Just wanted to know if building a layout means you have to stick to a certian time period or not i know that with me i like trains from both past and present and i like to run them together on the same layout dose this take away from the layout or not ?
Most people go with a certain time period, but whats to stop you from modeling the present and including a working railroad museum on the layout? Then you can run mostly new stuff and anything else you want.
It’s your railroad. There are some people that would be horrified if you had a layout set in 1957, and they found a car with a “built on” date of 1958 running on your tracks, or a '59 Chevy truck in a parking lot. Not me.
My layout is set in the 1960’s, but I’ve got a small steamer that I run. As Phil suggested, I’m going to have a “scenic railway” utilizing old-time equipment.
Railroads do use old stuff until it wears out. They haven’t made GP-9’s for over a quarter century, but you can still find plenty of them hauling freight around the country. If you’ve got a present-day layout with some 30-year-old stuff, that really doesn’t violate any rules.
srud01, as far as I know there are no rules about this. You can build what you like and run what you like. It’s your layout and if it adds to your enjoyment great.
Having said that, I think that focus on an era can add significantly to your enjoyment. It can also control your spending. In simple terms a new $500 loco that is the most beautiful thing you ever laid eyes on can be rationally left on the shelf because it falls outside the time era you are modelling.[:(]
Setting a layout in a place and time can provide interesting research opportunities and I think this significantly increases my enjoyment. I have been building a wealth of information concerning mine operations in central Illinois during the 50’s. Sure I am modelling a specific mine, but my interest has really developed to include the life of mineworkers and the social history of the area going back into the 1890’s. I am currently reading a book about a mine dispute massacre in 1922, a book I would never have picked up before, but an interest developed as a direct result of placing my layout in a specific time and place.
Each to there own, and you don’t have to be a slave to it, just make of it what you want and enjoy.
Its alot easier and more creative to use a variety of time periods. If you want details of a certain place, you should probably go with a time period. But I don’t thinks its as fun as if you just go wild with a variety of thinks from past and present.
I run modern day locomotives but still love the old days of fist generation diesel power as far back as 1947…so what i do, is keep most of my buildings old but still standing today as they were in that period of time and the trains i run, run locomotives and rolling stock of the day…in other words, i won’t make a locomotive consist of say, an F-7 or SD-9 hooked up to an ac4400, mac 70, or 90 in the same train…also the rolling stock is of the day…40’ box cars or gondolas with wooden sides will run together with the vintage locomotives only…chuck
I say run what you want to.
Me I change time periods every 3 months. I first started in2005. I just changed it at the begining of the month to 1997. That way i get more of a verity in what i run.
With a little creativity, you can create a layout that is a bit “have your cake and eat it too.”
For example, if you modal a smaller rural town, many of them look little different today than 100 years ago. I live in what is either a very large town or a very small city. Other than the cars parked on the street and a few other visual cues (parking meters with digital readout rather than a “dial”), it could be any year.
The railroads with their “use it until it dies” practices help out a lot. Want a roundhouse? No problem, they persisted well into the diesel era, and I believe there are even still a few extant. Bottom line is your buildings and other major non-changeable objects can be mostly era-neutral.
What I’m saying is this: let’s say your layout is set in my town (it is, after all, on the former PRR mainline)… You could easily, by swapping around a few cars, a billboard or two, and a couple other small, movable objects etc., take it from 1945 to 2005… You might have to simply skip a few details that would “lock” in an era, but by and large it’s very doable to create a layout that can be one era today, and another tomorrow.
As a relative rookie to MRR, what I’m finding about this hobby is that there are tons of rules (written and unwritten), but you don’t have to follow them if you choose not to. It’s your canvas and you’re the artist - paint any picture you’d like.
I choose to model a specific time period in a specific location because that’s what I find interesting, but “interesting” is a subjective thing.
I think this is what stimulates the creative juices in all of us – and it shows in many of the pictures posted in this forum.
you can do whatever you want and as long as you’re the only one who sees it everything is fine . when you invite someone else over to look at or operate the layout you open yourself up to their comments about how appropriate certain items may be . how you react to this critisism will end up determining how accurate you make your layout . oddly enough this also applies to those who strive to make their layouts as accurate as possible
I started out with my focus being the N&W and NS from 1900 to present. But in the past 10 years, so many models have come out that I started limiting it, first to 1930 to present, then 1945 to 1982, the 1945 to 1970, and now to…
As others have stated, it’s your railroad!
I have my CPR AC4400’s running with my D&H PA’s, C628’s & RS11’s along side my wood burning V&T 4-4-0 hauling 1800’s era passenger cars.
There is no rule any where stating you can’t do this.
Model railroading is, or at least, should be all about FUN.
Gordon
This hobby has many contradictions. It is at once intensely personal, highly emotional, and requires a great deal of personal investment. At the same time, though, it is most difficult to become adept at any one part of it, the modeling, the history, the contsruction and wiring, etc., in isolation. We must occasionally, most of us, seek advice and constructive criticism from others who have walked the walk. It is at this point that, as Ernie wisely pointed out, we open ourselves to speculation, opinion, the preferences and biases, and the learned facts in others. Unfortunately, it is sometimes not what we are hoping to hear. So, now that you have asked, and received the answer, where do you go?
For me, the best time, at this later stage of my life, is when I was a toddler and became enthralled with the huge steam locomotives of the time. As nostalgia sets in, I think many of us want to recreate part of our past, and many of us have those roots in steam era. Fortunately, diesels were already well established when I was very young, so I can experience the occasional diversion of a rumbling diesel when it suits me.
So, as others have pointed out, a transition era railroad works well for many of us. However, if you are not particularly keen on steam, then pick a range of about 10-15 years and try to stay, as much as you can, within those confines. If a late model diesel, like an SD70-MAC strikes your fancy, get it, run it, and don’t look back.
There is always room for one more loco. [:)]
You would be surprised at how many structures which were along a ROW in 1950 are still there today in 2006. Some of the businesses are still active.
If you are a real stickler for details you can have some modern structures in storage and replace some of the older ones on your layout when you want to switch from 1956 to 2006. Hey, if you’ve got two sets of locomotives and rolling stock you can also have two sets of trackside structures.
The only difficult thing is if you have 18 and 22 inch radius on your layout and are running HO. This is fine if you are running transition era freight with four axle locomotives. But your modern intermodel, hoppers and six axle locomotives may not like those tight curves.
The key words are - It’s your railroad!
If Joe Nitpicker doesn’t like something he sees, tell him that you’re building on a different time line in an alternate universe!
I personally have picked a very specific time and location to model, but am not a slave to it. Scenery and structures are appropriate, but sometimes strange things happen with the rolling stock! (N&W’s J and PRR’s GG-1 have been known to show up, running on track that is nominally 42 inch gauge.)
You CAN have your cake and eat it too. I am planning a layout featuring the New Haven Union Station from 1936 to 1956 with both the Shore LIne to Boston and the Electrified zone to New York. Nothing much really changed betweeen 1936 and 1956 in that area except the Branford station burned down darn it. I can run with the heavy weight consists of the thirties, the “American Flyer” OG coaches and the 8600 SS coaches. When running the HW consists I plan to use the I-4 pacifics and the I-5 Hudsons and the EP-2 and EP-3 Box cab electrics to NY. In the modern era, after 1950 I can run mixed diesels (DL-109s for instance and RS-3s) and then change over to PA and FA and EP-4 streamilned electrics. So you see, it costs a LARGE investment in both motive power and rolling stock. Fortunately, the freight cars didn’t change all that much except for the elimination of roof walks, but I blissfuly ignore that.
I model the present as much as possible, the caveat is I model the SP as if they didn’t get swallowed up, But I run a roster of locos going back to baldwin VO’s and early SD’s.
Plus with the connection to my fictional local rail line, I can have all sorts of odd units.
My layout is set-up to rotate between (right now) three time periods - 1958, 1976, and 1994. To really make it work, you can’t do it from session to session, as you really need to change autos, billboards, even some buildings.
See Feb 1983 RMC.
having that said how hard to convert from block to dcc is there a lot of work to do?