I can't get teary eyed over the decaying railroads of the 50/60s I can still recall the mid to late 50s and how everything looked dirty and well worn and as a teen in the 60s it just got worst as the railroads continue decaying away.Terrible. I seen the rebirth of the railroads in the mid 70s,through the 80s and into the 90s and I like modeling the rebirth years far more then the decaying years.
Friday, the 18th of May, I went to our local lumber company & spoke with a guy I know. I ordered, and they had it in, a 30"x80" HCD. He's going to cut it down to 48" for me. He's taking the end piece and both gluing & tacking it in the newly cut end. Finally, something advancing for my n scale modeling. Now, to answer your question. My railroad will reflect my youth spending time on the railroad with my father. First it was PRR, then PC, then CR. My best moments were in the PRR/PC era. Everyone & their brother hates PC, yes I am already well aware of this, so don't blow a blood vessel over it. *chuckle*
I like polls... but find that there is rarely an exact answer for the question... unless it only gives you a choice of yes or no. This is another one where there's a close answer (which I chose)... but the reality is the complete answer is totally different. For some reason... the part of Maryland that I grew-up in did not have railroad crossings near where i lived. In fact I can't remember anywhere there was an industry served by a railroad in the early 1960s to early 1970's. I remember seeing ONE F unit locomotive passing over us on a girder bridge in Washington DC... it was a B&O... I can't remember any other event which would have 'inspired' me to be a model railroader. Yet... I remember being given a tinplate steamer, O scale, battery operated trainset when I was about 5 yrs old and LOVED IT. A few years later I got an HO trainset with New Haven diesel for Christmas and put it up for several years around the tree. When I was eleven, I asked my dad to get me a piece of wood and some casters so I could build a simple double loop of track and have it permanantly set-up so I could slide it under my bed... no mountains, valleys or rivers... simply 'plywood plains' set-up. I used to save my lunch money and every few weeks I had enough to buy a passenger car at a hobby shop I used to pass-by coming from my youth bowling league. I bought Northern Pacific passenger cars (AHM brand???) I bought the unpowered B unit engine... but could not afford the powered A unit... so I asked for that to be a Christmas present. So now I had an F unit New Haven on the inside loop... and a Northern Pacific passenger set on the outside loop. Little did I know that these two roads wouldn't come within 1000 miles of each other... and little did I care... It was just for fun. I was 'forced' to give up model railroading when I was 13 due to a relocation to Florida. I saw more diesels in one day in South Florida than I saw in 8 years in Washington DC/Maryland combined. YET... I never had an interest in the FEC, ACL or the SAL railroads. But.. I was pretty much out of the model railroad hobby and other things that interest teenagers had taken root. So now the reason I chose... You consider your time and place to be "The Golden Age". I got the 'itch' to get back into model railroading when I tuned 25 and found out I was going to be a father. I chose N scale because we lived in an efficiency apartment and I could make a layout in a 2 x 4 area. I chose a WESTERN road because that was the most popular at the time... SANTA FE. It was an iconic railroad... I liked the colors... and unlike FLORIDA... It ran through some mountainous terrain. My second choice... was D&RGW... because I loved the ConCor/Kato locomotive and the D&RGW slogan... Mainline Through the Rockies (yes I like mountains). These two railroads had popular passenger trains that were well known symbols of the GOLDEN AGE OF RAILROADING... the Super Chief and the California Zephyr. If you remember... when I purchased my first HO roliing stock it was an NP passenger train... unfortunately... that option was not available. AND THAT's THE REST OF THE STORY!!
My first serious model railroad was based on the Rio Grande. My dad's family are from Texas, and on a family trip to visit, we drove through Colorado and I was hooked. Then, a few years ago, faced with limited space to build a layout, I thought about where I grew up, San Jose, Ca. I remembered seeing my first F units, WP's Fab Four F7s when visiting SJ's Flea Market. I did some research and found a new favorite. I haven't looked back since!
