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BOB’S PHOTO; NYNH&H, MEDWAY, MASSACHUSETTS; APRIL 1934
A suburban location might mean commuter service and it might not. In 1957 eight North American cities had extensive commuter operations, and a few places had one or two trains on weekdays. As a few trips through old Official Guides will show, at one time commuter trains were more numerous and widespread, then many disappeared. With the establishment of regional rail authorities we now have about two dozen commuter rail operations. Times change, up, down and up in this case. It is not only the visual signatures of time that change. Still, the work of the New Haven in Medway is clear (above), and details that say this is circa 1934 are
evident.The depot agent sold tickets for the local trains and handled the paperwork for the coal yard and other businesses in town. This could be many places, but some of the elements are regional. The Depression and subsequent war slowed down the physical changes in communities such as this, something that works in favor of them as modeling subjects. Then, too, coal yards stayed in business for a long time in some places.
Still other anomalies result from “not knowing.”
Learning, “knowing more,”
is part of the fun of the hobby, so there may come a day when a “detail” might become an “issue.” Do you address it or not? Do you change the assigned time? Often, modelers simply say, “No one will notice.” Are we building for our- selves or someone else? I say the for- mer is a better course, and there is a difference between hiding behind “its my layout” and seeking excellence. Not all of this is academic, either. Choosing a time period has practical ap- plications when building a layout. Just as place is a determinant of detail, so is time. But, what time? I would argue that “narrower” is better than broad. The venerated “steam-diesel transi- tion period” can be taken as one exam- ple. That was more than a half a centu- ry ago, but it is still a popular modeling era. Notably, most of today’s active mod- elers did not see much of it, if at all, so the transition period is really a histori- cal excercise.
(I just turned 70 and my
memories of the early to mid-1950’s are now “sepia-toned.”) Without doubt, the period offers fantastic modeling and op- erating possibilites, with interesting equipment and a mix of facilities, an economic geography that used sidings and switch engines in towns large and small to handle society’s goods and manufactures, a vibrant industrial base in North America tied to the rails, freight houses, team tracks, passenger RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
trains and all that good stuff. There is a lot for trains to do on a layout set then, and who doesn’t like steam and first generation diesels? But, was it really like that?. Which “end” of the transition are you
talking about? In reality, most of that “good stuff” is a lot earlier than you might think and encompasses far few- er years than you might imagine. While it depends on the railroad and the place, if steam was still king in 1948, and it did rule the rails then, it was on borrowed time and things changed fast, really fast. With only a few exceptions, by 1958 it
was gone. Into the mid-1950’s Southern Pacific’s cab-forwards,
for example,
shared water tanks and roundhouse stalls with nicely proportioned 2-8-0’s, and Pacifics shared commute train du- ties with 4-8-2’s and 4-8-4’s bumped down from name trains. When 4-8-4 No. 4430 pulled out of San Francisco at 5:45 p.m. on January 22, 1957, steam ended on the SP. That was it. Done, and steam there had been a “straggler” on the system
The railroad had tried
GP9’s on commute trains as early as 1953, but they just did not have enough “oomph” to keep the schedules on rush hour trains. Fairbanks-Morse
Train
Masters proved to be the answer, and they had a 25-year reign. Look at the photos Richard Steinheimer took on the Southern Pacific during the “transition era.” Diesels, long lashups of covered
HO-Scale 19037 Village Hall & Vol. Fire Dept. - KIT (Includes removable roofs and finished interiors) Footprint: 9-1/2" x 7-1/8" x 2-9/16"
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