So I’am kind of torn right now. I’ve been a member here for over a year and in that time I have not bought or purchased a single model railroad piece. Basically i have been buying books and reading and learning all about Rail Road and this great hobby. to me Knowledge is power.
But now i am curious. I have done alot of sketches of layouts i want to do and the types of industries i want to do and I am kind of leaning toward creating my own Rail Road Company and its own pain scheme but at the same time i am torn and kind of want to build a proto type after an allready existing railroad. So was looking for your input.
Little background i live in southern Maine, and i plan on building in HO scale. At the moment i do not have any room for a layout but i feel that if i have a direction that will help me move forward in my “Planning Stage” as i like to call my current situation.
Some thoughts. No one can pick your prototype for you, it’s way to personal a decision. In the 2006 MRP, Bernard Kempinski described the technique he used to sort out the theme and prototype to model from multiple competing choices.
What turns you on in modeling? Big steam? Little steam? Lots of long freights or a lazy local winding it’s way through the valley? Is there a region of the country that means something to you? Mountains? Farmland? Seaport?
Just so many choices. For example, the new On30 equipment makes me think seriously about a Maine 2 footer – there’s a lot of modelability in there. I also danced around with Colorado narrow gauge, but my heart has always been Southern. Model the world your heart wants to railroad in.
You can do what-ever you want! Here is something to consider:
Prototype Modeling - Usually there are decorated engines/rolling stock available for most of the large Class 1 and Regional railroads. This makes it quite easy to build up a roster. You are usually limited to models that your favorite prototype has.
Freelance - You have the power to select what-ever models you want as long as you can afford them all. You will need to develop painting skills and invest in custom decals to decorate those models. Being able to ‘buy’ anything that you find ‘neat’ can lead to lots of purchases that you cannot even remember why you bought them!
Myself, I have about 15 BNSF engines, and about 150 ‘modern’ freight cars to go with them. I also have several other engines/cars for my Mineral Point & Northern lines. One thing I have noticed is that personal/freelanced equipment does not sell well at train shows/eBay, even if the paint jobs are very good. The same model painted for a prototype will sell much faster and at a higher price.
I have modeled Santa Fe since 1960, so my engine preferences are based on what is available for Santa Fe fitting a 1989-1990 era. The top units are actually Kato SD40-2 mid production units and I have accumulated a total of 50 (making a certain hobbyshop mail order dealer very happy. Renumbering was simple and the units perform very well on my 3 deck layout which models Arkansas City Ks (staging) to Oklahoma City and into staging, plus the Enid District from Guthrie to Waynoka. the rest of the diesels on my roster are Atlas, Intermountain, P2K, a few Atheran, some Genesis and some foreign units, mostly Frisco, UP and BN.
There are no Big Nasty and Santa Fe anywhere in sight.
OP, if you want to do both a prototype and fictional railroad why the heck not. when I get my own house and make plenty of $$$ I’m gonna run BN, B&O, SP’s Daylight, Alaska, NP, ATSF, SP&S, a ton of custom stuff, and my fictional company which I have yet to name. But that’s just me do them both a prototype(s) and fictional RR it’s ultimately up to you.
Let’s not forget - you can have the best of both worlds. You can create your own fictitious line, and (especially in modern times) claim your railroad has “leased” locomotives from some of the larger roads. Borrowed/leased power was not unheard of in earlier times - during WWI, when purchases of new locomotives was tightly controlled, it was not uncommon for RR’s to swap and borrow from one another to get freight moved. It was also not uncommon for select trains to have “run through” power, perhaps using one locomotive over 2 or 3 railroads.
This would give you a valid reason to buy and run something that you like.
Following a prototype limits you to the equipment, industries, settings, etc. you can have. There’s no point in doing that unless you’re enthusiastic about that prototype. Since you aren’t (you wouldn’t ask the question if you were) then roll your own.
One thing is to be open to change down the road. Whatever you start with, your interests may change as you gain experience.
So why are you torn? What is it that makes you think that you might not be happy with your own railroad? And what prevents you from having two sets of locomotives and swapping them when you want changes?
You show a photo of a Guilford loco. Why not model them in their early days, as I have done. That way you can justifiably run Guilford locos as well as those of the railroads they took over [Delaware and Hudson, Boston and Maine and Maine Central] all at the same time, just as Guilford did before they got around to repainting them. I even have an abused Santa Fe SD26 that Guilford purchased.
Lots of folks despise Guilford. For me that makes it more fun - modelling the bad boys. It makes for some colourful railroading.
Later I became interested in those other railroads as well, and I often ‘go back in time’ and run one of them exclusively. Plenty of possibilities there.
Besides, and I don’t think that its been mentioned, you could “Proto-lance” which I think is the correct term for following a particular prototype as a guide but also have the ability to deviate to suit your own likes and/ or circumstances.
It starts out in Portland, Maine, and makes its way across the border to Montreal. Route 26 parallels the railroad for a while, so it’s easy for you to take a drive up that way and check out the right of way. There’s a nice high bridge over a river in South Paris, and a classic paper mill in Locke Mills. Passing through towns with memorable names like Bethel and Bryant Pond, it’s a history lesson as well.
The railroad currently operates a few old GP-9s. Their colors aren’t mass-produced by any of the major model manufacturers, but I’ve seen some custom paint jobs at my LHS, Maine Trains in Chelmsford, MA.
Since it’s basically a long straight-line railroad, it would lend itself well to modular construction. In your situation, that would let you build the railroad in pieces so that it would be quite easy to move if necessary. You might consider building the sections to Free-Mo standards so that you could participate in that branch of the hobby, and run trains even if you didn’t have a place to keep them set up yourself.
The idea behind the Coquihalla Heritage Railway is that a rich fella with a love for transportation (Richard Branson, maybe) dug into his pockets to create a railway that is a.) fully viable as a top-notch passenger carrying system, and b.) strongly cognizant of the historical and luxurious aspects of train travel. That means a passenger railway that can conceivably have any type of locomotive or rolling stock in its original livery (though I’m mostly sticking with NYC 'cause I like the colours); no repaints are necessary, just a relatively unobtrusive CHR decal somewhere.
That’s the freelance part. The proto part comes from basing the operations of the CHR on VIA Rail practices and CN trackage. CN runs through some amazing territory right on my doorstep (the Cisco bridges and Cape Horn rock sheds ie.) that will make for some challenging and rewarding modeling.
I identify with this simply because it’s all within an hour’s drive of my door. I’ve never been to Maine, personally, but there must be something like that in your neighbourhood; a spot where you like to go and watch trains, with some interesting operations and nifty scenery. Find a way to shoehorn that onto your layout (when space permits of course).
And if you feel like building a railroad that runs upside down through outer space, go nuts! The only one who you have to ultimately justify it to is yourself. Have fun!
Do what you want to do. Well respected model railroaders have done both. Gorre and Daphetid, Franklin and South Manchester, Allegheny Midland are all freelance roads, good enough to make the cover of Model Railroader. Doing locomotives, cabeese, and passenger equipment in your own freelance paint scheme and lettering is fun. Or do an real railroad that you like. Reasons for liking can be anything, it was the railroad you grew up next to, it ran thru terrain you like or served industries that interest you, you had a Lionel engine painted in that roads colors, anything. The choice is purely subjective and there are no wrong answers. You can even change your mind later on for only the effort of repainting some stuff.
Or, split the difference. Model the junction point where your free lanced road meets a real prototype road. This way you can have equipment painted for your own freelance road AND equipment painted for your favorite prototype on the layout at the same time.
Do you have “Track Planning for Realistic Operation” by John Armstrong?
Always liked the Pennsylvania area to model so combined the PRR, RDG LV and WM to run on the layout. that gives me a range of equipment and interests, but it is not prototypical. Do what ever you are interested in, you are the president of your railroad empire and as long as you are having fun, your way is the right way
Wow!!! Thank you Everyone for the input and thoughts into this. Yes i have done a lot of sketches and seem to be leaning toward the freelancing side but what i think i really want to do after reading everyone’s input is build a layout the way i want to, run my own company but through in another prototype railroad as kind of like a Freelanced layout for a prototype if that makes sence?
Yes i do have a picture of the Guilford on my profile and yes i do like the guilford rail system because thats what i grew up around when i was living in bangor. i how ever do not know alot about them and need to do some more re-search. Also why are they despised?
I am looking at doing Modern Day Diesel for a layout to by the way. Also yes i do have John Armstrongs book that i have read a couple of times. I think one more time will help me understand it even more.
Thank you for the input folks and feel free to keep it coming.
I’m also curious why they are hated. why not paint a modern Diesel with your fictional company or even guilford, that’s what I did with a dash 8 which I need to repaint and the SD90 in my sig. though BN isn’t fictional. [:P]
While researching possible locations for a fictitious short line between two Class 1 railroads (Santa Fe and Southern Pacific), I discovered an interesting fallen flag right in my own back yard (Santa Ana & Newport). Not only did this prototype railroad interchange with the Santa Fe, it ran in close proximity to the Pacific Electric and was eventually purchased by the Southern Pacific in the late 1890’s. An extension of the existing SA&N line to the Southern Pacific main line created a complete loop around much of Orange County, California. I have based my layout on the fictional assumption that the SA&N remained independent through at least the transition era. Being a short line, my SA&N locomotives and rolling stock are all second and third hand acquisitions that can follow any prototype with only the age of the units being important. As there are plenty of transition era offerings for my two Class 1 railroads, and since the PE line in the area was basically freight only during the late 1950’s, I have found plenty of appropriate locos and rollng stock for these lines. My fictional layout history allows me to model four different railroads and several actual locations familiar to me with the added benefit of allowing both continuous and point-to-point operations.
With all of the historic railroad operations throughout Maine, I would be surprised if you couldn’t find some similar prototype scenario that would allow you to justify about anything you put on your layout.
Guilford is hated by many railfans because of the takeover and subsequent dismantling of the other railroads [D&H, MEC, BM] with heaps of line closures, plus they had big disputes with staff. Railfans even vent their disgust about the paint scheme.
As an Aussie I’ve been told “That’s why you model Guilford - because no local ever would.” I’ve never let it put me off.
An old friend of mine (long departed for the Great Roundhouse in the Sky) also told me stories of how Guilford had a “deferred maintenance” program to save money. Basically, it was along the lines of “Don’t fix it until it’s broke”. Trains broke down on mainlines and might sit for days until the maintenance crews got them rolling again. Take this with a grain of salt though, this old friend was known to “exaggerate” his stories a bit. But there’s some degree of truth behind his tales.