I know I am late to this party....hmmm let's see I was not even hatched yet in 1970 I was born in 1971. I grew up in Anoka MN where the former NP double tracked mainline ran through town. I remember climbing all over the bridge and under the bridge of this line over the Rum River. (Dangerous and stupid like most of the stuff I did as a kid). My friends would get bored to tears as I would camp out along the tracks just waiting for trains to roll by . They could not figure out what the heck was so cool about it. Through my father I learned to like the GN and NP as well and shifted my modeling to these roads on my former HO layout. I modeled the GN and NP all the way up to late 1989 when I quit running my layout.
