All Steam model railroader roll call

[trainman203]

I may have done this on the old forum. If, so, forgive me, I slip sometimes.

Log in and comment if your layout is strictly all – steam locomotives. I'm talking about Standard Gauge Railroading the way it was was in the mid 1930's or so.  No diesels on your rail, period. Yes, I know there were a few diesel-powered streamliners around in the mid-1930s. They are not a discussion issue.

I'm also not counting narrow gauge railroading like in Colorado which is nearly always all steam.  I am interested in those folks that model classic American golden – age railroading before diesels appeared. People like me, who don't run one single diesel, ever. I suspect the list will be pretty short.

[jward]

Nope I'm not on the no diesels list. I prefer them oover steam.

That said, I am a fan of the Gorre & Daphetid, and have amassed quite a collection of the old MDC car kits for that model railroad including one of the three steam locomotives they made. These cars are mostly older truss rod era cars, and it has been a new experience putting them together.

I will say that if I WERE to ever model the steam era, it wouldn't be the 1930s. I'd go back to the turn of the century, pre WW1 era when locomotives were of modest size and would work well on my 18r curves. I'd just have to find a way to add weight to them so they at least try to pull as well as my diesels.

Bonus to that era would be the ability to add an interurban line to the layout, and run streetcars as well.

[trainman203]

Jeffrey, you're not the only one who has thought about doing a 1910 layout. The railroads were king then. It's the time when my father was born, and my grandparents were young adults. If only I had known what to ask them about almost anything when they were still alive way back.

It's hard to imagine a time when they were literally no roads between towns to speak of at all, that the roads were the only way to get anywhere at all. But, you could go everywhere by train back then. And the passenger trains were beautiful with 80 foot long truss rodded wood varnish cars with arched stained glass transoms over the windows.  And, one of my uncles who was originally from Ohio used to tell me about riding the interurbans back then. If only I had gotten to do that, or even more thoroughly quizzed him about it.

I even thought about doing a layout in black-and-white. No colors on anything, just shades of white and gray. To look like the black-and-white photographs we have of those times . Now THAT would be a challenge.

That particular era, of course, is not blessed with a lot of model engines and equipment though. Plus you'd have to modify figures to have period costumes. And most of your vehicles would have to be horse drawn. On largely unpaved streets. Lined with telephone poles with eight or 10 crossarms full of clear and green glass insulators carrying copper wires. Most of the buildings, at least down in my native south, were beautiful old wood frame buildings almost all gone now. Porches, tall double hung windows, gingerbread woodwork, and get this ... many went unpainted as you can see in photos. Ready mix paint didn't exist then in the painter was available was very expensive.

Someone has actually done a very elaborate layout like this.  But I can't remember the name or website anymore. He had all of the features that are listed and more, and would even photograph it in black-and-white.

[Len]

I have to admit I'm in the 'mixed bag' camp. When the "KL&B Eastern Lines Railroad Museum", where Eastern is anything east of the Continental Divide, isn't in boxes it operates steam, diesel, electric and horse drawn tram.

Since I'm in the process of moving to a new house, hopefully the boxes will be getting opened again soon.

Len

[trainman203]

Back to steam era layouts.  I model the steam era because I saw it, at least the very end of it in the early 1950s. For a brief while, all the trains we saw had steam engines, that's all. I remember seeing the first diesels in the area and back then was excited about it. If I'd known how quickly they were going to kill steam I wouldn't have felt the same way.  I very deeply felt the passing of the steam engines, and still cry for them. I really miss them. When I started modeling, nearly all modelers felt the same way. They were adults who grew up with steam, and were fully aware of what was going on at the time of the mass scrappings. They've all passed on now.

But only a very few short years later, I became a model railroader and in 1960 nothing at all had changed on the railroads I knew as a much younger kid.  Only the engines had changed, and the water tank was gone. That was it. And that's what I modeled and still model largely except for no diesels. Right now though I only have 1945 era cars on my layout. Hardly any steel box cars at all and the ones that are there have early lettering schemes. A few months ago I had only 1925 cars on there.

If you do 1910, you can't have any USRA steam engines on the layout. In fact, about the only engines you can put on there that are available stock right now are the Bachmann 10 wheelers and the consolidation, the Athearn roundhouse steam engines, and maybe some of the Broadway limited Pennsylvania engines.... Although those are only good on Pennsy layouts. I love steam locomotive builders photographs from that particular time. The engines were very clean with not much plumbing, most of them still had high mounted headlights, and various compound engines with oddball cylinders were quite the rage at the time.  You have to be a good scratch builder or kit basher to get a good roster of engines in that time.

[trainman203]

No other all steam guys besides me? Am I the Lone Ranger?

[Geeper]

I saw that change-over steam to diesel... and remember it well. As a little kid I was in ahhhhhh... of those new diesels. Sitting in the backyard sandbox and watching them slowly go past 300yds behind the house. Every evening at 8pm a slow train went past... I'd lay in bed (window open) and listen to "clicky-clack" of gravel hopper cars over rail joints. My layout is early era diesel switchers and Geeps. Best part is on my EZ-Track at yard speed, gives the same "clicky-clack" sounds of my youth.
Good memories... keep smiling and enjoying our hobby.   

[trainman203]

I must be the last one, Kemosabay.

Hi yo Silver.

[russ daley]

I have not posted for years but I am a steam guy.....I have many Spectrums 2-8-0 and 4-6-0 (around 2004 Era) that need parts which most are not available. I'm willing to trade or buy parts and assemblies with anyone who also needs parts. If anyone reading is interested in swapping...let me know...I'll tell you what I have and what I need.

[jward]

I missed the so called transition era. Instead, I came of age during another era of transition. Living in southwestern Pennsylvania, I was deep in Penn Central territory. I watched the railroad fall apart faster than they could put it back together. I remember being excited when the first Chessie System units were delivered, and n=how exciting it was to see something run that wasn't painted black or dark blue. Signal towers were everywhere, and particularly on the B&O most tower operators were railfan friendly. They were great places to hang out and watch trains.

Around 1975 or 1976 everything started to change. The Western Maryland mainline was abandoned, and Conrail took over the Penn Central. There were alot of changes within a few years, alot of them for the better. We lost the towers on COnrail, but the tracks were dug out of the mud and questionable equipment retired. A new bright blue paint scheme let everybody see something was different. But the changes were profound. During this time we ,ost alot of branch lines, but on the mainline, trains were moving at high speeds again. I'd seen something similar on the old Southern Railway when we vacationed in North Carolina, where trains ran on schedules. Now it was happening in my back yard, and Conrail soon overtook Chessie as my favourite road. I'd go to the tracks with my grandfather to see the westbound fleet come through, and by the time traffic died down 20 or more freights had rolled through in both directions. The rebirth was amazing to see.

On the other hand, My Dad was a huge Western Maryland fan. The western terminus in COnnellsville was right in our back yard, and we made many trips there to see it before it was abandoned. Later, we'd make the trek deep into the mountains of West Virginia to watch them wrestle coal trains out of the hollows over impossible mountain grades, using 8 to 12 diesels per train. It was the last stand for pure first generation diesels, and the low hood EMDs everybody knows were rarely if ever seen there until the final years before these lines, too, withered and died.

To-day's railfans can see alot of these types of engines running in museums and on shortlines, but they will never experience what it was like to see them in large numbers pulling heavy trains. I'd imagine an older generation felt the same way about steam. But my experiences with steam were limited to Reading T1s and Nickle Plate Berks in excursion service. They were the special occasion locomotives, whereas the diesels were the hard working, everyday units that provides the revenue that made those steam excursions possible.

It profoundly affected my layouts. Those diesels ran the same type of grades and sharp curves you can fit on a 4x8, and coal hoppers are generally short cars that work well under the same conditions. Where I grew up there were often two or three different railroads crammed in the same narrow valleys in search of coal, so scenes that look like those old bowl of spaghetti layouts were something I saw every day. Even now, I live less than a mile from an amazing junction where 4 different railroads, all of them busy, wove over under and around each other in a scene that includes a navigable river, two major bridges over the river, a tunnel, and numerous rail yards as well as a couple of steel mills. One of the mills is gone, and consolidation has dropped the number of railroads to three, but it is still a busy place.

I realize this strays a bit from the steam only intent of Trainman. 

[trainman203]

No prob, Jeffrey. Good stories are always good stories and I appreciate hearing them.

[trainman203]

I'm starting a new thread to talk about our early memories with Railroads and with our layouts.