I’ve taken a few steps towards finally buying a house and having space for a much bigger layout. Over the past few days I’ve been rolling the idea around in my head of modeling the unconstructed Blue Ridge Railroad. The BRR was a planned line from Anderson, SC to Knoxville, TN. Because of the Civil War, the line only made it as far as Wallhalla, SC. In fact, the artially-completed Stumphouse Tunnel was to be part of this line and is open to the public.
I’m thinking about building a layout based on the line being completed and then later absorbed by my Cherokee Foothills Railroad. Does this sound like a good idea? Modeling what could have been.
The common response will be “your railroad, your rules,” which is what makes MRRing very fun! I model CSX but my layout is more of a high desert look, like what you find in Eastern Oregon- Washington- southern Idaho. I know it wrong but I dont care- my railroad, my rules.
That is not an uncommon approach. There are dozens of model railroads I have seen over the years that have included all or part of the South Penn Railroad (two of its tunnels are now used by the Pennsylvania Turnpike) . So go for the gusto
It really is a form of freelancing as you’ll have the route but little else to actually follow. The advantage is that you can use whatever locomotives and rolling stock are available and appeal to you.
Of course you’ll have to take care to develop a roster that has a family look as opposed to one of everything that ever ran and fits the size and era of the railroad.
Or not as the case may be, depending on serious you want to be.
Good luck
Paul
Modeling, `Might have been, but never was,’ is a perfectly legitimate technique for coming up with station names, terrain features, traffic sources… It’s just a more extreme form of protolancing.
‘Way back when, I `imagineered,’ first, the Phoenix and Northern Arizona, and then the Arizona Northern. Then I saw a contour map of my proposed routes and made a reasonable assessment of the traffic potential of some of the most desolate territory in the Lower 48… I retreated to what I knew - the New York Central.
Nowadays I limit my, `Why not,’ modeling to rolling stock (of no known ancestry or acknowledged parentage.)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with 7-axle articulated hopper cars that never ran there,)