Ron you have some great looking engines! Like how you kept it all Pennsy wish I went that theme.
Mark
Mark, thank you. I saw my brother's prewar Marx collection get out of hand as he bought more and more stuff, and my father-in-law bought what he liked and ran some incorrect combinations, like a PRR engine with a SF caboose, which wasn't my thing. When I got into trains late in life I made the decision, after some not well thought out purchases, to limit my layout to the PRR (and a few engines from connecting roads) and only those items that would have been seen it 1949. This included not only trains, but cars, buildings, and paint schemes. Why did a Californian pick Pennsy? It was my father-in-law's favorite railroad.
I was doing pretty good at staying the course until I bought the K-Line L2. It was gone off the PRR's rails by early 1948. The detail on this engine is really great, and I wanted to keep it. So, I came up with the story that this one (of 5) wasn't stored and went straight to the cutter's torch in 1949.
Then I had the opportunity to buy a 3rd Rail PRR Q1, a great looking engine with those tall drivers. Like the L2, this engine was last seen on the rails in 1948 but still on the roster and supposedly stored until mid-1949. My story for this one is it did operate until it's end and that it was never stored.
I have a few non-Pennsy freight cars with schemes that may not have made it to 1949, and a few 1950 vehicles, but I just ignore those. One rail car that is obviously wrong is my N8 cabin which is marked as new in 2-50, the year they were first built. I got it as part of a set, and I really like this style and it gives me something different than all the N5 and N6 cabins out there. Haven't come up with a plausible story for this one yet.
You see on this forum a lot of "it is your railroad, do what you want" to justify whatever you like. Part of the fun for me, at least now, is researching everything before I buy it to make sure it fits my theme. The same goes for my Bicentennial collection.
By the way, from my hap hazard research the Pennsy had a total of 70 different types of engines still running in 1949; 33 steam, 8 electric, and 29 diesel (note: this counts varients, like the three different K4 configurations). To bad a lot of them are not available in O scale.