(erielack) Favorite Era

["Paul Brezicki" <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>]

Joe Lofland's backdating announcement brings up a question: what is everyone's favorite era? This is not meant to be a poll, but some people may want to share some thoughts. Joe isn't the first to backdate to the 50's, of course. A well-known example is Tony Koester, who not only backdated his freelanced Allegheny Midland at one point but more recently went back to his roots and is modeling the NKP in the 50's in Indiana where he grew up. Another is the New England, Berkshire & Western club layout in the Albany area. They had been modeling upstate NY and western New England in at least two eras but settled on the 50's (probably losing a few members in the process). In a magazine article in the mid-80's club principal Jim Nebauer bemoaned the relatively sparse activity on many modern RR's, with the loss of passengers, express and local freight that spice up operations from earlier eras. At the time, one of their principal subjects, the D&H line to Rouses Point, was down to a pair of through freights and a pair of Amtrash trains daily, not much there for an operating session at a club layout. Of course the region they model is an extreme example of railroading's decline, but he has a point.

Progress on the RR's tends to be bad for the railfan and the modeler. Contraction and consolidation have improved the bottom line but have almost eliminated passenger and short-haul traffic, reduced interchange and eliminated routes. 

Modelers also tend to model what they observed in their formative youth. That certainly applies to me. I started serious railfanning when I began high school in 1968, so I'm firmly entrenched in the 70's. I like "modern" freight cars which became common in the 60's and 70's, such as hycubes, autoracks the various covered hopper designs and long intermodal flats. Favorite diesels: Alco Centuries, GP30, SD45 and variants. Favorite RR: EL of course! In the 70's it was still handling some LCL and carfloat traffic, which adds interest. On 4/1/76, the RR world changed forever and for a time I lost interest completely. When I did resume railfanning in the northeast in 1980 it was from a retrospective point of view. So it wasn't a Conrail line, it was "really EL" or "really NYC". After visiting Cajon and Tehachapi in 1998 and 2002, I've rarely ventured trackside, concentrating instead on modeling. Mega-RR's, wide-nose diesels (they all look pretty much the same to me) and doublestacks don't hold much interest. In the past it was fun to trace the movement of intermodal trailers: meat from Iowa, steel from Cleveland, UPS from Stratford CT. Nowadays most of this business is in containers from nameless, faceless plants in Asia.

Anyway, enough of this rambling. What's your favorite era?

Paul B

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End of EL Mail List Digest V3 #2159
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