Great Northern’s Big Sky Blue era was started at the end of 1966 and the start of 1967. Then when the Burlington Northern merger was formalized there were pre-merger variations of the BN Schemes applied by GN, NP, CB&Q. Finally an official BN style was set in 1970. The time period to model for wild variety and the contrast of old and new is 1965-1975.
Andrew
They didn’t just use them in their original schemes for a little bit of time, it was quite a while. I believe they had just finished re-painting (or at least re-numbering) around 1980 when the Frisco merger happened. There is a single book that contains the information for the “last of” each paint scheme on the BN. It includes photos of each of the units as well. 1977-1980 Burlington Northern Annual I believe.
P.S. I still see wood chip gondolas painted in GN and NP running around on the BNSF.
3996
A “Small switching layout…” does not lend itself to - ‘nor an RR Empire make’. Typical might be a port or industrial district, than shuffles cars between buildings. Grain to a mill, for example.
It doesnt make much difference WHAT the roadname is as long as the track curves are tight and the switchers small and slow.
Many Industrial yards were unrecognizable private corporations, that fed off of the larger carriers.
The small “switching layout” will start as a 2 FREMO modules layout.
In my home will play with it with the help of a 3rd module that will be the staging yard.
With “switching” I mean simple switching and in no way a puzzle.
The most I want to get at my beginning is a decent scenic and if possible a realistic operation.
Propably will look like this, representing a small town →
any suggestions or corrections welcome!
Kiriakos
If you set your switching layout in a city you can plausibly operate rolling stock from a number of different railroads. For instance Boston was served by the Boston and Maine, the Boston and Albany, the New Haven, the Maine Central, and the Canadian National Railway. Cities have lots of warehouses and factories close together, served in the old days by tracks running down the center of the streets, making for lots of industrial spurs to switch cars onto.
There exist lovely illustrated books for most US railroads. The photos in such a book are wonderful for doing paint schemes, seeing what ran on what tracks, what the stationsand buildings looked like. There is a lot to be said for modeling a road for which you have the book.
This about cities sounds interesting, thank you!
On the other hand it frightens me somehow, because I think the city scenery is too difficult for me.
Do you have to suggest any book about this or about multiple schemes on branch lines?
I have to order then directly from abroad and cannot check any before buy.
Kiriakos
MR did a series of articles about the Union Freight RR. IIRC, the UFRR was a New Haven subsidiary. Worth a look if you can find them.