In order to deepen the knowledge of the time epoche, let's gather, which is important when you want to avoid anachronism. The reader should find information whether a 8-corner stop sign is correct, a white strip on the road in the time. How are the buildings which locomotives and cars are new, which out of date, but still seen the vehicles of the roads, how traffic signs look? Appearance of the persons (mini skirt, buggy) next fast food places, billboards and what else important to recognize this layout's era. Wolfgang
Model a DISCO With a tour bus by the stage door & the Village People coming off the bus.Or The Bee Gees & John Travolta singing Night Fever?
Well acording to my wife, green and black locomotives and cabooses! Seriously, Major roads at this point had dual yellow lines, while some of the real back roads had single white lines. Stop signs were red and a octogon. Cabooses were still in use until 1987. Pepsi had a different logo than it has now, the Pepsi word was between the red and blue ying yang thing. MTV started in 1983. Minivans were not out until 1984. Chessie was still around in the early part of the 1980's, the Rock was dead by March of 1980. Conrail was no longer a government company and looked more "blue" than it did in the 1970's. GG1's were gone by 1983. Popular cars for the yuppies were BMW's and Mercedes. Common folk like me enjoyed Toyota's, Honda's and sometimes a Buick. Cars got smaller by 1986. Railroads were in transition from the lean 1970's and getting ready for the 1990's. SD50's were new as well as SD60's from EMD. That is all I can remember from my good ole days
The birth of Monster trucks. Started out that any guy with a 4X4 would jack it up as high as possible and put the biggest tires you could find under it. These tires scale out to be 42" mudders. I wish I could remember more, but those were my years of experimentation
Also, modelling the 80's could include abandoned spurs or modelling abandoned, overgrown roadbeds. Much trackage was lifted in the 80's. The Seaboard Coast Line for example ripped up 65miles of major rail between Petersburg, VA and Norlina, NC. Also, a great Class III railroad, The Norfolk, Franklin, and Danville was completely abandoned and all tracks were taken up. I grew up on that small railroad and hated seeing its demise.
