It’s the 1960s in Rockford, Illinois, at the PebbleCreek Model Railroad Club
Mark Pelletier
Visiting our scale model railroad layout is like entering a time warp. Walk through the doors and it’s around 1960 again. Setting our Great Lakes Western Railroad in that era defines the kind of equipment and scenery you will see.
Most major railroads substantially completed the transition from steam locomotives to diesels in the mid-1950s, but it’s still appropriate to see – and hear – an occasional steamer working on the GLW. For the most part our freight cars are 40 scale feet in length. Yes, there were some longer cars even in that era, but not the really long cars seen on the rails today. Also, today you will not see as many box cars on full size trains as 50 years ago, since various types of specialized freight cars are now used for grain, shipping containers, auto carriers and others. Believe it or not, even grain used to be shipped in box cars with special barriers blocking the sliding door openings. You’ll also see refrigerated cars kept cold with blocks of ice and stock cars transporting livestock to market on our layout; today that all travels by truck.
And, of course, our trains almost always have a caboose. Back in the day the train crew included brakemen and a conductor riding in the caboose as their end-of-train crew car and office. Around 1984 railroads discontinued using cabooses since the conductor’s paperwork was now computerized, the brakeman eliminated from the crew and an electronic device attached to the last freight car automatically monitors braking and other functions.
Certainly we strive to make other items on the layout match the time period. Items like automobiles, building styles, signage – even the airplane flying over Rockford. That’s all part of the fun and the challenge of modeling.
So please come visit us – and step back in time on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and especially at our Easter Open House, Friday, March 25 from 10:00 a.m. to noon. Or time warp back to the twenty-first century on the internet at www.pcmrc.org.