Do you fudge the truth?

[Puddington]

Fudge.. yep... I model the interior of British Columbia on a route planned but not built; I run CP maroon passenger trains about 10 years after they were reduced to rare bears; have the PGE (which would now be the BCR) operating a rail barge in Southern BC, completely ignore the fact the fact that BCR has "happened' and am slowly eliminating BN in favour of more classic Hill Road traffic... so why not back date to say, 1966..? because I also run Action Red.... oh well; I fudge...............

[Spades]

I know most of us have very strong feeling for our trains.  I have been fortunate to see Jack Burgess, Yosemite Valley Railroad.  Meticulously researched and executed. If you look at photo of the real railroad and look at his layout the terrain, structures, track arrangement and train are identical, but if you tried to fire one of his locomotives with real steam you would burn down the house.  My point is we spend our free time/passion on model trains,  but I would not recommend sharing this fudge part with anyone other than a select few.  Although if you want to see your spouses eyes glaze, I would say go for it.

G   

[rswinnerton]

My layout is going to have a small railroad museum online that operates the occasional excirsion with steam or very early diesel. Just an excuse to buy and weather a steamer and give the few pieces of offbeat N scale a place to languish.

[nkalanaga]

"one of the BN annuals I have says that BN had everything locomotive painted to Green and Black by 1976 or 1977."

And then, in 1978, they re-repainted an RS-3 in NP colors, leaving it sitting near the Pasco hump for several months.  It looked very nice, and a little out of place.  The story I heard was that it had been stripped, was basically just a shell on wheels, and was repainted for some type of court case.  I never found out any other details.  But there it sat, until we moved that summer, and I've often wondered what they did with it.  After all that work I hope it went to a museum, or at least a park somewhere.

[robert3985]

I know most of us have very strong feeling for our trains.  I have been fortunate to see Jack Burgess, Yosemite Valley Railroad.  Meticulously researched and executed. If you look at photo of the real railroad and look at his layout the terrain, structures, track arrangement and train are identical, but if you tried to fire one of his locomotives with real steam you would burn down the house.  My point is we spend our free time/passion on model trains,  but I would not recommend sharing this fudge part with anyone other than a select few.  Although if you want to see your spouses eyes glaze, I would say go for it.

G   

HO scale real steam?  Not so ridiculous as you may think.... 

[John]

I model the Maryland and Ohio Railroad on Sept 21, 2006 @ 12:37AM.   I sometime let rolling stock from 1985 to 2014 on the layout though

[Freight Train]

Years ago I had a friend who collected various N scale trains not just from different eras here in the U.S. but also trains from around the world and asked how he could run all these different trains together on one layout ? The only thing that came to mind as a possible answer was to build a museum style layout where all those different varieties could be placed & displayed together as you would not see all those different trains from around the world placed together in a real world setting. This went from fudging a little to fudging a lot knowing that fudge comes in multiple flavors too !

[signalmaintainer]

I do. I operate two Southern Railway SD-9s numbered 208 and 209, with correct check digits. But the Southern Railway's real SD-9 roster ended at #207.

My backstory is that these two SD-9s were owned by the Slate Fork Railway before the Southern acquired it in the early 1960s.

[EJN]

Wow, resurrecting a thread from 2014. I feel like I'm on the MR forums...

[mu26aeh]

Sure do.  After G&W/Bayline #3065 (ex Western Maryland 3798) arrived back on home rails last year serving on the Maryland Midland, it was sent out for a generator replacement.  Some of the WM foamers wanted G&W to bring it back in a WM heritage scheme.  It never came back as the B&P decided they were going to keep it on their line, and instead sent back 3 of their SD50s to the Midland.  I saw a opportunity to paint up an N scale "what if " G&W/WM heritage unit.  So here is G&W/Maryland Midland/Western Maryland heritage #3065

[fcnrwy23]

Ya, The FCN is now..  2005 - 2020.
I still like running my Kato C30-7s.
They are the only 6-axles units that work with my 9 3/4" radius.
Most of the new stuff, post 2010 have issues with their "Swing".   

Jerry G.

[TW877]

Same here. My modeling era covers the last 10-15 years, but there is that odd GN F45 that will be running on the future layout. I somehow really like that boxy blue unit, so it has been declared a heritage unit. Might get ditch lights in the future 

Chris

[MVW]

Wow, I never realized what a bunch of fudgin' fudgers everyone is. 

I'm the same. Operations are built around C&NW timetables from 1954-55, but I can't possibly accommodate the actual flow of traffic. And while the real mainline through Iowa had been double-tracked a half-century earlier, I kept mine single, to allow space for other things and increase operational interest. As has been said, it's done for fun, not as a museum display ... but I still can't help but feel some regrets regarding the single track. 

Jim

[Dave V]

My 1938-1947 era is wide enough that I have some locomotives that have parts cannibalized from other locomotives that are also still in service, so--for example--the headlight from RGS 25 that's on RGS 41 is also still on my RGS 25...two locomotives with the same headlight. In fact RGS 25 was scrapped before the famous "sunrise herald" was applied to any of the RGS equipment, which most of my stuff wears. So yeah, I kind of have a "best of" collection for my RGS rather than a snapshot of a particular day.

A more subtle example of truth fudging--and @davefoxx and I have discussed this at length--is applying decals and lettering as straight and even as possible on our models even when the prototype was clearly crooked or sloppy. After the mid-1930s, the RGS never once put a stencil on straight or even. But to me, if I were to follow the prototype, it'd look like sloppy modeling. So all my lettering is as straight as I can make it, which means in my miniature universe, the RGS Ridgway paint shop actually has a level and a tape measure.

[CRL]

There’s “fudging the truth” and there’s “as long as the light’s out, she won’t know until it’s too late” lying 🤥.