up until the early 70s?
My trackwork and cars are working well enough that I can run a nice set of 85’ passenger cars smoothly, but as these don’t look as nice on the 24" curves so I would like to at least keep the freights to much shorter cars. The more 40 and 50 footers the better, however I find the later years offer a bit more variety of locos, pretty much the end of E and F style units (so less need for MUs on this small layout), a little more variety of rolling stock, the beginning of removal of roofwalks, the era of mergers, pre-Conrail, and most importantly I can personally remember more of the later years.
Sounds like you’re leaning towards '73. So then the question is “Why not?”
My recollection is that most freight cars maxed out at 50’. The exceptions were trailer flats, auto racks, and high cube 87’. You don’t HAVE to run those unless your railroad ran them. On your tracks. There weren’t even a lot of 60’ cars in the general mix. It is true, though, that the 40’ boxes were disappearing pretty quickly.
(That was supposed to read “between” 1961 and 1973. I fixed it.) The most notable things I know of that happened was the end of roofwalks on new cars in 66?, and the Penn Central merger in 68 and bankruptcy in 70 although it still existed as a railroad. The later years also have the possibility to go wild with heavy weathering to depict the really rundown state of railroads at that time…
One I’ve encountered is availability of appropriate vehicles. I enjoy building vehicles as much as I do rolling stock. But the availability of different 80’s vehicles sometimes makes building appropriate vehicles (particularly pickup trucks) difficult.
This logic can be applied to other areas too. Are suitible structure kits available, or will you be scratchbuilding? Will you have to custom paint rolling stock/locos?
Thats a good point, so I just did a search on Walthers and Modeltrainstuff and there appears to be a fair number of different automobiles that fit the later time period, somewhat less variety for the early 60s. And of course, the later the year, the more you can mix and match earlier years (within reason).
The good thing about structures is that unless you are modeling a brand new business construction all structures are usually decades or more older. Therefore I dont think that would be much of an issue unless modeling something particularly specific.
Follow up question, when was the 40 year rule implemented? Would some very old rolling stock exist in any of this year range?
Well I certianly didn’t mean heavy weathering on absolutely “everything”, however there certainly was some well worn equipment and neglected physical plant in places, even as new items were introduced. Some of that extensive decay could be modeled and give the layout more character.
Another factor is safety first, last and always and the railroads seen that was followed.
Weeds,boarded up stations and some towers was common, dirty cars was the norm and remember if a customer deem a car unfit to use he could and would reject it.
Another factor is not all railroads was the same C&O/B&O/WM (in the 60 and into the 70s under Chessie),N&W and Southern was in great shape compared to (say) railroads in the NorthEast,E-L and PC.
Roads like SCL,CRR,RF&P,L&N was in good to fair shape.ICG,RI,Milwaukee not so good.
Keep in mind you’re not actually required to pick an exact year to model. Many folks happily model “the sixties” or “the transition era”; our British cousins often build layouts set “between the wars (1918-39)”.
Although larger freight cars began to be built in the mid-sixties, to my mind the biggest difference between 1961 and 1973 is going to be passenger service. When the US Postal Service took the mail (Railway Post Office cars) off trains in the mid-sixties, many trains that had been at least breaking even began losing money without the mail contracts. That caused railroads to discontinue many trains, and eventually led to them asking the federal goverment to bail them out - which it did by taking over passenger trains and forming Amtrak. So 1961 is going to have more passenger trains than you’d see in say 1970, and by 1973 it was Amtrak (albeit with a colorful mix of Amtrak equipment and engines / cars still lettered for their original railroads).
So basically you have to cut out common freight cars and model a short line to eliminate longer cars because in 1973 40’ box cars were on their way out and 60’ box cars were common and 89 flat cars and auto racks were regulars on most mainline freight trains.
So whether you model 1961, there was passenger service with 85’ passenger cars and 85’ TOFC flat cars, or you go to 1973 after Amtrak took over - you might still have passenger service and you have a lot of 85 and 89 foot flat cars and auto racks, and longer freight cars as well. Really there is no way to shrug off longer freight cars unless you have a RR that does not handle mainline traffice, which is appealing to some.
Of course if keeping freight cars on the average as short as possible, then 1961 will have a larger percentage of short cars including more 40’ box cars and 60’ and longer were less common.
Stix has a good point here. If the stretch of line you’re roughly intending to model didn’t itself change much between 61 and 71, that could be part of the reason the mix you want isn’t just jumping right out at you. You’re possibly interested in a broader range of era than how you define it here. If it. comes down to equipment that is, after al, mostly the same. Without a clear and well-defined reason to commit to any certain year. you’ll probably find yourself drifting around some in that era anyway. Don’t beat yourself up over it, go with the flow, run an early 60s, then a late 60s session. It’s all good.
GP7, GP9, GP18, GP20, GP30, GP35 are all valid for this date.
SD7, SD9, SD18 (good luck finding one…but do complain loudly to every manufacturer you can see to make a C&O/Chessie SD18 with RSD5 trucks), SD24 are valid.
All models of Alco 4 axel Road Switchers are valid (RS-36 ended production in 1963).
All 6 Axel Alco Road switchers likely valid choices (RSD-15 ended production in 1960).
You have 3 Alco Century locomotives that were produced starting in 1963.
A couple of GE locomotives.
Plus center and end cab switchers from all three companies. Probably some Baldwins and F-Ms as well…
Plenty of options if you dont want to run A-B…sets of Cab road units.
Plus you can play the song if people ask you what year you are modeling…its win-win.
I decided on 1954 because of locomotive preferences. I bought a 1954 calendar at an antique store and have had it hanging in my railroad room for years. I like the picture of August the best.
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3 is a sacred angelic number, so I chose the third, which happens to be a Tuesday. See, it makes perfect sense. [:(]
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Ah, December 1963, that was a very special time, at least for me. However, as I recall, it ended much too soon. There was this one time I felt a bolt of rushing thunder, spinning my head around and taking my body under. What a night. It took me a while to see the light, it seemed so wrong, but now it seems so right.
If your railroad only exists at one specific time then its a diorama, because nothing can move. Motion is the change in position over a change in time, if time never changes, then there is no motion.
A cop pulls Heisenberg over and walkings up to the car. The cop says, “Did you know you were going 60 mph in a 25 mph zone?” Heisenberg said, “Oh great now I’m lost.”
For a long time, I planned to build a layout that was designed to rotate between different years / time periods, say moving ahead 15-20 years every actual calendar year. Even wrote an article about it that was published in RMC, back when the only way to get to the LHS was riding our dinosaurs.
Anyway, eventually I realized it would mean a LOT of work - changing autos and some people wasn’t too bad, but things like buildings, billboards, backdrops etc. could be a hassle. Plus it meant I had to have several sets of cars for each industry, so like for an oil dealer I’d need the correct type of tank cars for 1940, 1960, 1980, and 2000.
I’m currently working on having each of the four main areas of the layout represent different time frames, so the ‘logging line’ area is set in the pre-WW2 era, and uses my oldest steam engines and cars. The large city on the layout is set in more recent times, and it’s industries get cars you’d see in the 1980’s or 1990’s. Since each area is scenically separate, and has it’s own trains (so a town set in 1960 would have it’s own wayfreight, probably with first generation diesel power and using only cars correct for that time) it seems so far to work OK - it’s a compromise, but one that seems to work.
A few good people give you a few perfect years between 1960-1963.
I model different eras as well. New York Central in 1957-1967, Conrail 1987-1989, BNSF/ Union Pacific 1998-2007.
I model within 2007 or late 2006. UP FDA change from red to yellow sills. Freight cars adding more and more safety stripes for automobiles. Which I don’t like ranging more plain cars than strips.
My real interest in modeling the 1990s. Lending more into the '80s.
1961 and 1973 is to wide of a modeling era because a lot of changes was taking place during those years from bankruptcies to shining times,passenger trains dropped like flies or was downsized,we saw Alco cease production and in '71 we saw the birth Amtrak.
These were exciting years as well as we seen new locomotives from EMD and GE and many railroads was beginning to drop Alcos and cab units like hot potatoes.
For the shining times of the 60s I would lean toward 64-66 and would favor C&O/B&O,N&W or Southern over the Eastern bankrupt roads. I might consider NYC only because I like the simple paint scheme and those great looking Jade Green boxcars.
It also depends on what you want to model and where. Started out liking the LV in about 1974, but I wanted to have coal cars and coal trains. In 1974 the LV wasn’t hauling much coal (actually by then they weren’t hauling much of anything). So I eventually changed to the RDG.
My suggestion is to pick a 3-5 year span to model instead of a decade. Makes it much easier to narrow things down. If you want more of a variety, then pick multiple 3-5 year eras. So model 60-63, and then model 70-73. It will help narrow down details, autos, billboards, engines, cars, whatever.
