What do people model?

[jonathan]

...B&O, 1950's, as the steamers were starting to disappear.  As such, my locomotives are getting weathered to reflect a bit of neglect.  What can I say? I fell in love with America's first railroad.  They were never the largest railroad, but certainly quirky and innovative.

The layout started out pretty generic, but the various trackside structures and scenery elements are slowly being replaced by B&O specific pieces.

Have no plans to represent a specific time and place.  The layout will have a flavor of the era.

Industries include a wheel factory, furniture factory, and coal mine.  There is a Union Terminal where passengers and freight can transfer to other railroads, when I'm in the mood to run a PRR or C&O train (not often).  Passengers can even travel in time and ride the Acela.  

Regards,

Jonathan

[Doneldon]

What do I model should probably include what did I model, too.

In the distant past my brother and I had two 4x8s with Lionel trains, including a magna traction diesel that could pull a train up the basement stairs as long as there were steel rails. I'm not sure that it wouldn't have run across the ceiling had we given it a chance. But I still liked our old smoking 2-6-2 the best. All good things come to an end, however, and we moved to California so we sold all of our Lionel and used the money to purchase a couple of Athearn HO sets, both diesel.

We had fixed sectional and flex track so our rails stayed together but there's more to good trackwork than that. Between the inexpensive set trains, X2f couplers and the general state of the art in 1959, our layout wasn't a complete success. But we learned that we wanted trains and HO was the size. My brother joined a RR club and I occasionally got to tag along, including on a trip to see John Allen's masterpiece. That's where I decided that things didn't need to be clean, shiny and perfect. I also learned what a big part humor can play in a model railroad. These were crucial lessons which are important to me to this day.

A variety of things began to go haywire with our family leading to a couple of cross-country moves and culminating in my Dad's death on Christmas in 1961. My mother, brother and I moved back to Chicago where my mother had friends and family, my brother left for college and I was stuck in a small apartment with no place for a train. I did build models and tried some temporary things but, as those of you who were in the hobby before roadbed sectional track, nothing really worked out. Then it was college, grad school and the Navy for me so I took an extended hiatus from model railroading, as do so many of us. Eventually I had a couple of super step sons who liked trains so we built a small HO layout -- strictly for them, you understand -- and that started a major fire in me again. Over the years we built a second HO pike but that left with the kids when their mother and I divorced. That led to another hiatus, this one due to financial issues related to my being somewhat disabled, as a result of the Navy, and some difficulty earning the money I needed to support my train habit.

Everything worked out eventually and I built another HO railroad which the people who bought my house wanted so I sold it to them. My new house, which my current wife and I designed and built, had space for a large but disappearing large-scale railroad so I busied myself with that for many years, although I continued to accumulate (my wife says "amass") HO equipment and paraphernalia for a return to HO. Well, we sold that house and downsized a year ago so now I'm in possession of a dedicated 13x14 train room which also has possibilities for hidden staging in an adjacent storage room. However, I haven't started construction yet because I've been building Thomas layouts and two HO layouts for grandsons, and a tour-de-force Victorian doll house for my granddaughter. Present projections are to complete the last HO set-up, Thomas layout and doll house by spring and then go deeply into my planned HO pike.

My mobility is quite compromised (when they tossed me out of the Navy in 1973 they told me I would never walk and I wouldn't live five years but I've been hiking in the Sierras since they told me that) due to old problems resurfacing so I'm going to have the benchwork, track and power done for me. That way I'll be able to get to the stuff I enjoy most and am physically able to do. The railroad to be will be two levels, connected by a track which climbs between them (no helix). The time will be August, 1939, right before the whole world lost its mind. The setting will be Colorado and Arizona, with the D&RGW running on the upper (mountainous) level and the Santa Fe running on the lower desert level. A mythical connecting southwestern railroad which runs more or less from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Tucson, Arizona, will connect the two levels, with implied interchanges with the UP in Cheyenne and the SP in Tucson, in addition to the Rio Grande and Santa Fe. Thus the hidden staging. Given the era, motive power will be mostly steam and early diesel, but I'm willing to run the occasional anachronism, too.

In addition, I build and collect passenger cars from all railroads with neat paint jobs and brass locomotives. Some of the latter will be regular fixtures on the new pike; others will stay in the display cases. The passenger cars may make a guest appearance on the railroad from time to time, too.

So that's my life in model railroading. I come from a railroad family (my Dad was a dining car steward for the Central and the Santa Fe) so my interest is natural. I worked one summer for the Santa Fe during college, myself. The job was essentially walking from Chicago to Los Angeles and back, the hardest job I ever had. But it sure made me appreciate how hard my Dad worked. The job was a killer.

Too much information? I think so but I'm not about to wipe it all out now.

                                                                                                               -- D

[jonathan]

Shipmate!

Regards,

Jonathan
CPO, USN(ret)

[Desertdweller]

GG1,

No Chicago!

That is going to mess up the names of a lot of railroads in your era.

Les

[GG1onFordsDTandI]

GG1,
No Chicago!
That is going to mess up the names of a lot of railroads in your era.
Les

Gary exploded the night Chicago died. na na na ...na na na ...the night Chi... :-\sorry.....Im not sorry
Not even named Chicago anymore. They renamed part of it Lion. An ad mans campaign to sell overpriced real estate. They have a yard and station, and do run a high speed elevated commuter service, the LION EL between Milwaukee and Gary. The rest is now known as Williams City. A nice down to earth town, things just seem nicer there. 
There is only one big flag left for each coast, Michigan Central and Great Northern. But in the name of preserving history, nothing has been repainted and its now illegal to scrap steam unless its approved by Rail Terminal Management Co a short line and narrow gauge management team also specializing in down sizing and repurposing equipment.
Fun but Im out of ammo, see you later.

[Doneldon]

Shipmate!

Regards,

Jonathan
CPO, USN(ret)

Jonathan-

Aye, Aye. Actually, I was a Medical Services Corps officer so I considered it kind of the pretend Navy but it was clear I was pretty much alone with that opinion. The Navy certainly took my being there quite seriously.

Mainly what I did was throw people out of the Navy, primarily from boot or the service schools. I also got to help some of the kids who really wanted to be there stay there and that was rewarding. What was really interesting was what happened at the beginning of the all-volunteer force. During the draft era we held weekly discharge boards for about 80-90 recruits. Within a month of the all-volunteer force we were holding boards twice a week with 120-140 kids at each one. The recruiters were really up to some serious mischief.

I also did psych evals for stuff like submarine service and Operation Deep Freeze. Then there were all of the Robert Johnsons whose files were lost and whose reports went straight to San Diego with no local record maintained and no copy to BUPERS. The first one was just odd, the second a little too coincidental to be believed. The third Robert Johnson whose file was lost and had special handling of his report pretty much convinced me they were all spooks. Judging by their overall superiority, both physical and intellectual, I'm pretty sure they were SEALS. Most of them were also really scary psychologically. But I suppose that's what it takes. I'm still amazed that the Navy didn't think that giving them all the same name would be giving something away. Overall, though, I'm really proud to have been in the Navy and I'm grateful for many of the experiences I had there.

                                                                                                                        -- D