American Railroad Eras

[Philip H]

Guys,
This is EXACTLY what I was after when I started this thread.  Thanks. 

David, I like your break down.  Now we need to define some major characteristics of each era, and then get the nMRA to adopt it.

Ok, that last one may be a bit pie in the sky . . . . :-\

[asciibaron]

Now we need to define some major characteristics of each era, and then get the NMRA to adopt it.

and then get MTH to sue you...

[AlkemScaleModels]

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

Well if you insist, Reading is OK, but the seventies is a wasteland for me. I can't get past remembering the crappy cars, blow-dried hair and platform shoes. Icck!

In case you couldn't tell, my earlier parochial comment was in jest. But I do find it cool to use a name as opposed to a number to designate an engine. "Train No 3, Engine Haupt, meet train 4, Engine Whiton at Stonemans Switch." Kind of like Thomas the Tank Engine, only better.

[up1950s]

Guys,
This is EXACTLY what I was after when I started this thread.  Thanks. 

David, I like your break down.  Now we need to define some major characteristics of each era, and then get the nMRA to adopt it.

Ok, that last one may be a bit pie in the sky . . . . :-\

Thats where lumping thoughts into named boxes gets you a knife wound in your gut . Same happens when you design a spread sheet , and then try to populate the cells . Life is full of oddities . You have , if the latest liked list is what you are happy with , a Railroad Policy of events , to try to add to that a Characteristic Factor there will be a mismatch of time frames . One could probably come up with a whole slew of Railroad Era lists , each with different time segments . 

[Dave Schneider]

[
Well if you insist, Reading is OK, but the seventies is a wasteland for me. I can't get past remembering the crappy cars, blow-dried hair and platform shoes. Icck!

Ouch!!    On the other hand at least I had a full head of blow-dried hair in the 1970s and wasn't afraid to take my shirt off in public! At any rate, I kinda view 1972 as the late 1960s. I have plans for McGovern vs. Nixon billboards (I was only one in my 2nd grade class election to vote for old George) and some Free George Carlin graffiti.

Best wishes, Dave

[Philip H]

Dave Schneider,
Being a huge George Carlin fan, I'd love  to have a copy of that graphiti when you get to it.

[Dave Schneider]

Philip,

The terminus of the Beer Line was directly across the street from the Sydney Hih (pronounced Hi) building. This former bank building was purchased by a rich hippie named Sidney in the 1960s and was the center of the (rather small) counter culture in Milwaukee. I'll let you deduce why it was called the Hih building.  It was painted in a "distinctive" style that is a signature element for this time period. My plan is to park some VWs in front of it with a Free George sign on it (or something like this). This refers to Carlin's 1972 arrest in Milwaukee at Summerfest on obscenity charges for doing his "Seven Words That Can Never Be Said on Television" routine. These were different times to say the least....I mean he actually got kicked out of the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, WI by an angry mob for doing this routine.  Anyhow, this why I love the early 1970s, no matter what era you want to put it in (he says circling back to the topic of the thread)!



Best wishes, Dave

[AlkemScaleModels]

(he says circling back to the topic of the thread)!

One factor that I would consider is the rise of franchises and the loss of regional differences across the USA. This effect has gradually taken place over my lifetime, but for modeling purposes, I prefer the pre-franchise era. I would put that some time before 1959. 

[John]

Well if you insist, Reading is OK, but the seventies is a wasteland for me. I can't get past remembering the crappy cars, blow-dried hair and platform shoes. Icck!

and don't forget these

[AlkemScaleModels]

Well if you insist, Reading is OK, but the seventies is a wasteland for me. I can't get past remembering the crappy cars, blow-dried hair and platform shoes. Icck!

and don't forget these

Leisure suits and Chevy Vegas- Ah the Golden era! Now I just need some Bee Gees records to play.  I am proud to say I never owned a leisure suit.

[asciibaron]

Well if you insist, Reading is OK, but the seventies is a wasteland for me. I can't get past remembering the crappy cars, blow-dried hair and platform shoes. Icck!

so what you are saying is you were big into disco.  that explains it all

and yes, i got your jest.  will you have a scene with rails wrapped around trees?

[AlkemScaleModels]

Well if you insist, Reading is OK, but the seventies is a wasteland for me. I can't get past remembering the crappy cars, blow-dried hair and platform shoes. Icck!

so what you are saying is you were big into disco.  that explains it all

and yes, i got your jest.  will you have a scene with rails wrapped around trees?

"Staying Alive, Staying Alive." That's about the extent of my knowledge of disco. I never even saw "Sat Night Fever." I was never into the night club scene.

As to Sherman's bow ties, they were not present in my railroad's area of operations. While it is true that the RR I am modeling was destroyed 4 times during the course of the war, in the period I am simulating, it pretty much operated as a normal RR without any molestation by the enemy. The fact that over 100,000 armed men were camped around its 10 miles with 20 or 30 gunboats securing the harbor may have contributed to its security. They operated according to a schedule with 10 trains each way per day.

When modeling the civil war era, one has to be careful to avoid the areas and times when active campaigning was going on, as the RR operations were erratic and probably uninteresting to model (from an operational perspective), though fun to study.

[DKS]

When modeling the civil war era, one has to be careful to avoid the areas and times when active campaigning was going on, as the RR operations were erratic and probably uninteresting to model (from an operational perspective), though fun to study.

Actually, this presents some amusing thought-exercises when developing an operation session, when events such as the following might appear spontaneously:

"2:34 PM, bridge destroyed; one locomotive, three boxcars and a coach SOL..."

[wm3798]

"2:34 PM, bridge destroyed; one locomotive, three boxcars and a coach SOL..."

And with a stock of pre-fabricated wood bridge trusses at the ready, and use of a fast clock, it would only take about a half an hour to replace the bridge!  And for the Gomez Addams types among us, you could prewire the replacement span so it could be blown at the end of the ops session to prevent it from falling into enemy hands... ;D

[Mark5]

Luckily (or unluckily for the 2nd half) Disco only poisoned the second half of the 70s ...