American Railroad Eras

[TiVoPrince]

Lee
is probably very close to the mark.  Subcategories by letter/alpha designation need to be added to further sort out five-ish year periods.  This would place my modeling primarily Era 'IVd' and just a hint of Era 'Va' or maybe that's Eras IV4 and V1.  I find this system a bit comforting in that I can buy locos and rolling stock without investng considerable agonizing research on every single purchase.  

While the names of individual epochs may cause much discontent if the Conrail merger is deemed worthy of naming an era (or sub era for that matter) but the UP, NS or BNSF megamerger did not get the same 'love'.  I find that this could be helpful, unless the politicos at the NMRA decide that they must adopt and infinately micro manage the project to the point it does not happen in my lifetime...

[Dave V]

...hence the utter futility of artificial taxonomy.

[sirenwerks]

I like what Lee started, but would get rid of the 'transition' designation altogether and correct the end of it thusly...

Era 5:  1940-1955, Late Steam (Modernization & turbines)
Era 6:  1955-1972, Early Diesel (1st & 2nd gen, rise of the turbo, the covered hopper & early intermodal)
Era 7:  1973-1984, The Consolidation Era (Take over of 6 axles, Mergers, Amtrak/PC/Conrail, Deregulation & the end of electrified freight ops & the slow death of the box car)
Era 8:  1985-2000, Deregulation Era (Rise of the regionals, maturity of intermodal)
Era 9:  2000-present, Current Era (Waiting for the other shoe to drop...)

[sirenwerks]

Tivo, your point about buying product without researching is interesting. I really wish manufacturers would make more effort to educate the consumer. For locos, productions are so few why not provide a brief history of a loco (by number) for each road/unit number? This could include date of purchase; major detail changes attributed to shoppings, rebuilds, and accidents; repaintings; removal of unit from a roster due to resales/trade-ins/scrapping; maybe some unique moments in the units life; etc. For cars, at least basic info, such as readable build/shop dates would help. They do the research anyway, at least we hope so. So why not provide the consumer with that information? It would be a value-added service to the consumer.

[C855B]

You know, after chewing on this for a few hours, I came to the sudden realization that the dividing line between railroads as a defining component of Classic Industrial America and the beginning of "the great deterioration" into irrelevance was proximate to the Penn Central merger in '68. Yeah, the N&W gobbled-up Virginian, Nickel Plate and Wabash earlier in the decade, but PC, and then two years later, BN, pretty much defined the direction the industry was going in the merger or absorption of transcon-class lines.

The loss of Alco in '69 also defined the end of an era, as well. Then consider that EMD max'ed out the state-of-the-art with the SD45 in 1966, sat on their technology laurels for several years (with well-known spot exceptions), and then single-handedly initiated The Era of Total Blandness with the SD40-2 line in '72.

I don't know quite how this refines our time-line, but it is worth considering in the mix.

[TiVoPrince]

Tivo, your point about buying product without researching is interesting. I really wish manufacturers would make more effort to educate the consumer.

Actually
I would love to cross paths with a model I was completely unaware of that is correct for Era IVc and buy it with full confidence because it fits my needs/goals and the information I needed was right there at the moment I had it in my hands.  No need to ask a hobby shop to hold something for a week or so while I troll endless photo and historic society websites looking for answers to my 'is it right for 1984?' question. 

Painted/built date or even a shop date that I don't need a magnifier to see would be helpful.  Atlas does a fine job on the website but the packaging on the shelf really needs this information too.  I fully realize that manufacturers are reluctant to put information on a package that will result in a non-sale.  I'm hoping that someday manufacturers become brave enough to provide detailed facts to help my decision right at the shelf.  Fortunately I have behind the scenes web access at my local shop, but elsewhere all that great information is not available and makes purchase decisions agonizing when I happen into something I think I may want, but don't buy, because I really don't need any more out of era stuff that will just linger semi-permanently in storage...

I don't believe that Era/age information will ever be a substitute for self-directed research but a little more fact at the hobby shop shelf would make purchasing a pure pleasure experience, not a crapshoot...

[John]

This is easy - for modeling purposes

Era 1 - All that steam head junk

Era 2 - All the real engines

[FrankCampagna]

All interesting comments. Don't forget Lima's introduction of the Berkshire changed the game considerably. About 1927, wasn't it?

Frank

[Mark5]

This thread was destined for chaos, and thus has achieved it! ;D

Mark

[DKS]

After watching this topic unfold, I was wondering if it would come to some reasonable conclusion, or suffer increasing entropy, as Mark correctly noted. I sense that the core of the problem is that there are few if any solid dividing points in railroading history around which eras can be defined. Further difficulty arises when one tries to reconcile eras based on railroad industry trends ("consolidation", etc.) versus motive power trends (steam vs. diesel, etc.); this is before even touching the issue of being real-world versus modeler-oriented.

As can be seen by the discussion so far, dividing points are actually fuzzy dividing periods, some of which overlap to the extent that it becomes nearly a continuum. I think the only truly workable solution is to simplify the system: assign eras more or less arbitrarily, use far fewer of them, and name them with deliberate ambiguity. Otherwise, attempting to reach consensus will be futile, as there will be no end of wrangling over when exactly the dividing point should be between Eras VIIb and VIIc.

My humble suggestion:

Era I: Pre-1900, "Growth"
Era II: 1900-1940, "Railroading as Big Business" (this one is hard to encapsulate in a one- or two-word description; suggestions?)
Era III: 1940-1960, "Transition"
Era IV: 1960-1980, "Consolidation"
Era V: 1980-2000, "Deregulation"
Era VI: 2000-present, "Modernization"

[C855B]

That's pretty concise, David. Good. And it expresses the "flavor" of what we're after. Plus it hits convenient decade boundaries without being too far off from specific milestones.

That said, I would suggest avoiding calling anything "modern" or similar, because the reference point of "modern" moves with time. I'm having trouble contriving a single-word "theme" name, but the current era is most driven by advances in multiple technologies, of which some are natural evolutions (computers, wireless broadband, mechanical reliability) and others are imposed (fuel efficiency and "green").

For example, aside from my previous mention of mass decommissioning of old-technology motive power due to emissions mandates, expect our era to see the beginning of wholesale elimination of trackside signal systems and reduction or elimination of analog voice radio, as GPS, wireless network and other digital technologies finish their intrusion into the cab.

[asciibaron]

i'm a deregulated, transitional consolidator

[AlkemScaleModels]

You mean there was railroading after 1865?  ;D

I lose interest once engines were numbered and no longer named. 

[asciibaron]

You mean there was railroading after 1865?  ;D

I lose interest once engines were numbered and no longer named.  

um, you liked railroading into the mid 1970's then, right?  Reading named many of their units right up til the end.

http://www.readingrr.com/diesel/c430/5212.jpg

[DKS]

That's pretty concise, David. Good. And it expresses the "flavor" of what we're after. Plus it hits convenient decade boundaries without being too far off from specific milestones.

That said, I would suggest avoiding calling anything "modern" or similar, because the reference point of "modern" moves with time. I'm having trouble contriving a single-word "theme" name, but the current era is most driven by advances in multiple technologies, of which some are natural evolutions (computers, wireless broadband, mechanical reliability) and others are imposed (fuel efficiency and "green").

For example, aside from my previous mention of mass decommissioning of old-technology motive power due to emissions mandates, expect our era to see the beginning of wholesale elimination of trackside signal systems and reduction or elimination of analog voice radio, as GPS, wireless network and other digital technologies finish their intrusion into the cab.

Point taken on "modern"; I used "modernization" as a way of summing up the influences of technology, but of course you're right, this is a moving target. I almost used the term "globalization," but this may be misleading. How about "technologization"? I'd still like a single (or at most two-) word name for Era II. "Businessization"?

Edit: after re-reading the thread from the beginning, I spotted a word in Lee's description of Era II, and I thought perhaps "Standardization" as a salient trait of this period might be useful for naming. So, to re-cap:

Era I: Pre-1900, "Growth"
Era II: 1900-1940, "Standardization"
Era III: 1940-1960, "Transition"
Era IV: 1960-1980, "Consolidation"
Era V: 1980-2000, "Deregulation"
Era VI: 2000-present, "Technologization"