The How to Design a 1950’s North American themed Trainz layout thread

MSGSapper

Trainz route developer
Recently I decided to better support those who like late steam or early diesel by converting one of my layouts (the Indiana Western), which I had to update anyway, into a North American 1950s only layout. This conversion process is still ongoing but should be completed in about another week or two.

The 1950’s is considered the glory years of rail and was a time where both late steam and early diesel co-existed side-by-side. By 1960 steam was largely gone.

In deciding to make a 1950’s North American layout I had to do some research on what it would take to make a layout to look and feel like the North American 1950s.

Invaluable in that effort was a Model Railroader Magazine publication titled, appropriately enough, “Modeling the 50s – The Glory Years of Rail”. This was an excellent and helpful reference on the subject! One place you can obtain it at:

http://www.amazon.com/Modeling-50s-...d=1357320269&sr=1-1&keywords=Modeling+the+50s

Making a 1950’s themed layout turned out to require a fair degree of work, and I am not sure I still have it all right, although I think it’s close.

One of the major items I had to build from scratch to make such a layout possible was a new region asset which provided 40 authentic 1950’s vehicles from built-in or DLS assets as traffic on the roads. This is now available for download for use in your own 1950s North American layouts at:

1950s Glory Years USA Region:
https://www.auran.com/DLS/DLS_downloadasset.php?DownloadID=624308

I invite other Trainz layout designers to contribute their experiences in building a 1950’s themed North American based layout to this thread and help us all understand how to make a 1950’s North American themed layout.

Bob (MSGSapper)
 
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Great idea, Bob. Not sure how much help I'd be, but having been born in the midwest in 1948 I sure lived through railroading in the 50's. My first ride on a loco was when I was about 5 years old. It was an NYC tank 0-404 that switched my Dad's coal and building supply company. That's where I got started, and I still remember a lot of it, since that's also when I began model railroading.
 
Sidings for small local businesses, LCL loading platforms, smalltown depots and freight stations. Peddler freights. Freight cars with ladders and roof walks.

For the most part, smaller freight yards.
 
40' for Cars is the norm rather than the exception.

50' is used on TOFC cars, flat cars, gondolas, some boxcars and some specialized cars. Never tank cars or hoppers.

Brick and Mortar, Concrete, and wood rather than steel for buildings.

Turntables and roundhouses at yards.

Open autoracks.
 
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BTW for those who don't know how to implement a region, such as my new one shown above for the 1950s, do the following:

1. Select a layout you want to change the region for viewing in Surveyor mode.

2. Click the "Main Menu" button.

3. Select "Edit Route" menu choice by clicking on it.

4. In the "Geographical Region" box by click the < or > button to either side of that box to change the region choice.

5. When you have made your region choice click the Check mark (proceed) button at the bottom of the dialog.

6. Save the layout with your new region choice.

That's all there is to changing your region choice for a layout!

Note: Make sure you have the "Toggle Traffic" button lit in the objects spline mode section or you won't see anything on the roads!
 
I was looking at doing something similar. The problem is finding 1950's era buildings. Do you have a resource for these?
 
This is an awesome idea! Thanks Bob.

I've been working on my my own 1950's route. The Frisco High Line.
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?78007-The-Frisco-High-Line

One thing I have done since my route has progressed is lowered the track in most places. You should notice this in newer screen shots. The Frisco High Line had two freight locals and two passenger trains running both directions daily but most photos show very shallow ballast. This seems to be the case for a lot of period photos I've seen.

I look forward to checking back here often.
 
If you can get hold of a copy, Model Railroader did a special called Modelling Railroads of the 1950's in (I think) 2005.
 
I was looking at doing something similar. The problem is finding 1950's era buildings. Do you have a resource for these?

There are plenty of building and structures on the DLS that look "50ish". Structure and vehicle content developers on the DLS that I tend to use, besides some of my own stuff (msgsapper) are:

hobbyman350
Dinorius_Redundicus
dmdrake
bendorsey
euphod
davesnow

Just do a search on the DSL using the user names above for the "Building/Structures" category.

Note: While these kind and creative folks are not the only ones I necessarily use for everything, they are developers from my own personal "preferred short list" of building/structure content developers for my various layouts and I get the bulk of my needed structures content from them for whatever era I am working.
 
Speaking of the 1950's I just uploaded this reskinned stop sign. These yellow signs were still used in the U.S. through the 1950's. The stop sign is a separate asset from the crossing bucks. <kuid:135229:100362>


QMpVh.jpg
 
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Also worth looking at is Octl2 PRR Chautauqua thread.
Its pretty inspirational for me, along with Dricketts.
:cool:
 
All of the suggestions so far are great, but there is one thing you have to bear in mind. In the 1950s and early 60s the ONLY way to get goods from your factory to a consignee was from your loading dock or team track to the consignee's loading dock or team track. Very different from today when trucks transfer containers from factory to container yard, by rail to the next nearest container yard, and on to the recipient. I'm modelling the SPs Coast line from San Francisco to Oxnard, CA, and I can tell you I have over 1000 industrial pickup and delivery points along the way, and these are only the ones I could verify through reliable authorities. Every town during this period had trackage snaking down streets and alleys to every factory and warehouse along the way. It was the age of the single car loading and I love it.:D Find a source for Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for your area, many public libraries have digitized versions, and old USGS maps. They are amazing.

Bernie
 
50' is used on TOFC cars,...

Except that in the 1950's, TOFC was still very much in the experimental stage, and was not commonly seen.


Brick and Mortar, Concrete, and wood rather than steel for buildings.

In the 1950's, the steel Quonset hut <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_hut> was commonly seen.

Open autoracks.
Few, if any, autoracks would have been seen on most railroads in the 1950's. Pullman (and others) were developing these in the very late 1950's, and most railroads would probably did not have handled these during the early to mid 1950's. Automobiles during that period, if they were handled by rail, were shipped in 50 foot automobile box cars.

jukeboxblues said:
The problem is finding 1950's era buildings. Do you have a resource for these?

Remember that well built structures tend to last a long time. Drive through small towns in the US, and one finds many buildings from as early as 1890 still standing and in use. And in fact, on a 1950's era route, I'd suggest that 85-90 percent of the structures should be older. !950s era buildings would be needed much more on a 1960's era route, than a 1950's era one.

ns
 
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