Modeling those "other" RR's

You know--modeling something that ISN'T UP, ATSF,or Pennsy, or BNSF.

I'm not the sort to stick to just one railroad, but over the last thirty years I've mainly been interested in the same five or six railroads and geographic areas:

Delaware & Hudson, mainly focused on the Willsboro Bay area, and Rutland, VT.

Wabash, NYC, Ann Arbor, C&O and PM, mainly focusing on operations in Michigan and Ontario.

Manufacturer's Rwy, a St. Louis switching railroad.

Im lucky, as there has been equipment made for all of my roads, but there could still be more.

Who out there models the more obscure lines--and why?

Jeff C

 

Don't know if it matters, but I meant for the thread to be addressed specifically to N scale modelers--as I believe that modeling more obscure roads and locales can present a special challenge in scales other than HO...

My previous layouts all consisted of a series of individual scenes, with no overall theme. I'm more of a train watcher than an operator, so it's no big deal to me if the various scenes don't all work within a common theme.

Jeff C

 

I kinda' have the same idea. The layout I have planned will be used by roads in my area. My main railroad is BN, but I will be able to switch over to AT&SF, CRI&P, EJ&E, PC, N&W, MILW, IAIS, ICG, TP&W, LS&BC, KB&S and a few others. Whatever the flavor of the day happens to be !!!

 

I wouldn't rule out rostering a TRRA Loco, but TRRA isn't a favorite. I'm always looking for the Alton & Southern MP15dc that Atlas made a while back, and I'd do back flips if they released the Alco switchers painted up for MRS.

Jeff C

 

I'm not sure you'd really call it 'modeling' as what I have are a couple equipment collections that don't otherwise neatly fit into my Santa Fe 1972 layout and Wheeler & Dusenbury 1920 logging universes.

- LEF&C in the 1970's. That was a local line to me, and my wife went to school in Clarion University, so I had ample opportunity to both see it and ride it before it went 'POOF!' in the 1980's when the coal market collapsed. Talk about a prosperous little line in that 70's era. So when Atlas did the MP15's I just had to get one of those...and some of the Roundhouse unit train hoppers, and the yellow IPD boxcars, and the Atlas triples, and I've just painted up a caboose with custom decals, and I've probably got enough equipment collected for a small layout. I actually made a serious attempt to work for them at one time. It still was the most impressive shortline I've ever seen.

- WNYP 2000-2010. I had a lot to do with getting the railroad started, so I've got a couple of the LA&L units that served here, and a #630 lettered up. Display case stuff only, its a sentimental thing.

- Allegheny Railroad 1985-1992 Same deal, it was a hometown operation, I've got a couple locomotives lettered up in their scheme as the micro-scale decals were available. That also started my CF7 passion, as well as my railroad career.

- Erie Lackawanna 1970's. I've got enough stuff collected to do an entire E-L train, actually, with the usual paired SD45's up front. Another hometown operation, I had a lot of firsthand experience during the 70's, sentimental favorites.

I've always been tempted to do at least a generic Pennsylvania photo module for all this disconnected stuff, hasn't happened. But I do admit to being a sucker for a well-done model of the local stuff around here, as it is a rather interesting railroad zone. Although I'm right dead-center in PRR territory, I have the one GHQ L-1 model, a couple cabooses...and that's it. The PRR/PC era here was incredibly depressing. I have been tempted to do PC GP38-2 8099, which is the unit that started and ended my operating career in the same day in 1975.

 

PC, the beginning of Conrail and the end of the Sterzing era on the D&H were all depressing events for me, as I'd become a big eastern railroad fan. Now it seems that I'm drawn to those moments when one railroad begins to disappear into another, as that is usually a very interesting moment in time to model...

Jeff C

 

I came into possession 10-12 years ago of a Roundhouse four pack of KCM&O 1910-20 era freight cars, that is, Kansas City, Mexico and Orient: a box car, a stock car, a nice yellow reefer, and a caboose. Becoming curious, I looked on the internet and saw a picture of a KCM&O roundhouse, and the steam engines had, in very big white letters, "ORIENT" on the tender. This looked pretty cool, I thought, and I already had an orphan caboose. I discovered that I could pretty much duplicate the look of that tender by using "ORIENT" from the Micro-scale set for the KCM&O tanker car. I got a Bachmann 2-8-0 and, bingo, I had KCM&O #49, pulling a nice freight that had my KCM&O cars in the consist.

The idea of this railroad had been to connect Kansas City with the Orient by going from Kansas City, through Texas, and then westward through Mexico until it reached the Pacific Coast port of Topolobampo. Of course, it never did make it even close to all the way and was eventually absorbed by larger railroads in the region. But for a while, I got very interested in the story of this railroad. There is even a book about it called "The Road to Topolobampo". It's quite an interesting story. And I have a train (in N scale) from that railroad.

Anyway, the KCM&O is a pretty good example of one of those "other" railroads, which almost always prove to be very interesting.