[Date Prev][Date Next] [Chronological] [Thread] [Top]

RE: (erielack) Favorite Era



> 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.

Truth be told, when I was in high school (late 1980s), I used to railfan the NYS&W quite a bit. The sight of brand-new GE diesels and SD45s with mile-long stack trains (at that time, still relatively new and a novelty) storming up 2% grades was mind-blowing, and I was determined to model the NYS&W circa 1990. The scenery in the area was nice, and long stack trains were appealing, especially since model manufacturers started releasing the correct equipment.

The rest of the story continues below. :)



 
> 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.


I was 5 years old when the EL disappeared into Conrail, but I very clearly remember the sights of EL freight trains coming through my hometown of Boonton, as well as the "really nicely painted" GP7 on the Boonton Drill switching out Drew Chemical (whose smells were an olfactory bonanza!). My parents would often take me down to the Boonton station platform if we went to my grandparents' apartment for dinner (they lived a block away from the station), and so I clearly remember a GP7 and Dunmore caboose parked on the second track right beneath the Main Street bridge while the "HUGE" (to a four year old, at least) U34CHs with their shiny P-S commuter consists paraded on by. It was later that I discovered that the Boonton Drill crew were simply waiting for the evening rush to subside before they headed back to Dover.

It was when I first started operating on model layouts that I realized my original decision to model the "modern" NYS&W wasn't going to work. My newfound love of operation made me realize that, well, modern NYS&W really doesn't HAVE much operation. If you're lucky, you'd have one stack train in each direction a day and 3 locals. So I went back to my roots and decided to model the Boonton Line instead.

I've had era discussions before with lots of folks, and some (hi, Jay Held!) keep trying to push me back into the 1960s, since I could model Train Masters and Alco FA's, "real passenger trains," and more local industries were still around. Compelling, yes, but I grew up with big U34CHs - which lots of folks know had tons of character - and, like Paul B., I love the "colorful 70's" era of larger and brighter freight cars. Plus, I can still toss in an F- or E-unit on a freight and be legitimate.

As for a specific era, I've chosen 1975 as my operating year. This allows me to run the most modern EL motive power and freight cars while still allowing me to keep a token handful of older cab units. It also allows me to run my beloved U34CH-powered commuter runs. And as we've discussed in the past, the Boonton Line became the primary route for freights around 1974, and by 1975 the freights were downright huge, often requiring pushers. All these are extremely appealing to me operationally, and in reliving my youth, appealing personally.

	- Paul





	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	Sponsored by the ELH&TS
	http://www.elhts.org

------------------------------