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Same layout, two different eras.


TravisM
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I’m just wondering how many other people have built the one layout, but run different eras because nothing has really changed (if doing a specific station or area).  As I’m doing Sleaford East Junction in the last year of East Midlands Trains operation (2019), I’m wondering if I could also to include the present day and East Midlands Railway.

 

It wouldn’t involve buying much more stock if I decided to but I was just wondering if anyone else has done something similar.

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A lot of railway infrastructure doesn't change much over the years while rolling stock can change a lot over a short period.  I run my layout as 1959, 1963, 1968 and a more generic late 80s/early 90s and have four sets of stock to support this although obviously some stock is used in more than one timezone. The real location didn't  change much between the mid 1950s and the early 1980s. The only really significant change being the demolition on the footbridge in the late 1970s so the first three time zones are all valid. Some folk would run 1959 to 1968 as one era but the locos were quite distinctly different over this quite short time span. I am very strict about what can be run for each of these years. During the 1980s the platforms were renewed and shortened.  In 1987 the signals were changed to colour light along with a small change to the track plan. Also a number of commercial premises grew up around the side of the line. I have to admit that running late 80s/early 90s is not therefore accurate but I've decided to allow myself to do it and ignore the changes. Since then the track plan has remained the same but all of the platform building s have changed considerably and the one lineside house has rather surprisingly grown a pitched roof over the years so I draw the line at early 90s. My one transgression is that I sometimes run an IET just because it looks good. I pretty much have the stock to run some time in the 1970s but I will not work on this until Farish get around to making a new class 45/46 as this class was so much part of the line in that era.

 

It is of course what works for each individual and what compromises you are prepared to accept. Pretty much all models of a real location have to have quite a few compromises made in order to fit them in to the space available so I see my running of late 80s/early 90s as just part of that compromise. I only own a couple of locos that were never seen in my location and these just don't get a run any more. I just will not buy any item of stock that has not run through my location during my chosen time periods (except the IET) as that's what suits me. If others want to run "rule 1" or any variation of it then that's fine by me but personally I wouldn't find that so satisfying. I have found researching what happened when to be a very interesting part of building the layout.

 

I even made a totally unauthentic "postcard" to go with my layout.

postcardsml.jpg.526ddeea2ec9b816bc552fce4a7f68d3.jpg

Edited by Chris M
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On my" Ludgershall change for Tidworth"  layout,  I'm intending to have its main date of running being May June 1940. The alternative date being early 1923 . The main differences between the two periods being lighting, posters and paint work on the station. It could be adapted for up till 1958 when the the through line was closed, but that would require more lights, the signals moved, no posters and another colour of paintwork 

Eventually I'll have two different station buildings, and plug in lights.. But there's a lot of construction to happen before then.

 

The other layout uses a different approach, based on 1963 highland railways , but grouping, and nationisation never happened, so the line can run anything post 1918 to 1963 i fancy. Just painted up in HR colours. So I've got a green class 26, which just needs The BR removed and HR applied, to run alongside HR 0-6-4 banking tanks.

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I would think stations would be problematic as the signs at least would need changing.

Probably OK for the 70s and 80s, but get into the mid 90s and they start changing. 

I think we are on about our 5th or 6th set since then at our local station.

Go further back and that BR black on white name board looks even more out of place.

 

Set the scene carefully  though and you could be good for 50 or 60 years worth. 

 

Andy

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10 hours ago, jools1959 said:

As I’m doing Sleaford East Junction in the last year of East Midlands Trains operation (2019), I’m wondering if I could also to include the present day and East Midlands Railway.

Oh to be young again!! I for one would hardly consider two years ago to be a different 'Era'!!

But given how quickly the modern rail scene changes, I do admire those who can keep up with it all, and model it accurately.

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An alternative approach I've heard of but not tried, is to have 2 stations or locations and they can be for totally different railway companies, time periods or even different countries.

 

Whatever stock you run, it will be correct for one station/location and the other place is just a (wrongly) sceniced fiddle yard.

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This would really depend on what level of detail you want to go down to and what tolerance you have for discrepancies. The amount of knowledge I have of the franchise train operations is such that I would miss most of the discrepancies between today and the start of the century twenty years ago.

 

However go back a century or so and I think that you could use the same layout from about 1905 to the point where Beeching took a hand. There would be locomotive and stock differences of course but I am assuming the whole point of the exercise would be to allow the same layout to run stock from different periods. Go back to the nineteenth century and there will be some noticeable differences. The chances are that the track ballasting will cover the sleepers, and that would be hard to magic away, and things like signalling would be visibly archaic with slotted post signals and the like. Go past the 1960s and not only does the railway scene change significantly - removal of steam locomotive servicing points like water cranes, closure of most station goods yards - but so does the scene beyond the railway fence with the explosion in car ownership, new designs in housing and commercial buildings and a huge increase in signage.

 

What I mean by the tolerance you have for discrepancies can be illustrated with the way station goods yards changed over the first half of the 20th century. These photos from a local history website illustrate the point.

 

Rudgwick in 1905 has a goods yard filled with vehicles

 

image.png.2c7a5ee2ca65e0347b869ccdde9c16ae.png

 

The collection of goods is by horse and cart and it is clear from the ruts by the gate to the road that there is no tarmac

 

Things weren't so healthy in 1951

image.png.072833fd1bbe23a7086efcfb3df34abf.png

 

The coal merchant now has a lorry and it looks like at least some of the goods yard road has a tarmac surface. The Southern has also put an upper quadrant signal on the platform and provided a signal box but that is really only relevant to this specific station.

 

By the last weeks of operation in 1965 things are really sad

 

image.png.ad9c9a17a8da9d2de9af056fe94237ec.png

 

The goods yard gates are closed, the tracks are overgrown where they haven't actually been lifted and the whole thing looks rather forlorn.

 

So the question is, which of those differences would bother you if you ran stock from a different era?

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Even a just scenic section will vary over time - all horses - horses + steam ploughing/threshing - early tractors - modern tractors etc., with variations in every associated feature. Livestock breeds will have changed as will crops and the clothing of any people included in the scene. As others have said it is perfectly doable but there will be anomalies. Two different approaches I've seen in the past that would be adaptable to a different era in each segment:-

 

1) The Virgin Trains promotional roundy roundy - to show different scenic aspects (same train circulating) it had scenic break dividers between three sections (Might have been four) a bit like looking down on a Mercedes car badge. 

 

2) A layout, IIRC called Four Seasons - two fixed fiddle yards with a rotating centre section (Think of an open sided Tombola) of the same setting in each season.

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52 minutes ago, F-UnitMad said:

Oh to be young again!! I for one would hardly consider two years ago to be a different 'Era'!!

But given how quickly the modern rail scene changes, I do admire those who can keep up with it all, and model it accurately.


The problem with the present era is it’s constantly changing TOC’s which seem to last between 7 - 10 years before they change yet again.  Everything I’ve got at the moment is East Midlands Trains which is great for up to 2019.

 

Moving onto the present day and East Midlands Railway, not only can I use the former EMT stock but a hired in Scotrail Class 156, the former GA Class 156’s as well as Class 170’s now starting to appear.

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