How about some U-Boats

[lateagain]

...I hear a sharp intake of breath? Diesels West "does" U-boats!

Well TrainSimulations (Formerly Streamlines) does quite a few EMD models that BLW cover too?

Recent issues mean that some U-boats relevant to buyers of some BLW packs are "difficult" to obtain. I don't want to start a debate about THAT.

My point is there are quite a few Roads that BLW now covers who had a few U-Boats. I'm not suggesting competing with DW's entire catalogue, much of which is rather "new" for the transition era? Just some of the early stuff that PRR or NYC had ...to name just two.

I buy models from pretty much ALL the payware MSTS/OR sites so I'm not being partisan here. Just suggesting that some early U-boats fit right in with Transition era roads.

[dcarleton]

There's a need for Baldwin road switchers and the entire Fairbanks Morse line way before getting into GE.

[lateagain]

[dcarleton]

The transition era ended in 1960. The first production U-boats came out in 1960. There was no overlap. Penn Central came in 1968.

[lateagain]

[dcarleton]

These definitions apply to the United States only. One cannot understand the development and regulatory history of railroads in the United States and yet be ignorant of the definitions of these terms as applies by railroad professionals and historians.

The Transition Era was the period from the introduction of mass produced diesels until the end of steam in regular service on class 1 railroads. Years 1939 to 1960. During the transition era it was possible to believe, up until about 1957, that steam, diesel and electric would happily coexist forever. By 1959 it was clear that that wasn't going to happen, and the railfans panicked and chased all over the map looking for the last of steam. By 1960 the railfans were still trying to chase the last of steam, but to no avail. Some continued the chase into Canada, Mexico, England, etc.

The Steam Era simply refers to regular service steam, and yes, although that substantially ended in 1960 it continued in pockets for quite some time after. As an example see Chama, New Mexico.

The First Generation refers to diesel locomotive models which were introduced to replace steam. That would be all Baldwins, all Lima-Hamiltons, all Fairbanks-Morse, all Alcos equipped with 539 and 244 prime movers, and all EMD units up to the GP20 and SD24.

The Second Generation refers to diesel locomotive models which were introduced to replace earlier diesels. These include the Alco Century series; EMD units from the GP30 and later; and all U-boats, B-boats and C-boats.

The current generation of diesels does not have a popular designation, at least as of yet, but any new diesels being delivered currently are displacing diesels which had in turn displaced earlier diesels. In practical terms we are at least at the Third Generation, and in some cases further.

The above describes one set of eras. There are other sets of eras to be concerned with in US railroad history.

The Pre-Merger era applies to the period of time from when the professor Ripley was producing his charts for the ICC suggesting which railroad companies should be consolidated until the mergers actually began to take place. The period of indecision went on for decades, and for that reason some Pre-Merger roads (like the Pennsylvania Railroad) had already entered the Second Generation (with the U25c, SD45, etc.) before losing their identity.

But it's important to remember that the first wave of mergers was not big consolidations of many small component parts. For example, the Penn Central was a merger of the assets of just two corporations, the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central. One year later the ICC forced the Penn Central to take over the New Haven. So altogether there were three (not many) identities which disappeared into Penn Central.

It is interesting to note that another vendor has recently released a set of U-boats for Penn Central.

Conrail was not really a merger, it was a government induced consolidation of the bankrupt Anthracite railroads into the bankrupt Penn Central. The biggest component was the Erie Lackawanna.

There were other eras as well, for example many train-simmers have to be reminded that the caboose era ended a decade before the ditch light era began. But if we study the actual histories involved, we can have a much richer train simming experience.

[lateagain]

9 out of 10 for that because you're wrong on one point. The term Transition era is also used here in Europe and our dates and history are very different and vary considerably from country to country.

That aside, and even bearing in mind your excellent précis of my entire library on the history of US railroads. The thread I started was about the possibility of BLW adding some (early) U-boats to the catalogue.

As I said earlier if you care to search my (few) posts here I've already mentioned the complete gap in quality FM or Baldwin switchers and car bodies for MSTS and these would all be useful additions to many of the roads that Rick and Gatean have already covered.

Dates of eras aside so far BLW packs include early Amtrak which would take us up to the mid 70's. there are also some pre war units which is obviously not unreasonable because many roads used stock from the 40's right up till their takeover or demise.

The more the merrier as far as I'm concerned?

[rfranzosa]

Here's my 2 cents.

1) I have Baldwin sounds and some photos for cabviews that would allow me to create additional Baldwin models (road switchers to start, sharks at some point)

2) Steve West has committed to provide me with FM sounds once I've completed an FM locomotive (working on the H-10-44 switcher)

3) NALW has licensed me to use their U-Boat sounds (though I don't have cabview shots yet).

So, BLW/ZT could create additional Baldwins, FMs and U-Boats, and as a New Haven Railroad fan, that's really important to me. (edit: yeah I know the NH didn't have any Baldwin diesels...)

What I don't have? TIME.

That's it.

So... bottom line? I plan on doing all of these models, I just can't tell you when