ednmra wrote:santafe1958 wrote:ednmra wrote:Midwest Modurail (mostly CB&Q) used to divide their running sessions into eras, more realistic.
That I admit is the one drawback I find with some modular (and not so modular) American layouts.
There can be too much of 'anything goes'. A few years ago there was a small N scale layout at a provincial show, that was supposedly modern Arizona, but was spoilt by NYC and Pennsy trains. It somehow kills the realism for me.
Well I suppose one of the drawbacks of modular groups is that almost by definition you will lose the specific nature of a single model railroad. Although, perhaps more in modern era, you can get a broad similarity of some trackside structures (Otherwise known as Pikestuff and Cornerstone!!) it is difficult to get an overall believable era or location. Mountains, flatlands, coastal, etc etc. but you could try for a broadly believable batch of locos and rolling stock at any one time such as transition midwest 10am till lunchtime, steam in the east from lunch till tea and so on. Just to a give only a little more cohesiveness.
Martin B
Like everything we do, it's always a compromise somewhere. At Western Union modular meets, the boards are single-track "branch-line"-type appearance, and we have rules to avoid the biggest howlers, viz: limit the locomotives to secondary route power (eg, geeps/early SDs, but no SD70's), no more than two locos lashed up (especially important as the passing sidings are limited in size), boxcars do not have roofwalks etc (and no ice reefers or similar cars from the 40s/50s), and no steam locos. Of course, this means that the railroad is less than accurate in some ways, but not overtly so.
So, although you may well see the loco I usually run for "live ops" (an SP RS11, as depicted in the months prior to withdrawal in 1979, based in Houston TX), passing a train hauled by a BN SD9, and then having its train switched by a UP Genset, we can live with it, as the "whole" gives us the required pleasure.
One thing that does keep the individual modules looking similar is that they mostly have the same type of ballast on the main line, but again, you don't really notice that if you are concentrating on moving your train across the district, having a switch list and being under the control of the DS, like the real one is.
