Hey, railfive - I grew up in Leesburg: I can remember the process of converting the old roadbed from a bike trail. When I was a kid a lot of the old W&OD stuff - stations, etc - was still intact and decaying in Leesburg and in some of the other spots along the line (I used to run the bike trail for sports practice and when getting ready to go into the service - can’t tell you how many times I went under that old stone highway bridge at Clark’s Gap!). I even have the old edition of Herbert Harwood’s book, bound in blue construction paper. Until about the mid-'80s, when everything east of Sterling got paved over, a lot of those places still resembled the photos in Harwood’s book. Loudoun County was a great place to grow up: the western parts of it are as beautiful as any place I’ve ever been since, especially in the fall. If the N&W had bought the W&OD nobody would have ever heard of the Abingdon Branch!
Know of any good MR clubs in the area? There used to be one that modelled the Southern in an old W&OD depot, as I recall - maybe it was in Herndon? I live just down GA Ave from the late, lamented John Armstrong, but never got the chance to meet him.
I’m sure you’ve probably though of this already, but the two W&OD consolidations bear a strong basic resemblence (driver size and dimensions) to Sierra #24, which WSM made in a widely available brass version in the 1970s. I’ve got one - not modeling the W&OD myself, but I bet it could be made into a serviceable model with some repainting and minor changes.
regards,
Rob