Real easy. Live the first 18 years of your life "cheek by jowl" with your theoretical bucolic branch line and two blocks away from high-speed mainline railroading.
I grew up in the suburbs of New York, on Long Island. Even then, the railroads were no longer the primary distribution network for most items, having been largely replaced by trucks. So, to me, trains carried people. But, the Long Island Railroad, the "Route of the Dashing Commuter," as they called themselves, wasn't a particularly interesting modeling prototype. On the other hand, beneath the streets of New York was something really interesting - the subways. As a boy, I didn't have subway models available, but when I came back to the hobby after many years, I discovered the Life-Like R17 cars, and I was on my way. My subways run beneath a more traditional layout. I like the "low urban" environment of 2, 3 and 4 story buildings, and that works well with the kind of town that would surround a working railroad. Again, it's something I grew up with, and the Late Transition Era fits with my childhood, too.
This is one of the transition era photos I used to model Sugar Land for 1951. It was quite a project but lots of fun to gather all the information I needed.
I chose to do a freelance based on Sand Patch and the surrounding mountains in southern Somerset County, PA because this is where I'm from and where I live currently. The railroads that were here before the big CSX Transportation were the B&O and the WM, that were then absorbed with the C&O to form the Chessie System in the 70's to mid 80's, when Chessie and Seaboard became today's CSX. I have a little old & new because I run steamers all the way to modern diesels, so I have a little of everything.
I grew up 2 minutes from the CP's Lambton Sub and 10 minutes from Lambton Yard. I used to go watch the trains for fun. Further south, I have the CN line straight ino Toronto's Union Station. Even now, I live 5 minutes from the West Toronto Diamond whee CP and CN meet before running down to Union Station. I remember riding CN 6060 up to Gravenhurst and somewhere is a phot of me up in the cab. My layout is a freelanced version of what I thought the CN sub through Mimico might have been back in the 60's except using CP power. My locos include a pair of old Bachmann GP40s, an old Rivarossi 0-8-0 in Indiana Harbor Belt livery and an Atlas SD24 in Santa Fe livery. My mythical branch has the Santa Fe on lease with a complete MOW crew (crane, tender and wok car) for track expansion. The 0-8-0 is there for the "tourist" trade up to the ski hills.
I chose Guilford in their early years because D&H, MEC and B&M locos were often seen with them in all sorts of mixes. And, being born in England, it HAD to be New England. Mike
I've started with H0n3 modules. There was a group of friends who built this already. And I like building turnouts. This way I had a new challenge, stub switches, dual gauge turnouts and code 40 turnouts. Building with code 40 was one point for me to start with my module Salina. Wolfgang
