Is there anyone out there that models or has considered modeling a "what if " layout? By this I mean modeled a railroad as though an event in that railroad’s history which altered the railroads existence to it’s current form did or did not take place depending on the event.
A couple examples: What if the Rock Island didn’t go bankrupt? what would it look like today.
What if the SP/SF merger were allowed to go through?
These are couple that I thought of I’m sure there are more. What other “what ifs” would make interesting model railroads. Let’s hear your ideas.
I haven’t done it because of space limitations, but I’ve often considered a “what if” the Colorado Midland didn’t go broke? What if, instead, it merged the Rock’s line for Colorado Springs and became a strong competitor to the D&RG? I’ve gone so far as to develop some ops concepts with C Springs as the division point between 6 axle tunnel motors for the mountains and 4 axle granger across the plains. But, until I get a mega basement, that’s all it will be.
There is a lot of crossover between this topic, as I think it is framed, and the one dealing with freelancing. Essentially, the two are the same, with some room for interpretation.
The Rock Island was doomed because it somehow managed to avoid serving a number of what were (for other RR’s) lucrative traffic sources. Economics doomed it
In any case, if the Rock Island somehow could have managed to survive, it would have been folded into either the UP or BNSF. Come to think of it, significant portions of it WERE folded into the UP when UP swallowed the SP/SSW.
The SPSF merger is a different matter. Had the merger been allowed to go through, it could have resulted in the core of another system Whether or not that would have included the BN at some point is speculative, albeit plausible. BNSPSF is a mouthful. Come to think of it, BNSPSF sounds something like the last name of a Li’l Abner character.
Though I haven’t done it, I have seen many references to what others have done. Some referred to completing planned routes that were never built, if a rr had been prosperous rather than a shoestring operation. Some have even modernized as though the fallen flag had continued to prosper rather than merge or go out all together, painting locos that didn’t exist at the time the rr went out in the original paint scheme.
There may be. I didn’t really feel like wading into that one, because to me free-lacing means “whatever” – which is perfectly OK with me – for someone else.
On the other hand, I have to have some clear prototype connection or concept, firmly based in the real world, to aid the plausibility. For me, proto-lancing is enough different to make it worth discussing.
I my case, I model the Silverton Branch of the Rio Grande. A definite known quality. But my Silverton is a whole different operation in order to give it enough meat to run operations that model reasonable real-life traffic.
My Durango is a lot like Alamosa, three-rail territory, with connections to the world beyond via an imaginary standard gauge Rio Grande secondary main running from Grants, NM to Moab, Utah.
My Silverton is still served by the Mears lines, but they are consolidated into the Silverton Union RR. I have another imaginary line, a logging branch that connects at Tefft.
And there are diesels, lots of diesels, because there’s now so much traffic from a strong economy that new power was needed to supplement the steamers. One last twist is that the Rio Grande Southern still struggles on and even enjoying a bit of a revival because tourists just can’t get enough of that narrowgauge hospitality.
So half-a-dozen doses of reality and a six-pack of imagination, please…[swg]
This is what I love about our hobby! I am modeling an SP branch line(NWP) as if it were never handed off by SP and SP were never taken over by UP …just because I like the SP…and I live in the area of the NWP. I can recreate prototypical operations…but its a total ’ what-if’
May not be exactly what you meant but I am modeling Montana Rail Link along with Great Northern on a double mainline in Western Montana during the 1950’s. MRL was not established until 1987 but I lived in Helena, MT during the 80’s so wanted to include it. Also, I want to run two trains in opposite directions because they look so good passing each other. Of course, to this day their is no continuous double mainline in western Montana that I know of.
Look up & Google IAIS 513, it is Iowa Interstates Gevo Decorated for Rock Island, a model I would consider owning or custom paining.
I like ‘What if’s’ as well, & am doing a lot of that with my models of IC&E.
As so many say, they are my models, my railroad & ultimately, my enjoyment too.
It’s fun!
i think that a “what if” type layout such as you describe is an excellent idea.in fact it has put me to thinking i might change the idea and purpose of my own layout. thanks john kemp
I have 2 versions of the Pan-Am box cars, if I knew there were maore I may be motivated!!!
I was a good friend of a Pan-Am Master Mechanic, so I have a little tie to them, this is an example of one of my favorites in his memory, it will be coupled with the one missing the large lettering.
I occasionally see a Pan-Am boxcar or two floating around southern Wisconsin… nice to know a little more of the back story! I always thought it was strange.
But as other people have said, what-if is very common under the names of freelancing or protolancing. My current (planned, hoping to change that in the near future) is to what-if a modern 15" tourist line being a regional railroad in the 1880s. That’s a little bit of a stretch!
My railroad is a “what if” (or for any fellow Science Fiction fans, an “alternate universe”) railroad. In reality, the St.Paul and Duluth RR was bought by the Northern Pacific in early 1900. In my version, they arranged a trackage rights agreement - NP could run freight over the St.P&D line, and the St.P&D could run trains over the NP’s old original mainline from Duluth to Brainerd MN - and stayed independent. (The two railroads often did work together; the reason the NP’s original mainline started in Carlton MN, west of Duluth, was because the NP used trackage rights on the St.P&D to get there.) This means that when the Cuyuna Iron Range opened in 1903, the St.Paul & Duluth could have served some mines, allowing me to have iron ore traffic on the layout.
Later the railroad merged with the Port Arthur Duluth & Western (a real railroad that built south from today’s Thunder Bay ONT into northeastern Minnesota - then went bankrupt) creating the St.Paul Duluth & Canadian Railway - “The St.Paul Route”. The St.Paul Route connected the two railroads, creating a rail line up the north shore of Lake Superior that, although in reality was never built, was discussed on several occassions by real railroads.
Because the real St.Paul & Duluth ended in 1900, I had to use my imagination as far as what engines it would use (primarily USRA steam for example), diesel / streamliner color schemes (light and dark blue), depot paint schemes (I chose yellow with red and brown trim, the real St.P&D’s two-tone green didn’t appeal to me) etc. So I had the real railroad as a foundation, but still had plenty of room for free-lancing too.
My herald (as used in posts here) is somewhat based on a logo the St.Paul & Duluth used (at least in some advertising). My top passenger train is the Lake Superior Limited, which like the real 19th c. train uses and RPO/baggage combine, two coaches, a parlor car, and a cafe-observation car.
The Peach Bottom Railway, a 3 ft narrow gauge predecessor to the Maryland & Pennsylvania RR, had plans of a narrow gauge railroad stretching from Philadelphia to Orbisonia and connecting with the East Broad Top. It never got close to happening, but the middle division on the west side of the Susquehanna river and the eastern division on the east side of the river did get partially built. You could extend it both ways and add the bridge that was never built over the Susquehanna.
If I had to hazard a guess (being too lazy at this moment to actually research it), I’d hazard to guess about half of “us” do the What-If thing, also called Protolancing. I do this myself, using (more or less) prototype equipment and practices, altering our versions of history (or current day).
I model the Gainesville & NorthWestern (G&NW), as evidenced in the photo attached to my account, but in 1957, as though Southern Railway had acquired it. The real line was abandoned in the '30s, but one source said way-back-when the discussions to buy it actually happened, but never came to be. It ran about 40 miles or so in the Georgia mountains, serving lumber mills around Helen, and branches off to a mine not far from Dahlonega. The branch to the mine is (on my layout) owned by the mine, though Southern sometimes runs to the mine.
What if the RI/SP merger had not been denied? To go back a ways, what if the UP/RI merger proposal of the sixies not been denied? There is at least one SPSF modeler out there that I know of, in his world the merger was approved, he did away with the scarlet/yellow of the protoype as too Santa Fe, keeping SP dark grey with the SF bonnet rendered in scarlet, which is not too far off from reality as SP did paint one GP35 in a similar design. Yet another example is the modeler who has SP absorbing the UP, the armour yellow was retained as was the signiture SP nose wing design in scarlet.
