The Romance of the '50s

I have 2 IC and KCS

Hudson: I was born in 1947, so I grew up in that era. I tend to agree with your thoughts in the first paragraph.

We also tend to push to the rear of our memories the not so nice things, but the 1950's was good time to grow up; the country had a big recession in 1957, but Ike was in the White House and the country was starting to grow with the advent of the Interstate Highway system.

Starting into the decade of the 60's, signs were on the horizon that some of our innocence was going to erode. While we didn't have rampant gun violence, I remember about three "bomb scares" while in high school that seemed to be the cusp of a turbulent decade. Kennedy's assasination + the Civil Rights campaign started in full swing, Vietnam was ramping up and we learned that our government was not always as truthful as we thought. Kent State brought the turbulent 60's to the 70's decade. My little trip to SE Asia was an eye-opener.

First, to some extent i have always assumed that part of the reason I think of the '50s as romantic and what I want to model on my layout, etc., is that I was a kid then and it was part of the world I remember as a kid remembers it: simpler, better, etc..  I was born in '49, rode the Superchief as a kid, had an uncle who drove for Santa Fe, etc.

But I think the immediate pre- and post-war years were the "Golden Age of Railroads" - the systems, locomotives and technology were well developed and the competition (air travel) had not yet evolved.  Anyway, I think of the '50s fondly (knowing they weren't nearly that good to live through as I remember) and model that on my layout.  

Yes, those were happier times,IMHO. I grew up in the steam/diesel transition era. As a railroad dependent my summer vacations were filled with rail travel. As stated by, D&H 65, we do tend to push the "not so nice" things to the rear of our memories.

I was fortunate to have lived through the 50's, though it was from 2 to 12 years of age. It was truly an age of innocence. 

Nearly all my neighborhood friends were from a two parent family (male and female), where the father was the only wage earner. We didn't have much in the area of material things, but everyone seemed content. Most families had just one car, but a few had two cars. And baseball was king - didn't we all love Mickey Mantle.

It was in the early 50's that I got my first train - Lionel Sante Fe A-B-A with a ZW transformer and coal unloader and milk unloading station.

My memory only recalls first generation diesels, but they had character. ACL and SAL were the major railways that I was most exposed to.

News seemed much slower to made public, and it was reported. Investigative reporting was rare. So we saw very few flaws in our leaders, though I'm sure they had many. I suppose ignorance is bliss. At least it kept us positive (rose colored glasses).

I should state that I am white, because the minorities (called "colored" during the 50's in northeast Florida) weren't availed the same opportunities as whites.   

It's funny, because late last week into this week I've been re-watching those railroad movies as well!  A couple of companies have issued tons of those movies onto DVD, and one my wife got me last year for my birthday even has ones that were done in England in the same time period!

I was always told I was born too late (I'm 41, just turned it a couple days ago!) by my parents and friends, and watching movies like that, as well as appreciating the railroads (both real and the ones I run) from that time period just feel more comfortable to me, as does the music and overall culture.

It may not have been so good as hindsight would lead you to believe, but for the most part it probably was better than now in terms of the US being huge in production of goods, as well as leading in some forms of entertainment and other areas.

Also, people's imaginations seemed to be more active then (compare something developed then for television or radio, and put it up against something done today) and it seemed to have a better feel to it.

The fifties ruled, my man. Just the best of a lot of things coming together at the right time. Too bad us RR freaks lost all that steam power, but had it been operated with the same expertice as N&W, steam would have died a lot slower. Gun violence is a product of the drug culture, both illegal and otherwise.  You get what you pay for, and pay for what you get!

It was a wonderful time to be involved with our hobby. Lots of new products from Lionel and American Flyer and a good spirit of competition among these two companies for the train hobby dollars. Not to mention lots of real trains in service to emulate.

You have to put things in perspective. Today's trains are so far superior in terms of features that most of us would not want to turn the tables back as far as our hobby is concerned. You can count me in this number. Was it a kinder gentler society then, absolutely. But we can all think back and reminisce to our hearts content.

You wouldn't miss it because it wasn't there.  You'd be surprised how real a 2036 looked to a kid in the 50's.  Many of today's off the shelf models are superior to "contest winners" back in the day.

The 50's were a time of unbridled optimism.  We were looking forward to vacation trips to the moon and mars, flying cars, everything was going to be atomic powered, and electricity was going to be so cheap they weren't going to bother metering it.  All this well before the year 2000....

...Then reality hit.

Rusty

Ah yes the good old days of smoke-filled rooms and daily social drinking.

I was born in 1944. My parents took my sister and I on our first train trip in about 51 or 52. Los Angeles to San Francisco on the coast Daylight behind a GS-4. I still remember  the smell of the diner. In LA at the time the kids roamed all over all day in the summer. Our parents didn't worry about us. On weekend we took the Pacific Electric trolley to the beach. The line was only three blocks away. My friends and I went to the Palms theater every saturday afternoon so see cartoons, a serial and a western or a Tarzan movie. We made coasters out of old wheels and scrap wood. A big find for us was large pieces of cardboard. Then we could slide down hills all day tell we wore the cardboard away. My best friend was "Tippy" my cocker spaniel. She would jump in my red wagon and we roamed the neighborhood. We attempted what at the time I thought was a very steep hill at least once every outing. The front wheels of the wagon would start wobbling and Tippy and I would go flying. We never made it to the bottom in one piece. Our old neighbor would gladly fix anything I broke in his shop. We lived a few blocks from M-G-M and tried to sneak in the studio. We never made it. They seemed to film lots of movies around the area. All the kids watched and got to eat a free lunch with the crew. They filmed the exteriors of the last Abbott and Costello at our house. That was a great week. The film wasn't very good but at least I can see our old house that is now gone. I miss those innocent days. Don

They are superior in features, of course, but I tend to run my pre and post war trains much more than my more current trains.  I love those features, but I like my mind to take me places with the trains and sometimes having it do everything for me takes some of the thrill out of it, for me anyway.

Besides, I can put one of my postwar trains on the track and be confident that it will run, without worrying about a circuit board blowing up, a Proto Sound battery needing recharging or replacement, having to reset a locomotive to default, etc.

I guess folks prefer to remember the pleasant nostalgic aspects of "the good old days".

Remember the Cold War? Atmospheric nuclear testing?

My elderly train repair friend Ed observed some H-bomb tests while serving in the Navy in the Pacific during the late 1950's. Now he's battling cancer.

The Red scare?  Duck and cover in school?  Segregation in the South?  I grew up on Air Force bases, which were integrated, and was puzzled by the "Colored" signs, etc when we were stationed down South.

Ah well, I prefer to remember the good side of childhood then.

John

I remember duck and cover.  Also watching B-36s take off and fly over our house as they gained altitude.  Wow.  

On the other hand, I remember, and love, Burma Shave signs - and I made one by hand for my layout too (one of my favorites: In a School Zone/Please Go Slow/Let Our Little/Shavers Grow/Burma Shave)

Would the world was like that again . . . 

When it was good, it was very good. When it was bad it was terrible.  When isn't that true? Rome or in Jamestown.

As far as railroading, I think it was the simultaneous peak and decline of traditional railroading as it had been practiced.

 Railroading seemed more on a human scale and less about something comparable to a monotone conveyor belt. From a young rail fan's perspective, it was Eden. The word was Variety, and color and idiosyncratic, regional, diverse...A whole world waiting to be discovered in small towns and far away places. With some misgivings, I miss that time. Perhaps its the innocence, maybe the nickle cost of a candy bar. Gas was .27 a gallon.

The old man in the hobby store, "Are you going to buy something kid?"

I wouldn't just say it was great; I would go even further and say it was the greatest, at least from my perspective having grown up in the mid-40s and into the 50s.

There always is some tendency to remember the good times over the bad.  That's only natural.  And, yes, there were certainly some bad times/events back then, but looking back over those many years I still am VERY thankful that I grew up during that time.  Virtually all of my family and friends from that era also agree.  Whenever the subject of reflecting back comes up, particularly in light of the path this nation seems to be following today, the consensus is that we were indeed very fortunate to have been in that place at that time.

It all began to change in the 60s, and it has been pretty much downhill since then (again, as seen from my personal perspective).  I often tell folks that my feeling is that this great nation has lost its moral compass, and we are slowly but surely seeing the inevitable result.  Just a few days ago, the local news carried a segment showing my boyhood church being demolished to make way for some "green area."  That somehow seemed very symbolic (and sad) to me, and indicative of the course we are following.

I have no offspring to worry about in the future--or to worry about for their future--so I see things in a somewhat different perspective than many or most.  However, I must admit that at this point in my life I am glad that is something I do not have to worry about.  Those who are not in that position should be worrying...a whole lot...in my opinion.

My attachment to trains, both real and toy, was formed back in the late 40s and early 50s, and that attachment obviously has never left me.  I consider myself one very lucky fellow, and I most definitely would not be willing to trade my growing-up years for any period before or since.

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." 

John F. Kennedy

Not a problem as far as I am concerned.  What future? 

I particularly enjoyed reading Don's memories. Even though I was born 8 years after Don, in 1952, and on the other side of the lake, in Australia, my memories are almost identical.

I lived in a dead end street, all the families and kids were of similar ages. The street was our playground, full of kids, dogs and billycarts. We also went to the beach with no supervision, and went to watch and ride steam trains running nearby. Watching the Mickey Mouse Club on TV and going to the Saturday afternoon matinee, watching the cartoons and a good cowboy movie, yes, they were the days, for sure.

The cold war, atomic testing in the Australian desert, the hysterical pursuit of "Communists", just weren't on this kid's radar.

It does appear that there are many,"relics"of the cold war era on the forum. I miss the Saturday morning double features with two cartoons for $.25. Least I not forget the popcorn, candy bar and soda for another $.25 How many remember the Lionel commercials during the early morning Saturday & Sunday cartoons?

I remember doing odd jobs, mowing lawns and such every weekend. When I got paid I ran to my LHS with a dollar or two burning a hole in my pocket. I could go on and on, however, those days are just memories.....happy memories.

Yes, Pappy, I enjoyed experiences very much parallel to yours.  Saturday matinees at a local theater (there were several to choose from), complete with hot buttered popcorn and a Coke--still absolutely essential accessories when I go to a movie today, even though the popcorn and Coke now costs $10.  And, yes, I remember the Lionel commercials and, on occasion, contests.

Like you, I did just about any kind of job necessary to get money to support my Lionel train habit.  Mowed lawns, trimmed hedges, raked leaves, shoveled snow, delivered newspapers...the list goes on.  I was the neighborhood pest when it came to seeking out odd jobs to support my habit.  Eventually, while still in my early teen years, I even landed a Christmas season job selling trains and other items in the toy department of a local department store.  Did that for a couple of years.

Another reason..

I still watch the old b-westerns

Just the facts, maam.

I enjoyed reading all of your memories about growing up in the 50s. It was a great time to be a kid and I wish that I was around during that time. Although I was born in 1963, I actually do have something in common with most of you. I was raised by my grandparents so we were all raised by what Tom Brokaw labeled "The Greatest Generation". That generation lived through the Great Depression and then won the Great War. They made an honest and decent living during the postwar years and they taught values and honesty to their kids. They taught us to be kind to people who need help and to always help our neighbors. They taught us the value of a dollar and how to earn that dollar. If we misbehaved, they did not medicate us, they gave us a smack but that smack was tempered with love.

Most of us have an affinity for trains because of Lionel's heyday in the 1950s. The Greatest Generation designed and manufactured those trains that are still running to this day.

Yep!  Nothing wrong with a little smoke and booze.   

But, most of us kids back in the 50s didn't smoke much, aside from perhaps an occasional experiment, and we definitely didn't have access to alcohol, not to mention hard-core drugs.  Can't say that for today's kids, many of who do all of that and more.  

I'll go along with that - and even considering the bad with the good, I still would not want to be a child growing up today.  I'm glad I was there.  And for train lovers it was the best time - both steam and diesel were roaming the land, there were hundreds of railroads, and you could still get a wave from the caboose.

John

And where are the cartoons at today's movie theaters before the feature movie?

Remember the news reel?

And of those of us who lived it, you would never forget the serial films (chapters). The cliffhangers at their end... The likes of:

• Rocketman
• The Phantom
• Flash Gordon
• Radar Men from the Moon
• and so many more...

The 1950's was an age of innocence for children no worries other than be home for supper at correct time. The rail yards was my first home the other was where I went to eat and sleep And have family time with parents brother and sister.

when there was downtown shopping and hobby shops to see the latest from American flyer lionel Marx oh my! The 5 and dime stores the holiday train layouts in department store windows. Fishing hiking swimming bicycles you could ride on the street and as long as you remembered to watch for cars and buses you had access to an entirely new world to explore.

on another note we never needed to lock our home doors you could leave a bike unlocked and come back and find it right where you left it. We knew how to read and write do math without a calculator or a smartphone. We knew how to create our own fun used our imagination too! Yes there were shootings burglaries killings but for a child it really didn't seem like a big deal to us then.

as to our trains then and now we had then what we have now only it was in our imaginations to make the sounds or do the switching like the real railroads did and take us to places we never had seen yet were just as real then as they are for me now as I'm a kid at heart in an adult body.

as Archie bunkers theme song said " those were the days"

As to steam I have a very vague memory of a small steam switcher when I was 3 years old the whistle is just barely audible in my head yet those famous passenger trains with the f-3's heading them those I remember well.

thank you for starting this post a nice trip to a long ago day yet it seemed like it was just yesterday!

$oo

I think one reason my layout is set in the 1950's is I was so young during the 50's and lived a very happy sheltered life. Some of my firrst memories are riding, standing in the front seat, in my folks Rambler in Ashland KY with the 4-5 tracks running through town.....always busy with TRAINS!

Add to that moving to So Cal in 1960 and all the sudden your sheltered life gets turned upside down. All the neighbors are building bomb shelters, you have 'duck and cover' weely at school....the president is shot and killed. What kid would not look back at the 50's and think it was a 'different' time.

Also the fact you could still spot a steam loco among the F and E units and first gen hoods and it's the perfect modeling era. And talk about manufacture diversity!!

It was far from perfect....Polio was close to a cure....but still remember the fear it brought in my parents faces. Other ills were still around. I even remember 'lock jaw' as a fear.  

But yes.....it is a pleasure to sink back into the good stuff from the 50's by walking down stares and runnig your trains in a 50's era world.

This is an interesting thread.  It is wonderful to read others reflection on the past.

I remember talking with my dad (born in 1912) about the "good old days".  His response was always the same, even the year three hurricans wiped out the entire crop - "These are the good times.  People talk about how great it was when Cokes were a nickle and Nabs were a nickle but most of the time, I didn't have a nickle. Now I don't have a problem coming up with a dollar to by a Coke any time I want one!'

As for toy trains, I would have to say that in my 66 years the years between 1998 and today are the glory years.

My first childhood memories from the late fifties are of watching trains on the New York Central mainline behind our house, between Fairport and East Rochester NY. There was a big signal bridge and set of crossovers nearby, two main tracks and a third local track (formerly four main tracks up to 1957). I wasn't old enough to remember seeing any steam locos operating. This is what it looked like during a revisit in 2011. The signal bridge and crossovers are still there, the third track is gone.

Wow, guys, you bring back great memories.  IMHO growing up in the 50's and 60's will eventually go down as the greatest time to grow up in America.  I grew up in Philadelphia.  More specifically, in Kensington, one of the "neighborhoods".  Philadelphia WAS a city of neighborthoods, the Irish neighborhood, the German neighborhood, the Italian neighborhoood (South Philly), etc.

We were in the lower end of "blue collar", but I didn't feel that way.  I didn't realize it then, but we were so challenged, I know my parents actually took out a loan at one Christmas to buy a gift for me.  They were very special people.

I roamed miles from home (frequently along the PRR NE corridor tracks at Frankford Junction or the Seashore line tracks to the Delran bridge), but my parents didn't worry.  If I did something wrong, even blocks from my home, my mother would know BEFORE I got home.  The neighborhood network back then was as fast as a text message.

We WALKED to school, walked home for lunch.  We had an "ice box".  My father, who started supporting his family when he was 14, stressed "Education, education, education".  he was right, of course.

My mother sat on the front stoop with the neighbors on summer nights, drinking coffee and smoking Newports.  During the summers, I was out until midnight when I was 10, no problem.

I had my knuckles wrapped several times by the nuns at school.  I deserved it.

At Christmas, I had my Lionels.  Still have them, well, my son has them.

Philadelphia was a different place then.  Sort of sorry progress has changed that.

Thanks for the thread.  It was great reading your thoughts.

Ron

 it just seems like it was a great time to be alive.

If you were white. One of my closest friends is a black woman whose parents were both medical doctors. She told me the story of her family's migration from Georgia to Los Angeles in the fifties when she was a little girl. They had to plan each day's drive carefully so they could end up somewhere where a black family could find a place to stay. The average hotel or motel was "no vacancy" if you were the wrong color. My own childhood in the fifties was pretty nice, but hearing this first hand from my best friend is a powerful counterpoint to feeling total nostalgia for that time. Some things are better today. 

It's always a matter of one's personal perspective, of course, or introspective in this case.  The experiences (and memories) of some will always be far better than that of others.  It's that way now and always has been.

As far as I am concerned, there was no better period to be a boy, and particularly to be a boy who liked trains.  The group of us who share similar feelings is still the core of this hobby, and that will become even more evident as our numbers continue to shrink.  There is no escaping that simple fact.

I'm on the side of remembering the good.  I started kindergarten in 1951.  In spite of some of postwar society's black eyes ("universal" smoking, racism, etc.) there was kindness and respect in far greater measure.

Even the railroads had a dark side.  Many of those old steam-era Engineers leaning on the window armrest shooting the hundred mile squint at the track ahead were very unpleasant to work with.  Alcoholism and petty jealousy were widespread among railroaders.  But they were real railroad men (and, in some jobs, women) who knew their business and had pride in their work.  There are still good railroaders today, but the bunch that comes to work to get out of doing work did not exist in the 1950's.