Deutsche VersionEpoch VI
I just noticed: The [NEM 800][nem800] (sorry, no english version. I decided to link to the french one instead because there are quite a few visitors from France here it seems) now includes a definition of Epoch VI. We’re now officially in the future!
This change was mentioned in the last edition of the [MOROP Newsletter][morop].
At the moment, this epoch hasn’t reached Germany or France yet (and there are no definitions for the UK or US anyway). I’m not certain whether I’d have said it was VI yet, because that makes V awfully short and I don’t see a clear-cut division between the two. However, now it’s the standard, so there’s no use fighting it.
To explain what this all means: In continental Europe, the model railroaders divide the history of railroad in several epochs. Epoch I goes from the first railroads to the first world war. Epoch II continues to WWII, Epoch III then goes to the end of the sixties or beginning of the seventies, with Epoch IV reaching to the beginning-to-mid nineties. The precise dates are defined for each country separately. For example, Epoch IV started in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1968, but in the German Democratic Republic only in 1970, which were the years each railroad agency introduced new numbering schemes. France, on the other hand, has 1971, because that’s when the last steam engines vanished and SNCF got a more modern logo. No precise start dates have been decided for Epoch VI for any country yet, but the idea is that it’s supposed to start between 2005 and 2010.
As an additional thing, the new TT coupling is now standardized as [NEM 359][nem359]
Written on July 4th, 2008 at 07:57 am
