The 1950's

Hi Everybody,

As I have mention, I am back dating the railroad to an earlier time period. I decided to set the time period as the fall of 1960. This was chosen mainly because I have a copy of the Jan. 1962 Railway Register. I chose 1960 because it was the beginning of a new decade, of a time that would become completely different that it was in the 1950's. But as I searched, 1959 looked a whole lot better. So 1959 it is.

As I began my search I started with all the information I had acquired over my life time. Some of it wouldn't be of any help as a good third is devoted to narrow gauge railroading. But the rest all covers the time between the 40's and earlier to the present.

My search began with two magazines called "Modeling of the 1950s Railroads" and the other one called "How to model Railroads of the 1950s". Both are put out by Model Railroader magazine. Even though both are directed toward the HO world, they still contain plenty of information. There is much that can be done to convey a time period. The architecture of buildings and the different model of automobiles are good markers of the time period you wish to convey. The HO people have it made when it comes to vehicles. Just about any year can be modeled just by the car you choose. But we people who have decided to live in our world of 1:48, have to put up with over and under scale vehicles. I haven't found many vehicles in 1:48 never mind the late 50's. 1:50 has a large selection of contruction equipment but the selection of automobles is almost zero. And none of those are American autos. And 1:43 is so large you can't place any 1:43 scale vehicles next to any rolling stock or buildings so it isn't even worth looking at. I'm still searching the internet hoping to find the jackpot, but it doesn't look very promising.

See ya next time.