Summer of 1949 Wisconsin. No expensive containers, no expensive autorack cars etc. It does limit what i can buy but I have a tremendous amount of stuff as it is. I did dispose of everything that doesn't fit. and I keep a spreadsheet listing the equipment i have so nothing gets duplicated. Sometimes I purposely buy a duplicate to renumber like the MT gondolas. My last purchase was the two Blatz wooden reefers from Atlas. With the stuff I already have there is not a lot left for me to buy. Randy
My layout philosophy is does it look plausible? No rigid compliance to prototype but each component that makes the layout should have as much real life detail as possible.
My railroad is set in 1980. This way my power makes sense, I get to paint and patch Rock Island equipment as bankruptcy auction wins, and cabooses are always in season. This also extends to my Ann Arbor equipment, as 1980ish is my favorite time period for the railroad. I definitely stray from 1980 a good bit...but most of my stuff fits right into that year.
I have considered something similar. I had considered starting in 1947 and going up to 1981. The B&O would have FTs but other than that, it would be steam. The WM would have steam. The non-historic SC&N would be mostly steam, but have its WPB assigned two NW-2s and one VO-1000. I would then move forward in time. More and updated diesels would appear, steam would go. By 1954, there would be only one WM steam locomotive. By 1957 it would be gone from the B&O. The SC&N would hold out until 1961 with one ten-wheeler and ancient Number Three, a 2-6-0 originally acquired in the 1880s and constantly rebuilt. Those two would have mostly a back up role, as a torpedo boat GP-9 would do the passenger trains and the main freight power would be the FM road switcher acquired in 1949. Passenger trains would disappear and those that remained would have their equipment changed. Some businesses would either close or stop using rail service. Other buildings would be re-ppurposed; some wold be torn down and leave empty lots while others were replaced. The FM on the SC&N would be a mechanical orphan and likely retired in the early 1970s along with the VO-1000. The two NW-2s and the torpedo boat GP-9 would be sufficient to handle all remaining traffic. It looked like it was going to be too complicated so I decided to leave it where it is: mid-1950s. I push a little bit on the equipment as I am retaining some WM and B&O steam. WM got rid of almost all of its by 1954 and after 1954, almost all steam was gone from the B&O east of Cumberland, Maryland. If, however, you are adding fictitious secondaries, bleed-offs and branches, you can justify retaining equipment past its historical presence. The B&O/WM steam is restricted solely to that secondary/branch as there would have been insufficient diesel power available at the time to handle all trains on the historic and fictitious lines in the area.
I think that's a custom paint job with decals from K4. I know I have a set of their V&O decals waiting for me... There have been V&O cars made. I have a pair of hoppers and company service tank car which were Micro-Trains Special Runs. In the "Appalachian Lines" scheme, Fox Valley did a boxcar and Intermountain did a covered hopper.
March-April, 1953. Coast Division, Santa Margarita Sub. Prior to SP launching TOFC service in May. Black Overnight cars, Daylight still Steam powered. Easier to research/model with this "narrow" focus. It also makes "purchases" simpler, one doesn't "need" anything/everything that has SP on it... works for me
That's the time period for my Delaware, Susquehanna & Northern too, a freelance regional serving eastern PA soon after CR's formation. Being freelance, I can run any anthracite roads power I wish, but I've strayed a bit, reaching to 1982 to recognize NS with a boxcar I wanted. What's kind of interesting is that I built my first DS&N in 1980, pre-dating the real and quite similar Reading Blue Mountain and Northern by three years. Per @freddy_fo 's philosophy, as long as things look plausible, I'm happy with it. At 65+ years old, I've relaxed my expectations of exactitude.
UP up to about '75 from the mid 40's. So some of what ran in the late 40's early 50's wasn't running in the 70's but that is OK with me. Not planning any steam though. I lived in Laramie, WY on and off (more on than off) from '63 to '75 and for a while on 1st St. with UP's main line about 25 feet from my front door so UP means more to me than any other line. BN ran within about 100 feet of my house outside Sheridan, WY for the years I lived there (70's-80's) but I was on the spur to the coal mines just north in Montana so only saw coal trains from the house. My avatar is a watercolor I did of a photo I took of UP 951 (still active) while living in Laramie. Sumner
Around 1955 in Ogden, allows me to run UP/SP PAs, Es, Fs, the Kato City of LA, PFE reefer blocks. It also saves me lots of money on not buying everything else! - Tonkphilip
Lets see: 1850 to current, Northern Hemisphere. Is that specific enough? If it catches my fancy, I run it!
Micro-Trains car repainted V&O, using Scalecoat D&H Blue (not a bad match!) and K4 decals. I've got a number of V&O cars and a few engines! Sorry...back to this topic!
My RR of choice is the Montour RR from 1951 to abandonment in 1983. The Montour was basically a coal hauling RR about 45 miles long serving various mines west of Pittsburgh. Motive power was 12 SW9's and rolling stock was 2 bay open hoppers. Add some ex UP cabooses and you are set. That being said I also run Ntrak and there I run everything else, mostly PRR and N&W that I have managed to accumulate. I will be thinning the herd here shortly selling off my non DCC friendly motive power and possibly some undecorated DCC friendly ones. The jury is still out on the selling the DCC friendly ones.
That said, I really do enjoy the work of modelers that re-create eras and locales and bring them to life again. Their work is amazing to see, but far beyond my skill and patience.
Somewhere in western USA. late 1970's to late 1990's-ish. No roof walks on boxcars. I have a 50's-60's train that stays together, and a 1930's-40's train that also stays together, but haven't ran it in a few years. I have BNSF stuff too, but with the way modern RRing is I am reverting back to pre BNSF it seems, When I see a BNSF car it comes off the MRR and into storage for now. SL-SF/QA&P, D&RGW/SP, BN.
My earlier answer is in Limbo right now, as I found out the last railroad to run steam in this country ran right in my town until 1986. So I may be modeling the Crab Orchard & Egyptian in Marion IL on September 3, 1986! That would be neat as it interchanged with the IC, BN and Mopac, lots of options. Plus they only had 3 engines at this time, a 2-8-0 and had literally just purchased days earlier, 2 SW9s from Mopac. I can model all 3 of these with motive power I have now, if I can find a way to duplicate the decals for the tender.
