I’ve been struggling with myself for awhile now on locomotives and even equipment to collect for running on the layout. I tried hard to pick a specific location and era to be able to run the locos that really interested me, like the PRR with its diverse types of engines and I really liked its passenger equipment for some reason, and the NYC passenger equipment as well. I’m not just talking the PRR 4-6-2s over the B&O 4-6-2s, I mean the 4-4-4-4s and the GG-1s etc. The problem is that I also really like the Alleghenys, triplexes, cab forwards, and the big boys and challengers. Passenger equipment only compounds the problem with the color schemes from roads across the US being very interesting to me. The best I can come up with is to start collecting all these different roads that interest me and from time to time magically change the locale of the layout from PA to WV to CO , etc.
Am I commiting a sin or are there others that do this as well?
I’m going to repeat the obvious----look at your layout–it is generic hence----you can dang well run whatever you feel like running. Heck–I know of one fellow that just says he runs the Alleghanies and the challengers both together—
Sooner or later Mr. Wallet will demand that you focus your purchases. If you plan to build a layout with a particular theme, that helps. But you could pick a terminal area like St. Louis, which would give you a certain amount of liberty to run more stuff with a degree of logic to it.
I model Hagerstown, Maryland, where the WM met the PRR, N&W and B&O, and also ran a lot of through traffic via the Reading. So my layout gets a pretty good variety of engines to run, and I still have a fairly coherent operating scheme.
That’s not to say that we don’t get some occasional excursion equipment through!
It may be hard to accept at first, but the answer is 3-Rail O-Gauge. Build yourself a High-Rail layout and run whatever your heart desires. 3-Rail has come a Long Way in the last 15 years, detail to rival HO Brass, Command Control, detailed structure kits and a much more relaxed Hobby.
Another possibilty if you model one of the Class one roads is the "visitor’’ engines are on loan for evaluation.
Of course,that would only work if you had one non home road steam loco at a time “testing”. In the diesel era you could have a set,or if you model modern,any combination of roads is possible.
It all depends on you,though. Many layouts I`ve seen have owners who happily run whatever they want.
The main thing is to have fun doing it your way. If your way is modeling a specific day on a specific road,great.
If it is to run whatever road you want with no specific prototype etc,that is fine too.
As a former three-railer, the thing I miss most is that guys weren’t judgmental about what you decided to model, they just appreciated what you had. If you wanted to go “hi-rail” and run scale sized stuff only, that was fine; if you wanted to run reproductions of 1930’s toy trains, that was fine - and if you wanted to run both on the same layout, that was OK too!!
Anyway, my solution to a similar problem is building a two-deck layout with the upper being a specific location (NP-Soo joint iron ore line from Superior WI to the Cuyuna Iron Range in MN), point-to-point with an emphasis on switching and operation, and the lower being a fairly generic layout allowing two trains to run continously so I can run trains (especially passenger trains) from a variety of railroads.
Of course, you could always model Chicago, since pretty much every railroad seemed to get there directly or by trackage rights!! [:)]
My solution to the various multiple schemes: I have a Major Motion Picture production company located along my ROW that will lease time on my main line to run their equipment, that way I can have any road running on my rails in any time period…OK, so it’s a strech, but I like it! Gives me a reason to place a turntable and roundhouse on my modern day layout.
What is the “problem”…exactly? If it’s money, you will spend all you can no matter what “solution” you derive.
We make up what “fun” is as we go along in this hobby. For some, they decide that fun will be much funner if they listen to those who tell them to do X, Y, and Z, and for gosh sakes, NEVER L, G, and W.
On the other hand, some of us like to make up or own fun since we have to live with the decisions, and since those decision are borne of personal preferences. It’s a hobby! Hobbies are presumably meant to give us a good feeling.
How have I developed that good feeling? By buying what I want and using it as I wish to. If I want fidelity to a prototype, I work towards it. If I want a layout filled with Alleghenies, Y6b’s, S1b’s, J1’s, and such, each built to specs by different railroads, then Crandell is darned well going to get what, and as, he can pay for or build. I have at least one engine from each of the UP, NYC, PRR, N&W, TH&B, CPR, and the C&O. I love each engine, carefully selected to scratch an itch for me.
The rest is just a confluence of skills-building, imagineering, playing, and magic.
My layout I described earlier - which I should mention is just in the early stages of construction - is designed with the idea of switching the era modelled in a rotation. Every 3-4 months or so I plan to move ahead 15-20 years and then eventually go back to the steam era and start over. I not only like a lot of railroads, but I like everything from 36’ wood boxcars to doublestacks!!
No reason you couldn’t do something like that with locale too. Although my lower level layout is going to be set in Minnesota, I’m also a big fan of the New York Central. It’s occured to me that part of the area I’m basing the layout on - northern Minnesota - isn’t that different from the scenery in upstate New York. Since there will be a large area with very few buildings, it wouldn’t be that hard to switch it.
For example, I thought about getting some Atlas interlocking tower kits for the junction I plan to have, that will feature a tower. I could build the lower (brick) part of the building per usual, and do a detailed interior on the top. I would do one upper (wood) story decorated for my free-lance railroad, but then use the other kits to make upper sections in the paint scheme of several other railroads. The upper story would be removeable so all I’d have to do is remove one and put another in it’s place to change railroads.
You could do the same thing with an inexpensive depot kit too, and/or the Atlas water tank (make the base permanent, and make up several different water tanks in different railroad’s colors.)
There are a great many ways you can ‘excuse’ foreign power on your MR. In my case, I model mainly Rio Grande standard-gauge steam, but since I also like Southern Pacific steam, I gave SP ‘Trackage rights’ on my fictional Rio Grande Yuba River Sub.
Since my MR is ‘set’ during the WWII/Korean conflict era (1940-53), it also gives me an excuse to run ‘loaners’ from other railroads, as actually happened during traffic upsurges during those years. That way I have no trouble explaining away some locos I have from the C&S, Great Northern, ATSF and as far east as the Chesapeake and Ohio.
I also have 3 Missabe Yellowstones lettered for Rio Grande, and explain it away that the Rio Grande was so impressed with the Missabe locos when they borrowed them for a winter, that the road went to Baldwin for Missabe copies before the War Board froze locomotive designs.
One neat thing about having it ‘Your’ railroad, is that you can tweak history a bit to allow you to run what you like.
I created a fictitious railroad called the Allegheny that has trackage rights to the nearest PRR division yard. That lets me model the PRR as close as I can to the prtotype while the ARR bought everything and anything available from any railroad for its trains. During an operating session I go strictly PRR. Other than that anything goes.
I don’t think that my personal preference of prototype is any secret…
So, how do I justify the presence in cassettes of assorted 4-8-4s, a couple of other obviously American steam locos and a GG-1?
Frankly, I have fond memories of their prototypes, memories acquired at trackside, not of the stuffed and mounted remnant in some museum. So. I have them. When the spirit moves me, I run them.
If some purist takes exception to my modeling practices (which include running imagineered kitbash and freelance stock of no known ancestry) I remind that person of the Golden Rule:
He who spends the gold, makes the rules.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - more or less)
This option, or maybe a tour RR, sounds good. Could even have a few places where a rail car could get spotted. But I’m also one of those people who tend to believe it’s my world and I can do what ever I want, when I want, and how I want to. I mean that about everything, but it actually does cross over into model RR world, where it really is YOUR world. You have the choice of what to model. What buildings to use, what industries to buy. What loco’s you want, the cars you want. So I say just do it. If anything, mark everything with name plate that attaches with velcro. If a visitor complains and says something about it jsut take off the name plate and tell them “well there you go it is no longer this town on the PRR subdivision”. Or just make another name plate that says “This is my layout, not yours, shut your hole” and stick it in place. I’m kind of a smarty pants too so I would either be doing the latter idea I mentioned or just running it as is knowing that it’s just buggin the heck out of the visitor that first complained.
I haven’t got flack yet but I will be in your boat soon. I plan to model a present day version Milwaukee Road. Complete with modern diesels (one such Dash 9’s) and modern cars, like high cube box cars, 5100 cubic foot hoppers, center beam flats, and I may even resurrect teh Hiawatha. It would just be Amtrac cars painted in a more modern Hiawatha paint scheme but still.
It’s your railroad, and it’s for your enjoyment, whatever you do is never sin. I model the Boston & Maine but I run favorite rolling stock that in real life never came anywhere near B&M rails. And enjoy watching it run too. So enjoy owning and running stuff. If you like, invent plausible reasons for say Missouri Pacific Alco FA2’s in Massachusetts, but if your imagination runs a little dry, just run the stuff and enjoy it.
