How to choose a Railroad to Model
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The Railroad you choose to model will have a great impact on what selections you will have to choose from. One area you should spend some time is in researching your Railroad. The more photographs, videos, articles and books you can obtain will greatly increase the realism of your model layout. Don’t under estimate your viewing audience, most people can detect the 1956 Chevy in a 1920′s layout as a problem, but can’t tell you exactly why it’s wrong.
The main reason for focusing on modeling your layout on a specific Railroad is that it will narrow your choices. This could mean you will have a layout based on a European location, maybe England in the 1940′s. Maybe you are into the great race to join the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads on May 10, 1869. Some builders focus on a little known Railroad line to preserve history or some historic event.
By limiting your choices you will also limit your research to articles, videos, books and photographs concerning only the railroad you will be modeling.
If your railroad is modeled after a modern day line like UP, BNSF, or Canadian National there will be plenty of rolling stock available and new release coming out every year. If you are into railroad history or Steam engines there is still a lot available with some of the best models you will ever see handmade in brass.
Now that you have picked a Railroad it is time to pick the ERA or Class of locomotion you want to model, here is a short list of examples:
1821: The Rocky Mountain short rail lines were built to service mines.
1830s: rail lines appeared in many sections of the country, particularly in the Middle States.
1830: Baltimore & Ohio Railroad started converting from horse driven power to steam.
1840-1856: Mississippi River is crossed.
1941: UP Big Boy an enormous 4-8-8-4 locomotive.
1930: Penn Railroad received 100 4-8-2 steam locomotives.
1944: UP Historic 8444 4-8-4 locomotive.
1950: EMD E9 Diesel Era
1965: EMD GP38
After you have decided the time period it is time to do a little research. For example; what other transportation was used, what did lights and bill boards look like, what did advertisement look like.
Next you will need to look at the rolling stock; what was the paint scheme, what were the signs and symbols, what did the box cars look like and how did their signage look? Remember Coke looks different today than in the 1920′s.
This will also set the look of your layout’s scenery. Will you be modeling a city, country, mine operations, a power plant, or maybe a switch yard? The detail here is important, you don’t want red earth on a California switch back or mountains and tunnels in Louisiana, the highest mountain in Louisiana is only 509 feet.
In my next article we will look at track, track size, track construction, what material to use for roadbed, etc.
Tired of wasting money on your train layout checkout some of the new articles at train layout
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