What Era Are You Modeling?

[LV LOU]

May as well post as the minority needs to have their say...
I'm modeling 1930, lumber industry on it's last legs in PA, later than that would eliminate the industry I'm depending on for operating fun. Of course there are a few diesels hiding in the cracks, all ATSF zebra stripes and pre-1950. (it's easy to blot out the small ATSF heralds) so I can update the railroad to the 40's if my steamers give out. 
Ernie C

Ernie,I'm also working on a seperate 2-1/2 X 6 foot railroad that models just that,1930's lumber and also ice harvesting operations in Northeastern Pa,the Lopez and Bernice,[pronounced "Bernis"..] two actual little country towns in deep woods Eastern Pa. that had connections to the LV,and LV coal mining operations.The "lumber" was mostly used in the local mines..I'm building it to give a fun home to all the little oddball steam I like to build...I'm using extra ME C70 track I have since a lot of the locos are old stuff,and Atlas Tru-Track C65 switches to keep it simple.It's gonna be all styrofoam so it's easily transportable..

[dualgauge]

Around 1963 through 1965. That way can have 1st and 2nd generation diesels. Cabooses on freights and passenger trains.

[thbguy]

I voted for transition, but actually I have much more ambitious plans for steam-only, transition and 1st and 2nd gen diesels. Primarily southern Ontario Canada circa 1956 and 1978, but (with minor layout changes) I hope to also have the ability to run some equipment in 1936, 1948, 1967, and 1986!

From Toronto Union station westward via Bayview to Fort Erie and Windsor,
Michael Livingston 

[bdennis]

I model '69 to '80 on the D&H.. So I can run S2 / S4 all the way through to C424's.

[R L Smith]

I also concentrate on two eras, New York's Southern Tier in 1952 (1st gen diesels, mostly brown 40 ft boxcars, and the ability to run steam if and when acquired) with a secondary interest in 1970 (SD-45's pulling autorack and TOFC cars, ALCo C-424's).

I have no explanation for the pair of "yellowjacket" B40-8's that have mysteriously appeared recently...

Ron

[PGE-N°2]

If I had to give an actual date range, I would say mid-70s, but I do have some other miscellaneous items, as well.

[Flatrat]

For the record:
Built a layout of rolling, rural hills, farmland reminiscent of my youth in central Maryland. Modeling the early 50's transitional era of Western Maryland. Late steam and early diesel engines with Fireball logos and freights with the round herald is what I'm after.

That said, I also designed the layout to kind of resemble "everywhere/everytime" USA so if i want to run other roadnames later, many will look at home on my layout.

Scott

[fredmoehrle]

I've given the era thing some thought while driving around for work.
For one thing, I think the MRR community clings to the divisions created long ago by the Lynn Wescott generation. 
Like many things from that era, it was a good start, but needs to be updated to reflect half a century of living history.
One problem I perceived is that MRR & Railfans try to break them up in two different ways.
What was going on technologically, and what was going on economically & politically, and the two don't always coincide.
For example, the Great Depression saw RR's trying to survive the financial crises, so little was expected on that front, except the demise of quite a few RR's.
But technologically, it was a time of great advances, super-powered steam and the early diesel locomotives.
So the same era could be described as a time of financial disaster, or of technological leaps and bounds.
Economic/political I'd divide up eras as such;
1915-1920 WW1
1920-1929 Golden Years
1930-1940 Depression
1941-1950 WW2 and recovery
1951-1960 Transition era (steam to diesel)
1961-1965 The Zenith
1966-1978 Collapse & dark ages
1978-1984 The renaissance
1985-1999 The mega-merger
2000+        The modern era.  The modern age is going to have to be moved up ever decade or so.  Twelve years ago I would have called 1991-2000 the modern age.

Technologically I'd break it up like this, mind you, I don't know enough about steam to go back to far.
1931-1940 Super power steam, early diesel.

1941-1960 1st generation diesel.

1961-1972 2nd gen diesel.

1973-1986 -2/C 3rd generation diesels, or micro processor era.  An attempt was made to improve performance through the use of electrical technology.

1987-1998 60/-8/-9 or 4th generation diesels.  The lessons learned, and new technologies in design and engineering allow a rapid increase in HP and fuel economy.

1999+   5th gen diesels.  The environmental era.  Rapid uprate in government air quality regulations causes the HP race to take a back seat to efficiency and emissions control.

That's how I look at it, the powers that be seem to lump every thing from '72 on into one category, but even the manufacturers site myriad differences in the loco's abilities per HP from 40 years ago.

Just my $.02 worth.

[C855B]

Fred, as you know there are few hard demarcation points and many overlaps in the era discussion, but here's one: the Staggers Act, in 1980. Depending on your POV, it is either what saved the railroads, or what destroyed railroading as we knew it. Truth is probably both.

Anyway, the mega-mergers began with Staggers - (again, 1980) - because if you were a regional Class I (Frisco, WP, MKT, MP come to mind), your revenues depended on the old ICC tariff system. After Staggers, transcons could bypass regionals merely by offering a lower rate for the end-to-end haul with fewer interchanges. Choice was simple for the regionals - sell your assets to a transcon, or wither on the vine after your run-through interchange disappeared.

I argue an overlapping era, 1985-1995, called "The Great Dismantlement". This is when thousands of miles of light-traffic mains and branchlines were abandoned, some pulled-up the day the abandonments were approved by whatever gov't. body was responsible (some even before). CSX started this mess and the others followed suit. UP eventually regretted it, and lost business, some probably permanently, because by ripping-up "redundant" mainlines they bottlenecked their railroad into inability to handle seasonal traffic peaks. It was ugly.

[fredmoehrle]

Mike,
I had it in my memory that the Staggers act was 1978, hence that date I chose for that eco-politco era.
I might be off by a year or two.
But also the per-diam boxcars really exploded (  in number!) about then, and also, a lot of new technology took hold about then also.

The RR's went from almost absolute goverment oversight to almost total deregulation for the first time in what, 90 years?
There was a lot of mistakes to be made (all over again).

Imho, the terms "survived" or "changed" don't catch the nuances quite properly, "evolved" seems more appropriate to me.  Vs. going extinct, which was something I heard quite a bit back then.

Being in Michigan, I was more cognitive of the disappearance of track that couldn't earn it's keep, like the GTW Pontiac, South Lyon, Whitmore Lake, Pinckney to Jackson  line in about '86.
Or the myriads of redundant lines out east.  Even here in the Great Lakes region, there's areas where the class ones are reinstalling double track that they yanked out to soon.

[Ian MacMillan]

...some pulled-up the day the abandonments were approved by whatever gov't. body was responsible (some even before)...

Guilford Rail was notorious for this... pull it up and say "oops...it hasn't been approved?...Oh, not even applied for?"

[Specter3]

My main focus is Southern Railway, just got sd40-2s mid 70s, in northern Alabama. But I now have that pretty well covered equipment wise. I have recently built a module that I am calling mid 30s New York with the New Haven as it's focus. Wow, talk about different worlds. All steam, no boxes longer than 36ft and passenger ops. Like two different worlds.

[u18b]

I primarily model pre-millennial CSX --from July 1, 1986 to the Conrail merger.
So no Dark Future for me as a general rule (sometimes I need one for an article).

By modeling pre-millennial CSX, I can model over 100 paint schemes.

Aside from my primary focus, I model anything that I find interesting and might write an article for.
In fact, one of the locos in the skunk works site is ..... a Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis loco.

[kpcmcpkva]

      the New Haven, NY,NH & H, pantographs and internal combustion to the end.

[JoeD]

Pacific Electric Railway/SP between 1955 and 1960 in the Western District of Los Angeles.  Typical Citrus switching style ops with overheads eventually.



Joe
MTL