Found these old snaps of my layout taken back in the 50’s. Scenes of a particularly busy day in my Wickenburg, AZ Interchange.
Naw, just joshin’ This is today in the Wickenburg Yard. Busy day. Just playing around with the snapshots in Photobucket effects panel. Kinda like the retro look, though.
Almost had me fooled! Didn’t catch your comments on the bottom…at first. Two cars in particular made me??? The PLE 100T and the double door box without a roofwalk. Very nice shots.
The photo backdrop gave it away. I doubt many people (if any) were using those back then.
Steve S
Actually, it was the plastic Bowser hopper loads and the “lack of brass track” that initally gave it away for me. Yea, the back drop and also the Atlas Snap turnouts would be a giveaway, as well.
Tom
It was the track side turnout actuator in the 2nd photo that gave it away to me.
What gave it away for me was; the plastic ties…detailed equipment…ballast…
A nice effect, quite convincing. However, for me, the backdrop was an unlikely ‘event’ back then, and so were such nicely scaled and detailed locomotives. A closer view of the wheel flanges would have nailed it, tho’…
-Crandell
Steve,A lot of us younger modelers had backdrops on our layouts as did some of the adults…Backdrops isn’t a modern idea its dates back to the 60s.
There was lots of serious modelers back then that became the movers and shakers of the hobby to get the hobby where its at today.
Thanks for looking at the post, Gentlemen. No I wasn’t really trying to fool anyone. I figured lots of the details would give it away right away.
As I say, the digital processing part was interesting. I had only just taken a look at all the tools on Photobucket. Usually I use Photoshop prior to uploading if I need to alter contrast etc. But the many and odd special effects are fun.
No, I had no features like those giveaways you mention on my first layout either. In 1963 to 1967 my father and I had a small layout…all brass section track, as someone mentioned. I remember seeing lots of really nice detail and even flex track in modelling magazines, but it all seemed really expensive at the time…compared to the simple stuff down at the hobby shop in town. I had a grand total of three switches…the distant one rigged with a spring and a pull string for remote control. My father had made a nice station house and platform from cardboard…he was a draftsman and good at that sort of thing. I had painted some empty upended Heinz bean tins white with the BA (British American) oil logo (an Ontario company) for my oil depot. Broke up an old foam cooler to glue up as a mountainside. My big motive power was one 0-4-2T steamer and a CN F7 in zebra stripe, which I thought looked very modern. In the end I gave all of the layout away to a family friend before one family moving day…not even a picture to show for it.
Actually BA was originally registered, in Ontario, as a British company. It was later bought out by Gulf.
Here’s an earlier BA logo, introduced in 1928, and seen in this photo taken circa mid-'30s, location unknown:
Wayne
Who did those PRR K4s get to Arizona?
Wayne — There’s something about the consistent cleanliness of that tank car that makes me wonder whether it might have been taken in the vicinity of your house. And maybe a little more recently, too. That’s not to say it isn’t a nice little car, because it sure is.
Ok, Anything you see like that…means it was on loan heading out to LA for a movie shoot!
Here’s a real old shot of my layout, probably around 1960 or so. No photo manipulation here!
Bob,Something isn’t quite right about your layout…
What’s your Varney “Lil’ Joe”?
98% of the photos from that era has that “Lil’ Joe” in it usually with a MEW engineer hanging out the cab window…"
However having the two Pennsy steam engines (K4s perhaps?) running on a layout set in Arizona would be pretty standard for a 1950’s layout.
[:P]
Thanks for your kind words, ACY. [:D] I liked that old picture so much that it inspired a scene on my layout, including a model of that tankcar. [swg]
Wayne
“What’s your Varney Lil Joe” or WHERE IS your Varney Lil Joe? If that’s what you meant, I don’t think I actually had one. Maybe I did, it was quite some time ago and I don’t recall.