With everything else I talked about, I left something out. WHY did I choose 1960? Yes, I could try to wax poetically nostalgic about how it was “the twilight of optimistic innocence before the civic upheaval of the '60s”, or perhaps “the dawn of the age of Camelot”… but it would just be hooey. It’s really hard to be truly nostalgic about something that happened while your parents were still in junior high school… So once again, WHY?
Several entirely practical reasons:
1. Conservative dress was still in style. Most mass produced figures are dressed in 1930s or '40’s fashions. A jacket and tie or sweater for the men. A linen dress for the women. A pleated skirts on little girls… all these work. Later era figures with women in ‘pedal pushers’, or men in jeans and t-shirts work as well… in moderation.
2. While it was truly the ‘twilight’ of king steam, dieselization was not yet complete, and steam would hang on for a few more years on small regional lines. Should I ever desire I could run a first or early second generation diesel. without making major changes.
3. It was also the ‘dawn’ of the preservation era. Railroad museums and tourist lines were just getting started. ‘Wild West’ themes were common, even in the civilized East, so the inexpensive Kalamazoo coaches I already had wouldn’t need sold off for larger ones that looked silly on my tight curves
4. Trucks had not yet finished taking the lions share of the freight business from the railroads. So mass abandonments, while obviously on the horizon, had not yet occurred.
5. Western Pa was not yet the ‘rust belt’. Mines and mills were still in business producing things that needed hauled.
6. The venerable and iconic double sheathed wood boxcar had not yet completely disappeared from the equipment rosters.
7. A minor sounding, but important little detail. While Alaska and Hawaii had been admitted to the union in previous years, the first 50 star flag wasn’t flown until July 4 of 1960… Every school needs a flag, and 48 star ones are nearly impossible to find and a pain to make.