"Then and now" photos

The other day I was looking for websites that had information on disused railways, as I was getting interested in the subject after driving under two disused rail bridge spans on the way to my temporary job (It seemed strange that the spans were still there even though the line was closed possibly some 40 years ago!).
After finding one useful site and looking at the photos of the stations as they were in their heyday, I thought it would be a good idea if I could take some photos of my home layout in the same way. Seeing as the last section isn't yet built, I could mock up a scene with several tracks and "new" buildings and take some black and white photos of them, then remove everything and build the layout as normal before taking some colour photos as it would appear today. Perhaps have some of the buildings weathered or modified and have modern trains and road vehicles as opposed to steam-era trains in the previous photos. Has anyone else thought of this?
 

nolatron

Member
I think there was a article in Model Railroader recently where they did something like that. It was the same spot on a layout, a depot I think. And you could see cars, buildings, trains, people, etc.. progress to newer stuff over the images.
 

Russ Bellinis

Active Member
Robert Sleicher (spelling?) wrote a book years ago (late 1970's or early 1980's) titled BUILD YOUR NEXT MODEL RAILROAD THIS WAY. The layout for ho scale was a folded dogbone with a module based on a double Time Saver as the central town on the layout. The central industry was a grain elevator, andhe had a typical wood elevator from the turn of the century to 1940 or so. Then he did the same scene with a steel grain elevator from the 1930's to the 1950's. The final scene was with a concrete grain elevator. Essentially, by changing out some of the buildings, trains, vehicles, and people's clothing styles, a modler could have a model railroad that operated in the steam era, transition era right after ww2, or modern era.
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Alan: I've often wondered about the possibility of building a railway backward in time.
Start with the modern, pared-down railway (or hiking trail) and gradually add back all the bits that were removed over the years -- supermarkets give way to car parks then to factories, sidings are replaced, two road diesel depots become thriving steam sheds.
Try to stop before the whole railway is removed and everything returns to rolling hills with blue warriors on them.
 
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