Should I design the new layout for two eras?

[ljudice]

Geez, I just had my 20th wedding aniversary, so you know my indecision in model railroading doesn't enter into the rest of my personal life...  But seriously, I'm starting to think that the new layout, which is based on a proto frelanced PRR/PC subsidiary now in 1993-5 Conrail should be done in a way to allow for possibly late PRR operations as well. 

The concept (the Hudson & Susquehanna) is one I've had for many, many years, essentially a line from around Allentown to Williamsport and then on to eastern Ohio.  Williamsport/Lock Haven become a big junction to Buffalo and Harrisburg of course and the home of a major fictional steelmaking plant.  Modelled parts are parts of the mill and Lock Haven and grade and a town or hamlet or two to the east.  Also modelled are one or two river crossings on stone arch bridges.

Late PRR could use some of the Kato broadway, MTL and Walthers cars for passenger equipment; single stripe E8's,  Atlas GP30, GP35 and alcos for ore trains;  Kato SD45, SD40's could be painted for other freights,  lots of new TrucTrain stuff coming and I could probably scrounge together some hopper equipment.  Possibly model a piece of downtown williamsport with a big station, express, mail car setoffs, etc....

I know Dave had done this to great effect.  My thought is doing too things will eliminate the boredom of doing one thing - always the chance to switch over.  I would assume that towns in this region would be pretty much unchanged through the years - and indeed that's a quality I wanted to strive for in a 1993 layout anyway.

Any thoughts?

[Catt]

Lou,
  If I were of the notion to do this I would simply just go ahead and do it.You could always make some of the buildings interchangable for one era or the other .Somehow I can't quite imagine the buildings would have changed that much in the eastern part of this country.

I would think that locos,rolling stock ,and vehicles would be the biggest difference.

[MichaelWinicki]

I think being able to easily switch eras from late 60's to early 90's and back again is an interesting idea. 

The only thing I would suggest is also being able to switch out or remove/add some of your buildings when going from one era to another.  No question that while yes, many buildings would have remained the same from one era to another, but there would certainly have been changes too... Fewer true brick structure around in '93 and more buildings that featured walls that were decidedly non-brick.  I could see duplicate structures being used, a brick-walled version for the late 60's and one with an alternate wall covering for the early 90's. 

There should be a siding or two from the early 90's era that should be inactive.  CR was death on serving small industries during the 80's, with the result being a big drop off in local switching during the 90's.

Obviously there would be other changes too like vehicles, but I think you could have a lot of fun with the overall concept.

[MichaelWinicki]

Lou,
  If I were of the notion to do this I would simply just go ahead and do it.You could always make some of the buildings interchangable for one era or the other .Somehow I can't quite imagine the buildings would have changed that much in the eastern part of this country.

I would think that locos,rolling stock ,and vehicles would be the biggest difference.

You would be shocked on the amount of change most downtowns witnessed during that time period. 

If the two time periods were 1930 and 1960, then yeah, much fewer changes.

But from 1960 on, urban renewal ran rampant in town after town in the east... Huge numbers of buildings were leveled from the mid-60's and well into 80's.  The other big change was the huge drop-off from brick being used as a prime building product after about 1950 (and probably even earlier).   

[Dave V]

It's easier to flop PRR with very early Conrail as it was essentially the same railroad, same management, and same infrastructure.  The Stanley Crane era saved Conrail but also began to make significant changes to the Pennsy like eliminating track, eliminating manned interlockings, and greatly increasing efficiency.

Also, as it's been mentioned, the 90s era buildings, especially non-railroad, changed quite a bit.  If you're up to scratchbuilding, though, you could use that to your advantage.  Maybe have a Gulf station swap out with a Sheetz or UniMart on the same footprint.  On the other hand, if you're only modeling railroad and not as much towns, it's almost a non-issue.  The RoW would look similar as even Pennsy did track reductions on the Middle Division as early as 1955.  Position light signals continued well into the late 90s.

You know, I wouldn't get too caught up in it.  I have some decidedly 50s stuff (like my Gulf station) on my layout as well as an 80s yard office and it just doesn't bother me much.  Do what you love.  After dealing with that PRR steam thread it was a lightning bolt to the head that really, it's just a hobby.  Like I said, do what you love.

[ljudice]

I'm thinking for example a swap out of a row of commercial buildings for a "mini module" consisting of a modern architectural model I bought years ago, combined with one of those parking garages showing up on Ebay. 

Dave, one thought I had was to have Interlocking towers that could be removed and replaced with a crumbling foundation.

Another issue as you mention is that once CR became established, it was a pared down, fine looking property as opposed to the slightly crusty and rusty Pennsy of the early 1960's.

I think the thing to do is not take it too seriously, do CR and have a small PRR fleet and a couple of interesting things to swap out here and there....

[rogergperkins]

First I must confess that I am not a "rivet counter" when it comes to certain details in model railroading.
I am a strong advocate of having a layout that allows for running engines, rolling stock and passenger trains from different era. 
My primary interest is in steam in the 1940s, however I have diesel engines and rolling stock as well as passenger trains that ran well after the common use of steam locomotives.
My previous layout (before we retired) allowed for a hidden yard accessible on the "back side" of the layout where I could store "online" the non-steam era engines, etc.
I referred to this as taking poetic licenses by employing this time warp.
As I said initially about my lack of focus on rivet level detail, this satisfied my interest to have a more modern train on the layout from time to time.

I did not use any structures on the layout that would not have existed during the 1940's and steam era.
I did have a few scenes where all the vehicles were 1930 vintage and included some horse drawn wagons and work horses.   If we have room again, I will use the same concept of having a 1940's era layout with a staging yard for diesels from any era to the present.

[ljudice]

Roger, I like your approach.  Over the years I've become way to convinced things have to be one way or the other, leaving no flexibility...

It's interesting - this time of year - I start thinking of steam - mostly because (and don't laugh) of two films, "A Christmas Story" and "It's a Wonderful Life" and their depiction of the pre-war and wartime eras. Not that either had any train content at all, but the towns, ambiance, etc...  Of course that brings up Pennsy steam, another discussion entirely....

So the thought here is to start from scratch with something that could be time warped if needed...

[Ed Kapuscinski]

From a true CR perspective, in the later CR era, it'd probably be a rail trail...   

[sirenwerks]

Both Michael and Ed make subtle points. It wasn't just the buildings that moved on; street layouts and infrastructure that served communities - from post office boxes to street lights and signs - and MOW detail like propane tanks and signal technologies changed. East coast changes could be pretty drastic in about any sized community where smaller interior and some coastal western communities still thrive in near original condition, in part because the west developed later than the east or are still undeveloped (and hopefully will stay that way).

[Bob Bufkin]

And that'sd why I will not model after early PC era.  Got too much PRR stuff and a little PC.  The buildings, right-of-way and for that matter the cars and trucks didn't change that much.  In the later Conrail era a lot of right of ways and towers I used to hang out at were tore up or down.  Things just weren't the same.

[ljudice]

From a true CR perspective, in the later CR era, it'd probably be a rail trail...   

That would save a lot of money and trouble in terms of equipment....   

Seriously, that's the key issue, going into CR these properties had tons of excess track, buildings, duplicate routes, etc...

[MichaelWinicki]

And that'sd why I will not model after early PC era.  Got too much PRR stuff and a little PC.  The buildings, right-of-way and for that matter the cars and trucks didn't change that much.  In the later Conrail era a lot of right of ways and towers I used to hang out at were tore up or down.  Things just weren't the same.

Good observation Bob.

I see what changed around here after like 1972 and it's stunning.   And it's not just in our town.  Others in the same area shared a similar timeline of change.

Yeah, there were a lot of rail-customers who were no longer customers– a trend that had started post WWII and was continuing.  But usually the buildings still sat there and they still had spurs to them.  Neither the PRR or the PC could be bothered to pull them up.

Then you had the whole thing with shopping centers and such going up in the subburbs and causing downtowns to change dramatically.  Again this started happening in the 50's and picked up speed in the 60's.   However, the buildings still sat there.  At least until urban renewal hit.  And when it hit, it was stunning and complete.  Downtowns would never look the same again.  And a lot of that was connected to the railroads directly or indirectly. 

To me a later CR layout could look totally different from a PRR/PC layout of the same geographic region.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

That would save a lot of money and trouble in terms of equipment....   

Seriously, that's the key issue, going into CR these properties had tons of excess track, buildings, duplicate routes, etc...

Exactly, and with the route roughly being paralleled by the Tier to the north (which itself got pretty much downsized), and the Chicago Line even further north, and the Pittsburg Line to the south, you're gonna have to do some tap dancing to keep it making sense in the later CR era... unless it had some sort of real competitive advantage. Something like double stack clearances and tying into the Buffalo Line for NYC=>HBG=>Your Route routings would give it something that the Southern Tier didn't, but then again, you'd mostly be seeing stack trains, rack trains, and whatever local traffic the route generated. That'd be fun if you wanted it to primarily operate in the earlier version, and just "run" in the later one, but it might not be as much fun ops wise.

In the early CR era though, it'd be lots of fun.

[lock4244]

Have pondered the same thing.

My primary era is 1987-89, but also look back to 1978 as I'd have the chance to run Via at it's infancy, so an FP9A in Via blue leading a CP multimarked RS10 on a train of CN gray/black and Via blue/yellow cars is most plausible, as is an RDC run with a CN/Via mix. As well, though CP FA's were all gone, RS3's and RS10's were still to be found hauling freight on both mainline and branchline jobs, CN's pair of GP35's were still running, too. And the big plus, I could run C&O and Chessie GP30 and GP35's on CP freights as they were running into Toronto in that era, leased I think as the runthrough was terminated quickly due to poor shape of the units. Plain, but I think the C&O was a fascinating road and had a very attractive, if simple scheme. It is reasonable to use most mid-late 70's era vehicles on a layout in 1987-89, and though prevelant in 1978, cars from roads such as GN, NP, Frisco, pre-CR, L&N, ACL, SCL, and others would still be around in the late 80's.

One other era I also like is around the 1998 time frame. It was the last year of MLW/BBD power on CN and CP, and GTW and DW&P SD40's were running all over CN while the GP40, GP40-2L, GP40-2W, and SD40, units so heavily associated with CN (to varying degrees in east and west) were making their last stand in front line freight service as the growing SD75I and C44-9W fleets were bumping them to secondary duties, other roads, or razor blades. This was just before the explosion in graffiti on rolling stock, something I find beyond disgusting and pretty much the line in the sand for how current I should ever wish to model.

I track which of my eras each car and locomotive I own would have operated in on my 'idiot list' of equipment, so fleet wise it'd be pretty easy to add and pull cars depending on era. Buildings, lineside items, and vehicles would be a more prickly subject. Stations are issue, as so many fell between my eras. One solution is to use removable blocks of foam that can be exchanged depending on era, so the station standing in 1978 could be a patch of weeds in 1988, or an industry in 1978 could be a townhouse complex in 1998. I've no idea as to the feasability of this, just theorizing at this point. I know one might have to make some scenery adjustments at the seams when switching eras, so this change over might be an annual type thing.