One of the best issues I’ve gotten! Bergie’s article about re-lettering the SD-70MAC was interesting (it helped it was a BN unit!), as were all of the other articles, especially the scratchbuilt, operational C&S coaling tower, and the track laying tips from Pelle Soeberg.
And, I think I have FINALLY found the right line to model, it is obviously going to be CB&Q, somewhere in Lines East of the Missouri River. I was going to model Rochelle, IL, but since that line had more diesels than the Chicago-Denver main and was also partly double-tracked, I thought “Why not model Galesburg?” since that is where I wanted to model in the first place. So I’m going to model a portion of the Galesburg yard as it appeared in the late 1940’s (Although I’ll probably use “modeler’s license” and build the yard as it appeared in 1942, before the yard was doubled in size and got humps and retarders put in place. This would be much easier to model, and more realistic)
So I’m going to have to think of a way to cram a shelf, point-to-point or dogbone, partially modular layout into my old room. I also plan to SCRATCHBUILD the Galesburg coaling tower, and animate it[:D], as well as the Galesburg depot and/or the Galesburg roundhouse. I may even decide to model part of the Santa Fe interchange, but I’ll have to see how much I can fit into the space I have. The layout will probably have benchwork done by the end of this year, I haven’t got that started, (although my dad will probably do all electrical and wood work, if I can convince him to.[;)])
Motive power for the pike will be an AB set of F-3s, a BLI Heavy 2-8-2 I hope to get this Tuesday, and a few steam and diesel switchers eventually. (I am obviously building a layout modeling a yard because I like switching) I plan to build this layout to become part of a largwer layout, maybe some day depicting the whole Galesburg-Ottumwa line?![:D] But for now, it will just be a switching layout, maybe with two removable loop sections at the end so I