Modelling what I know about the rural midwestern US

[rogergperkins]

Model what you know to me is a paraphrase of advice given to aspiring writers...write about what you know.
I just purchased the Wallin - Ingles book, Central Illinois Rails.

Looking at the map in the back inside cover started me thinking about a future layout focused on B&O, NKP and C&EI in Shelby and Effingham Counties in Illinois.   On my current layout I model B&O with hypothetically interchanges with NKP and C&EI. I do not actually model the track interchanges, but I have NKP and C&EI rolling stock on my layout.

I am interested in how others approach modeling a relatively small area where three or more railroads operated especially in the steam era.

[C855B]

Obviously being central Illinois, there is no signature scenery (like, say, Tehachapi). My first thought, then, would be to focus on signature structures, especially ones still there so you can get current pix for modeling purposes. For example, the towers at Pana and Ramsey still exist despite having been long abandoned by the railroads; for that matter the rails in Ramsey have been gone for a couple of decades. There's nothing old in Effingham (city), sadly - nearly everything anywhere near the diamond was razed when they put in the double overpass for US40 and 45.

EDIT: Speaking of signature structures, while not railroad-related, the two-story outhouse in Gays, IL has been preserved, http://www.jldr.com/2storyohgaysillinois.html. Gays is in your modeling area, but I think it was on the Big Four.

[jereising]

Corn and soybeans, corn and soybeans and repeat endlessly.  Illinois - mile after boring mile.

(An Illinoisan for 60 years...)

[pnolan48]

Now set this in the 1940's and I am thinking the soy bean fields do not fit.

Then it might have been corn, corn, corn, and pigs. It was that way in southwestern Ohio until perhaps 1980 or even later. I hear the pig trucks driving through the pretty university town of Oxford, OH, stunk to high heaven. I grew up in a suburban tract that had been a pig farm--the soil stank for many years when tilling a veggie garden or digging a hole for a tree. Plants did grow quite well in the clayey soil.

I drove through the area many times when I was commuting between Albuquerque and Oxford. I thought there was a little roll to the land in some places near Effingham--perhaps a river valley?

[mcjaco]

Went to school at Eastern Illinois for a year.  It wasn't for me, but that's another story.  Loved taking Amtrak to and from Mattoon.  What a great little depot, with a big city attempt at flair. 

The C&EI has always been a railroad I've been interested in, but had no inkling on modeling it (I'm a west coast guy), until MiNi cam knocking.  It gave me a reason to model some of it.  Love the black and white with the bright orange hand rails. 

[Big4Man]

This link may have you thinking of putting a little "Traction" in your project.....

http://www.illinoistractionsociety.org/

IT consolidated with other lines and survived longer than most Interurbans. They also hauled ALOT of coal to interchange with Class 1's of the 1940's.

N-Joy!