Why model 1972?

[randgust]

I've been modeling 1972 since I started N that year, and also took a cross-country trip by rail (mostly Santa Fe) when I was 15.   I was freelancing an idea for a regional shortline (little did I know that would actually happen) when the Santa Fe bug bit, and hard.

This many years later, I've honed it down to a pretty tight timeframe.   And while I have a similar bug in 1920's logging railroads connecting to the PRR now, the 'main layout' is still Santa Fe, still 1972.  It's become about as ancient history as the steam transition era now.

And when I look back, that was really, really an amazing time to model and I'm surprised that more modelers don't do it.   This was an AMAZING transition period year for railroading, between the legacy ear;y 50's, and with modern rail trends just emerging.  Just look at what you get modeling that time:

Second year of Amtrak,rainbow era.   Trains I rode on were definitely that way
F-units were on the way out, but still very much around.   And, Alco switchers, RSD15's.   Leased warbonnet F's on Amtrak, very last year.
On Santa Fe, June '72 was the introduction of the yellowbonnet.  Saw my first one from the train
The "Santa Fe" billboard, replacing "Ship and Travel" was freshly introduced
Cabooses on every train, remember that?
Penn Central 'not dead yet' so PC green was common, ex PRR and NYC patches too.
All the fallen flags were still around with all those bright color schemes
The Super C was the first 'all piggyback', super-hot train, usually with ex-passenger FP45's, F-45's, mix of ATSF, PC, ex-NYC, hot mail and parcels.
a handful of red and silver FP45's, U30CG's were left
The YK Unit Coal train, one of the first of its kind, was running, 90 cars worth with 10 units and mid-train helpers.
New power on ATSF was the U36C's big-time, and the recent batch of SD45-2's.   U36C's graced the annual report cover
CF7's were just becoming common, blue and yellow F7's conversion fodder, heavily worn but running.
40' boxcars, with and without roofwalks, were still very common, most pretty weathered.   "Route of the _____" still around, too.
Railroads were still pretty 'home road' with power and freight cars, 60% home road typical
Ice hatch reefers were on their death beds, PFE mechanical reefers common from too dirty to read to freshly painted
Stock cars were dying out, but not dead yet
Sea-Train minibridge all-container train introduced  (also cover of annual report)
Burlington Northern had merged in 1970, so BN cars were new, and common
Erie Lackawanna was still around
Year of the first great 'russian grain rush' in covered hoppers.  PS covered hoppers flooded the market.
Rock Island was still around, but 'bankruptcy blue' didn't come until '75
Auto Racks may or may not have side shields, but the cars on top still visible at least.
Piggybacks still common in regular merchandise trains, mixed.
Railroad-owned piggyback trailers about 50% of the fleet.
Roofwalks and footboards on the way out as fast as possible.
ACI labels, the failed experiment, on everything.
First year of consolidated stencils
Friction bearings still relatively common on older cars

Because of the terrible condition of PC, the early 70's don't seem to get much love.   But if you're looking for the bridge between classic boxcar era and the introduction of more modern railroading trends, it's a great time to model.

And there's just a lot of N models out there to do it.   About the only real hazard is that you can literally timestamp a model by MONTH, because of the rapid changes in railroading during that five-year period between 1971 and 1976; the "Amtrak to Conrail" transition.

I still like it in N because I get to run unit coal trains and piggybacks with cabooses, sparkling fresh SD45-2's and U36C's, and 'completely beat' F-units.   And now, with the excellent models that are out there, a car-by-car accurate model of the train I rode, the short-lived "Chief" #19-20, in its rainbow, F-unit glory, smattering of Amtrak stripes.   

[Mark5]

Did someone ask? 

Very cool era - I was a teen in the early 70s, my era shifted forward a little to 1976. I model these years because I fell in "love" with trains in this time frame and spent so much more time around the railroad then (N&W) than I ever did after that era.

I gotta point out, that in 1972, the majority of autoracks were completely open. 

Mark

[sirenwerks]

I chose 1977 only to kick up the prominence, and still adoption on Class 2s and below, of intermodal and the clinging on of boxcars, There was also a good mix of new covered hopper and tank car styles trickling in and Alcos and a lot of decaying industrial architecture was still hanging on. Also, my teens were about to kick in then and the Bicentennial period seemed a bit more optimistic in US history.

[Iain]

I have a couple of years of interest, and 1972 is one of them.  The NS Lees Creek branch was brand new, but not talks of merging with Southern yet. 

[C855B]

I model UP in 1970 for very similar reasons, although I fudge that +/– 5 years. Adding to Randy's list:

• Centennials were online, with a few pending delivery.
• All the double-diesels plus other oddballs like SDP35s, RS27s, C630s and hood B-units were still running.
• GTEL8500s were hanging on.
• City of Everywhere
• "RAILROAD" was still on the medallion.
• BN hadn't painted everything yet, so there is no guilt about running Chinese Red GP20s as run-through power.
• Containers were a rarity. Intermodal meant TOFC and trains like the VAN and SuperVAN. Four Centennials on a 20-car SuperVAN? Glorious!

[Olivani]

I model the E&LS (Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad) on Tuesday, 16th of December 2025. This way I only need to have one working locomotive, an EMD SD40-2. All the other engines can be dummies (saves on DCC decoders), they are all kaput and can randomly be placed along the E&LS system 

[robert3985]

Although 1972 was a very cool year in some aspects, I chose, after much pondering on the subject, to model an era on the UP between Ogden and Wahsatch from 1947 thru the last day of 1956.  However, I decided to standardize the structures, signals, engine facilities and roads at 1952, which was a year before SP tore down their Ogden Roundhouse and before UP started painting their wood stations the very plain white/grey/green scheme.

I happened to luck out with both the road, location and era as the N-scale market is replete with Big Boys, Challengers, FEF's, GP7/9's, E-Units, Standard Turbines, Streamliner stuff, period-correct PFE cars and a couple of different styles of period-correct cabooses...and a lot of other engines and cars.

Selling off all of the cars and engines that were anachronistic for my era/location/road just happened to bring in quite a bit of money since I had been collecting big UP brass for a long time...and the money funded my switch to DCC, module materials, scenery supplies, Rail Craft flex, turnout building supplies, modeling tools and a lot of period-correct freight cars.

Another plus is that I'm not interested in, nor am I buying the latest/greatest modern engine or car that comes out...reserving my expenditures for tools, materials and the occasional period-correct engine or car that appears.

Picking an era is a good thing IMHO

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[nkalanaga]

Mid-1974 BN for me.  I could have done 1973 just as well, but 1974 was the world's fair in Spokane, and the busiest Amtrak had been, or would be again, on the Chicago-Seattle routes.

I actually started modeling BN when the merger occurred, although I wasn't to picky about it.  As a broke barely-teenager, living in a small mobile home, N scale was a natural.  With the very limited selection, especially of good-running locomotives, in 1970, BN made sense.  I could run GN, NP, CB&Q, and BN, locomotives, and there was at least one usable, available, locomotive for all of them.  Walthers made locomotive decals for BN and GN Big Sky Blue, and both schemes were easy to paint.  One of the best running locomotives of the time was the Minitrix F, and the BN inherited a lot of those, many of which were concentrated in the Northwest.

When Amtrak came along, a year later, Pasco got the Empire Builder, which was still largely a GN/NP train, so ConCor's smoothside cars fit perfectly.  The exception was the addition of UP sleepers in almost every consist, and the Atlas/Rivarossi 10-6 took care of that.

[Kentuckian]

No steam. Just saying’.

[bbussey]

1972 is a great year to model. Not just ATSF but a number of roads. 1972 is a good year to model PC.  All the motive power was repainted with only a handful still patched, but plenty of unpatched PRR/NYC/NH rolling stock along with patched and repainted rolling stock. 

[BobRunty]

Why I model 1976.
I was a 16 year old with a brand new Canon 35mm SLR and newly minted drivers license. Most of the steam era infrastructure was still in place, almost every yard still had a turntable with a roundhouse/enginehouse. Most towns were still sporting a depot. Class 1’s had branch lines everywhere. 1st gen power very common, E&F units, Alco, Baldwins, FM’s, etc. 40’ boxcars everywhere and you could still catch a wooden freight car, although pretty rare by then. An honest to gosh working caboose on EVERY train.
And the birth of Conrail. You never knew what was going to show up at the IHB yard or Pennsy’s 59th street yard on our weekly forays into Chicago.

[randgust]

No steam. Just saying’.

Which is why my dual personality does pennsylvania logging railroads connected to PRR in 1920.  That gives me all kinds of dinky geared steam and a handfull off PRR classics, like my D16, L1, the I1 with sound, etc.   All my portable layout and Ttrak modules that show up at Altoona are logging and PRR.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

1972 is a great year to model. Not just ATSF but a number of roads. 1972 is a good year to model PC.  All the motive power was repainted with only a handful still patched, but plenty of unpatched PRR/NYC/NH rolling stock along with patched and repainted rolling stock. 

I was going to say the same thing. Plus the chaos of early Amtrak.

It's also one of those great "border years" where things aren't "old time railroading" but aren't "early modern" either.

It has both SD40-2s (although very new at that point) and 40' boxcars.

That's why I have a little early 70s stuff. The good news is that most of it can also work for the late 70s too, which is what I've lately become a fan of.

[Maletrain]

I suspect the individual choices of years to model have a lot to do with which railroads interest us and what changes happened on those railroads on what dates.

I'm a geezer modeling the transition era on the B&O, which is what I remember most fondly from my youth.  I focus about 1953, which saw the end of the last steam powered mainline passenger train on the B&O, and I want to model that.  It closely coincides with the breakup of the last "pretty" passenger train (diesel powered) with all matching streamlined cars.  But I expand to about 1948 to 1956 for rolling stock.  In 1957, all locos were renumbered to accommodate diesels and the retirement of the last steam - and I like steam, so I stop in 1956, which was also a year for the introduction of "B&O" instead of "B&O" (smaller "&") on new and repainted rolling stock.

I also have an aversion to graffiti on everything, so I do not want to model in the "spray can era".

[KSTXFLID]

Agreed. For me it was the era of my childhood that imprinted the most. Growing up in SC Kansas in the late 70’s early 80’s gave me late Rock Island, MKT, Santa Fe and MoPac. Sprinkles of BN and Rio Grande for extra flavor.
Cabooses still prevalent and a healthy mix of motive power and rolling stock.
Wishing someone will start producing six axle GE’s. Scaletrains?