Penn Central. More people modeling it than we realize!

A friend of mine has a basement-filling New Haven layout. He also has some Pennsy and NYC power represented. He was modeling the 1950’s era. In the past year or so, he has moved up to the late 1960’s so he could add PC stuff. While reading aA recent write up on his layout I noticed he is now calling it his “Penn Central and predecessor roads” layout. For years he had always described it as his New Haven layout.

Since I’m modeling around 1969, I’ll have an interchange with the PC at one point on the track plan.

thier might be more people then you realize…but they are closet PC fans… very few people will admit they model the road that was a total disaster lol…and i have a question… how do you model PC anyways…cars derailed engins in bad shape…the ROW full of weeds and the track all missalined? hang on a sec? i just discribed how to model CSX…HAHAHHA
csx engineer

Yes, the PC was a DISASTER! But the places the trains ran were AMAZING! I can remember back to PRR and NYC in northern Ind and Ill. I have more vivid memories of the PC. While the PC “experiment” was very bad news for the railroads, it is a part of history. And we MRs like to capture history. And, oh, where those trains ran!!!

AntonioFP45 wrote:

Howzabout I said, “depressing-to-me modelers”? [;)]

And yet, one of the arguments I’ve heard for modeling PC is that, as a part of history, it deserves to be modeled so that it is not forgotten. Ok, but then shouldn’t one model it accurately if it’s for history’s sake, warts and all?

If you say so, although that is not the case here in southeastern Mass. Downtowns are looking pretty good these days in my neck of the woods. There are few if any empty lots, most every storefront is filled, and there is little to no graphitti anywhere. From pictures of the 1970’s, I can’t say the same for back then…

And what cars were you riding? My mom was a regular commuter on the PC going into Boston back in the day. There were many instances of her being able to see through the car floor and watch the ties go by under your feet, of sitting down on a seat and a wave of dust envelopes you, of cracked and broken windows (or half filled with water), of cars with no heat or no AC, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum. And I’ve heard these stories from other riders as well.

IMHO, the 1970’s was the absolute nadir of American railroading in the 20th Century.

[quote]
QUOTE: …double track rail lines were still common

Paul3, regarding"

The streamlined, red striped Bradley & Osgood cars as well as the streamlined M.U trains. Basically ex-New Haven equipment in the Mginnis colors. Dirty on the outside, but reasonably clean inside. Man, were those trains fast! So again, wonderful memories for me. [:D][8D]

Now the old MP54 MU cars, yes, those things were tough but worn out. Never rode them, but saw plenty. A lot of them were in PC green early on.

Yes, as indicated PC was a business disaster. Very rough on employees. My late uncle, who was a NYC engineer, left in time and went to the NYC transit authority. I remember in the late 70s when I was in high school how me and some of the guys at the LHS would “rag” on the PC. Yet, nevertheless, today it’s a railroad that more and more modelers are finding interesting to model.

Even with limited runs, some items don’t always sell out right away. At my current LHS there are limited run Atlas and Proto units that have been on the shelf over 2 years. Yet, most of the limited run stuff in Penn Central that came in…gone in less than a month!

Again, as I indicated on another thread, inspite of the job featherbedding and corruption
Penn Central still managed to run the long distance trains on the NEC from other railroads on schedule the majority of the time up until Amtrak. As mentined, those Metroliners, inspite of flaws, got lots of good publicity and still managed to whip 100 m.p.h. It was not all was doom and gloom! It is exaggerated in some areas, just as the Franklin and Manchester layout with regards to the 1930s Depression area. Penn Central was simply a sign of the changing times, which resulted in the formation of Conrail. I was around and remember. Other railroads besides the Penn Central were in decay. Erie Lackawanna, Milwaukee Road, Rock Island, etc… The auto industry and steel industries were in trouble as well. Yet

Antonio,

I don’t model the PennCentral myself but I sorta know where you’re coming from - I had my greatest exposure to prototype trains during the late sixties/early 70’s, mostly on the B&O in Maryland.

My B&O loco roster contains nearly all dark-blue diesels with yellow trim, and many ‘hard core’ B&O fans look down their noses at them, because they are not the ‘classic’ blue-grey-dulux gold that symbolized the ‘glory years’. But hey they were MY years, and I’ve always preferred to model what I can see in real life (hence my decision to start modeling CSX). That’s my hobby and I’m stickn’ to it![:)]

Some time ago, in an editorial I believe, MR’s Terry Thompson wondered whether the 1970’s would become the next “hot” era for modelers. I think they may, and that this growing interest in Penn Central may be an outgrowth of that trend.

While Penn Central and the 1970’s are not my main modeling subjects, I can understand why there might be great interest in that time period. In the same way that the 1950’s are popular because of the transition from steam to diesel during that decade, the '70’s were also a transition era from pre-merger railroads to post-merger lines. For instance, a Burlington Northern layout set in 1972 could feature GN, CB&Q, NP and SP&S equipment in addition to Cascade Green locomotives while an early Conrail layout could feature a similar array of paint schemes. This gives modelers great latitude on one layout, and that’s what many modelers really want - a good excuse to run as many different pieces of equipment as possible on one layout without stretching reality too far.

The '70’s was also a transitional era between first-generation diesels and second-generation. For many younger modelers, this was a much more significant event than the steam to diesel transition.

And, during the '70’s many “old-fashioned” operating practices were still in effect (train orders and timetable operations, interlocking towers, semaphore signals, etc . . .), partially due to ICC regulation of the railroads. Once the Stagger’s Act kicked in in 1980, many of these institutions went the way of the dinosaur.

I was just becoming seriously interested in railroads about 1978, so I managed to catch a glimpse of the tail end of this era. The '70’s were definitely the last blast for many icons of railroading, and despite their dark and dismal episodes there was still a lot of interesting railroad action to take in. I certainly don’t think we should give anyone grief for wanting to recreate this period on their layout.

Tom

As much as we hate to admit it, PC is forever ingrained in American RR history.To me it represents all that was bad about RRs in the NE US. It was like sticking a Band-Aide on a ruptured artery. I remember watching the NYC trains on the Hudson div. in the Bronx back in the late 60’s and seeing 1st hand the slow take over of the solid black covering the few P motors that still carried their lighting stripe livery. Ohhhhh the horror I felt. In sharp contrast, the birth of Conrail was a blessing and showed how,if handled correctly, a RR could be run profitablly. If anyone has noticed, after CR was sold and slit up btw CSX and NS, both RRs started to restencil their power and rolling stock. CSX uses the NYC reporting marks on their cars and NS motive power has PRR stenciled on the cabs. How’s that for about a bit of nostolgia?
New York Central…gone but not forgotten.

.

It was kinda sad when 2 great competing lines merged, that had their own and very distinct style, and the merge seemed to take that away.

I did a lot of train watching,took films, but I look at the 50’s/40’s, the great railroad heyday isn’t what it was.

Thats what I model, 50’s era.

Potlatcher,

You’ve summed it in a very refreshing perspective!

[:D][8D][tup]

I am modeling the 1970’s, and while PC won’t be the featured road, it will be a major part of my layout. My first train watching memories were standing at the front door of a small general store just outside of Knightstown, Indiana, watching PC freights fly by on the Indy-Richmond, IN line. I was 9 when Conrail took over PC, so I was too young to know anything about their bankruptcy or labor problems or bad track; I just was drawn to the green boxcars! lol As a small child, it seemed to me that everytime we traveled to Greenfield, Indianapolis, or eastward to Richmond, we would see at least one freight passing by (and every once in a while an Amtrak train, as well) and I would sit next to the car window (I always had to sit next to the window that looked towards the track), just looking for the big green cars with the “mating” worms. lol
We lived only about 2 miles from the line, plus about 2 miles from the old NKP New Castle-Rushville, IN branch (BTW, you want to talk about a line in bad shape! NEVER saw a PC freight go as slow as the N&W did on this one), plus Rushville sat on the Indy-Cincy B&O/Chessie line, and that was only about 15 minutes away, too. I liked to watch the trains on these lines, but for me, the PC was “the line”.

God bless,
Mike

Interesting aspects, everybody. When I’m modeling, I don’t ever think of what the state of the country or world was in that time. I just focus on how the railroads were doing.

Oh yeah, PC’s ok, but I’ll take Big Blue anyday![;)]

Well, since this thread was bumped anyway, I seem to recall some article suggesting tacking thin styrene strips of short, random sizes under the road bed (actually, I believe it was between the road bed and the track, covered with ‘dirty’ weathered ballast) in alternating postions - this way, the model freight cars would rock back and forth slightly, modeling misaligned trackage.
Perhaps it was the same article were the author described putting thin carpet fibre weeds in the ROW (up and in the center of the track - in the center was shorter to clear the axles), and dirt and grasscover everywhere to model weedy, unkempt trackage (not sure if they also suggested dipping the track down a bit into a muddy patch (modeled with mini-wax stain over brown painted durham putty ground cover, or equivalent).
I plan to do some spur trackage this way (don’t over do it though - no reason to have scale derailments)

Actually, if I wasn’t interested in the present (I am not interested in the late 1970s/1980s, as that seems to me to be the peak era of railroad retrenchment ), I’d go with CNJ/PC in northern New Jersey during the 1969-1972 era - major corporations operating on shoestring budgets with no real idea of the future -definitely a gritty, interesting era.