I think Phil has it. The challenge can be re-creating scenes of 50 - 80 years ago (or earlier). Most often this is with modern equipment, but occasionally we find an actual 4 x 5 camera or other film camera in use. How close is close enough? Color is the standard today, but Kodachrome came out in 1936, which makes the color images of earlier, pre-1936 times look a little less convincing in my mind, eye-catching as they may be.
So here are a handful.
Seen from the front, there is little to indicate this is a 1983 view, except for the new shop at the left margin of the photo. If the C&TS had placed a couple of drop bottom gons there to mask the shop, this would have been much more convincing - and could have been 20 years - or 40 years earlier. This is getting the locomotive ready for the regular scheduled train on the C&TS, not a special photo freight.
The Colorado Railroad Museum, with No. 346 taking water at the tank in 1983. Is it 1983, or 1936? Of course most readers of this list would know that it has to be post 1965, and the location is well known in narrow gauge enthusiast circles. Steam ups are not daily, even now, but in the 1980s, a steam up was something that occurred only a few week ends a year.
Cheers
Charlie
CVM -30-
Charlie Mutschler
-30-