Had an idea today, need a little inspiration


N

nekom

Member
I haven't done any scenery at all yet on my layout, and I've decided to go a different way, something as far as I can tell nobody else has done (at least done and posted pictures that are easy to find). I want to model a post-apocalyptic world. Still United States, southwestern Pennsylvania area, but (LUCKILY) a very different scene than I see out of my window!

Imagine the nukes fly, the dust settles, and a few years later, the survivors are trying to rebuild the world. Several warring factions and roving bandits force towns to wall up and stay heavily armed. The new railroad, cobbled together from old repaired equiptment (so many roadnames, very heavy weathering involved) must be protected.

What kinds of industry would a rebuilding society have? A return to beehive coke ovens to rebuild steel production? Farming would of course be necessary. Passengers would be much safer on a railroad train than on foot. What other considerations are there, or problems I might run into?

I'd love to hear thoughts on this! This model would be a section of a new railroad aimed at rebuilding America, and also the headquarters of the new railroad, which would go north to Pittsburgh and Erie, and south to Morgantown and Fairmont. What might you name such a railroad?
 
Sounds like something out of the Mad Max movies. I'm sure that you could use a few of the manners in which they made their vehicles "protected" could be used on your train. I suspect that your locos and cars would have to be windowless or have cages or such covering the glass. I'm also picturing some sort of "cow pusher" on the front of the engine to remove any debris from the tracks.

Could definitely be an interesting layout if done right.
 
suprduc said:
Sounds like something out of the Mad Max movies. I'm sure that you could use a few of the manners in which they made their vehicles "protected" could be used on your train. I suspect that your locos and cars would have to be windowless or have cages or such covering the glass. I'm also picturing some sort of "cow pusher" on the front of the engine to remove any debris from the tracks.

Could definitely be an interesting layout if done right.
Click to expand...

Actually what I'm going for isn't too far removed from Mad Max, except that the communities would be a lot more law and order based. Kinda like if you ever saw the movie "No Escape", there would be those who would build peaceful communities, but plenty of bandits out there to watch out for as well. hmm i guess you'd never know what could wind up on the tracks in a world like that, maybe a plow leading the train would be in order. I think this is gonna be fun :)
 
Well, you could borrow from the "Planet of the Apes" and have the Statue of Liberty only slightly above ground. That should establish the theme readily in most people's eyes.

Industry? Tankers of potable water would be a natural. Stock cars would be useful again. (Just what the livestock would look like, however....)

For inspiration, try some of the role playing games set in a PA world. (Gamma World and Cyberpunk come to mind, but there are surely others.) Since they are geared for adventure, some of the 'challenges' may give you ideas.

Interesting concept. Please keep us posted.
 
It would have to be a few years after the holocaust.

I've heard tell that if the world were to blow up, it would be 10 years before Western Pennsylvania heard about it.

It would be another 10 years before they found out what people were doing about it.

I mean, if you want to stick to the prototype.
 
Would be interesting lots of kitbashing and you could use lots of buildings that wouldnt have to be in good shape to start. Think of the gondola and flat loads anything goes!!! May have to revive wood burners or steam as fuel may not be available. Guess dust may be your friend as well.

good luck
 
FunValleyLine said:
Would be interesting lots of kitbashing and you could use lots of buildings that wouldnt have to be in good shape to start. Think of the gondola and flat loads anything goes!!! May have to revive wood burners or steam as fuel may not be available. Guess dust may be your friend as well.

good luck
Click to expand...

Well the problem with steam is that outside of museums, you'd be hard pressed to find any surviving workable steam locomotives. Maybe they would have to resort to biodiesel.
 
If you want it to be relistic just take a blow torch to your layout and burn it . What you have left will give you a pretty good idea of what reality would look like .
 
OldGettysk said:
If you want it to be relistic just take a blow torch to your layout and burn it . What you have left will give you a pretty good idea of what reality would look like .
Click to expand...

I don't know about that, I'm talking maybe 10 or 20 years after a nuclear war. I'm not sure what all would survive, or what all would grow back, but I would assume that the survivors would band together and try to rebuild. I would think that a lot of the old railroad equiptment would be able to be refurbished and still work, considering how old some of the gear still running today is.
 
Just how many pieces of railroad equipment, including bridges and roadbed, do you think would survive a real, full-fledged nuclear attack? Even any surviving motive power would have no place to go until all the tunnels and bridges got repaired. This doesn't even bring into the issue of fuel, experienced, personnel, and the tremendous amount of construction equipment you'd need to get any kind of rail system operating. My guess is that, 20 years after a nuclear holocaust, you'd still be looking at horse drawn vehicles and railroads would still be twisted piles of junk.

Speaking of twisted, this whole idea is more than a little wierd. Why would you want to model something like this?
 
Just ask someone from Japan that survived the Nuclear Holocosts if such an idea is a good thing . Or maybe the Germans who where firebombed if a layout like that is such a good idea !
 
I think it's an interesting idea, and quite unique.

But is it plausable that railroads will be operational after a nuclear war? Trains and train tracks are very maintenence-oriented. A few years without regular service and the entire system would be unusable.

Still, it's an idea that hasn't been done before - not extensively anyway. And you'll have lots of freedom to create the layout world as you imagine it.
 
Maybe you should take a look at the History Channel Program "Life After People". Sure, that show doesn't really talk about a Ground Zero, but more like what happens if everybody just ups and disappears.

I mention it because for the '20yr' period, they went to visit Pripyat, Ukraine. Home of Chernobyl. Pretty much evacuated and deserted overnight. Gray and dusty today. Somewhat overgrown, but not really that bad. Might be worth a look if you want to model an area that wasn't ground zero, but folks died right off.

As an aside, I've been playing Call to Duty 4. One of the missions involves going to Pripyat 5 years after Chernobyl. I'll tell ya, other than the lack of overgrowth, it was eerily familiar.....

Kennedy
 
Well as for me I think its a can do concept, even since Nekom did not say exactly if this city had a direct nuklear hit. It could be the radiation and blast from a nuke hit some KMs away, the blast could always devastate a city, but not that much to destroy or mangle everything.

So after the nukes blasted in neighbourhood cities, the shockwave has razed down almost all high buildings, sparing many shorter ones and leaving a blanket of dust over the entire city with most light objects thrown around beyond usage, more heavy equipment could still be used and in place, but most electric equipment has been burned up with the EMP produced by the shockwave.

10 - 15 yrs after the blast, the radiation levels should have gone down pretty much, since it was not a direct hit. Survivors who found shelter or where in protected buildings at the time of the attack, which now should be few left of them, because of shortage of food and drinkable water, re-unite and strugle to get things up and going. New generation kids, now grown up, listen to stories or get information from survivng old men, who used to watch or had knowledge on how diesel and steam trains used to work. Trying to look for remaining steam locos in museums which might have not been severely damaged from the blast, salvage some of the engines and try to make them work again, starting the new era of the steam engine.

Well that's my imaginary short story, of the most plausable scenario you could get. I might not be right in some things, but I think its the closest you might get.
 
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