 Case in point - my crew call. In addition to the prototypical paperwork I hand out (Clearance Forms, Train Orders, Bulletin Orders, Switchlists), I've started to let my crews know beforehand what day they're on-duty and what's going on in the world, including the weather forecast - all thoroughly researched and perfectly prototypical. I got the idea for doing this from operating on Dave Ramos' New York Harbor railroad and really liked how it set the mood for the session. This year - 2014 - it just so happens that the days fall exactly as they did in 1947. So I couldn't resist the extra added bit of realism. Here's my crew call for tomorrow's operating session:
If you want to try adding this extra bit of realism to your sessions, check out the Farmers Almanac online (Ben Franklin would be proud). There's a historical weather section where you can enter the zipcode of the locale you're modeling and the date corresponding to your era. Presto! a forecast for the day of your ops session. Also, "this day in history" type sites are good for getting an overall feel for the day. I googled "this day in history october 29, 1947" and got links to a bunch of sites with good information. Unfortunately, there wasn't much that happened exactly on this day - so I had to fudge a little, e.g. by mentioning Groucho's show that started earlier in the week. I also checked out Eleanor Roosevelt's diary for the day - pretty helpful for folks modeling the late '40s. I find that adding this level of authenticity really puts the railroad in context, literally. No longer are you just running trains on a layout (not that there's anything wrong with that), but you're participating in the history of the line & towns your modeling and playing some role in keeping those memories alive. If you try this out, I'd love to hear about it. The cool thing about a time machine is that you can go anywhere in time that strikes your fancy - and it'd be fun to add your era to the list of places to visit! |
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