What railroad snuck up on you?

[rsn48]

1.  Montana Rail Link
2.  Hudson Bay Railway
3.  BC Hydro

[Specter3]

I model 1977 or so Southern Railway. Just late enough to have the waffles running. One day visiting my mom at home in NY (Hopewell Junction) I went down to the depot they were restoring in town and discovered the effort was being spearheaded by the father of a high school friend. Her mom was involved as well and we had a long chat about the old days and I talked with dad about what was going on. He directed me to his website about railroading in the area and to say I was hooked was an understatement. I have a large collection of Sou power and rolling stock and keep an eye on what is coming out that falls in my time line but all my interest over the past two years has been turn of the century CNE and New Haven. Without much representation in N scale turn of the century equipment is practically non existant. But with my first real kitbash of a piece of rolling stock coming together today I feel pretty good about having to modify or even build older rolling stock. I picked a date of 1919 to model to allow the very nice 2-10-2(1918)to play(they were the pushers in Hopewell) and to allow the
2-8-2s(1919) to enter fresh from the shops as well. Not many locos can represent New Haven power decently so I am hedging to take what does fit.

[GN Fan]

So I too am a nut for many railroads.

Mostly I am a fan of the Great Northern in the Pacific NW.  So I have the following connecting roads: Northern Pacific, Milwaukee, SP, WP, a lot of the SP&S, CN and CP, UP, Spokane International, and Tim Horton has introduced me to Pacific Great Eastern.

For more modern Montana Rail Link train with a BN unit in the consist.

Tom

[Erik W]

Good question.  I have a few.

1. Florida East Coast around 2000.  I was operating at the height of my D&RGW interest when this popped up.  Ed didn't mention FEC, but I was just flipping through the Jan '95 issue of MR and saw a question from one Ed Kapuscinski about FEC blue in Ask Paint Shop. 
 
2. Conrail in 1998.  Last years of service with SD70s, SD70MACs, SD80MACs, etc.  This one snuck on me a couple years ago.  Now I have a few Conrail books and DVDs.  I firmly blame all the Conrail foamers here!

3. NS present day.  This started on a recent visit to my family in central PA.  Can't help but get excited driving by Enola, Rockville Bridge, etc.

Erik

[Wardie]

Modeling the Maine Central connecting roads Boston and Maine, Bangor and Aroostook, and Canadian Pacific were pretty much guaranteed from the beginning, the one that snuck up on me was the Grand Trunk, especially with all the CN, CV, GTW and DW&P power that rotated through.

[mu26aeh]

I grew up along the Old Dutch Line of the Western Maryland, with the Chessie System in charge by then.  Of course, this became what is now CSX.  90 % of what I had was CSX, with their multiple paint schemes etc.  But now I've been bitten by interchange and pool power, recently adding two UP locos and multiple NS locos.  If money works out, seriously thinking about adding a couple of NS Heritage units (Reading/????).  Also seeing more people doing multi-era layouts, have to think about more Chessie or even back to Western Maryland

[conrail98]

I've been pretty faithful to Conrail but I could very well dive into C&NW. I remember watching them on our trips to Minnesota and South Dakota and other joints across country as a kid,

Phil

[Bobster]

Greetings,

I have a small Rock island 50's layout, 48" x 30" roundy round, with a couple switches for fun.  Being from Peoria a P&E GP7 & 3 car passenger train seemed realistic.  A PRR Doodlebug and a Burlington E7 with a short train seemed OK too.  All 4 roads played in Peoria.  The variety would be good because I could only fit one train and a switcher at a time on the layout.  A small ATSF passenger and freight seemed logical next.  OK main line 20 miles of north of town, Ancona-Pekin branch 20 miles east of town.  My 5 year old grand daughter could drive the freight no big loss if something happened.

But then....
Enter the Wabash.  Got my hot little hands on an E-8, 1006, cheap off ebay to repaint to RI.  But I could not bring myself to repaint it... and next thing you know I have a 5 heavyweight car  Cannon Ball painted and ready to decal.  I'm almost done converting an observation car (including scratch built interior) to City of Wabash or City of Lafayette.  A couple Kato domes appeared next.  I'm thinking Blue Bird or Banner Blue now.  Then a Rowa dome appeared for conversion to 1602.  It won't be spot on but after I remove the fluting it will be close enough.  Then I found out half the Blue Bird (201, 202, & 1601) was less than an hour from my daughter's house in GA.  (I've visited it twice)  Now I'm trying to figure out how to make a Con-Cor dome/observation a "dome forward" car.  Now a door layout has been started so my passenger trains won't be chasing their tails. 

Am I nuts or just another model railroader?
Bob

[MRL]

Penn Central... Getting a three dome tank car from Micro-Trains as well as the PC ACe Kind of grabbed at me. A trio of PC ACe's ...

[Kisatchie]

Am I nuts or just another model railroader?

Typical model railroader is my vote.


Hmm... I'm trying to figure
out how to put a layout on
my treehouse walls...

[Ed Kapuscinski]

1. Florida East Coast around 2000.  I was operating at the height of my D&RGW interest when this popped up.  Ed didn't mention FEC, but I was just flipping through the Jan '95 issue of MR and saw a question from one Ed Kapuscinski about FEC blue in Ask Paint Shop. 
 
Erik

Lol. I had forgotten about that! I too secretly love that scab railroad! I guess 90 is a good year for it too. The hurricane logo, the GP9Rs still hanging around, and before the awesome nose lights all disappeared in favor of boring ditch lights. Do you have Speedway to Sunshine? It's a great book.

[Erik W]

Yeah, I have Speedway to Sunshine.  It's definitely a good read.  I like the photos of the Key West Extension.

One thing that interests me about modeling the FEC is the Florida scenery with long needle pines, palmetto bushes, sandy soil, etc.  Would be kind of unique model railroad wise.  Not something you see very often.

The 1990 to 2000 time frame is what interests me.  Once the FEC acquired UP looking 6 axle power, my interest waned.   

Would be cool to see an In Color book on the FEC at some point.

Erik

[unittrain]

When I was younger I was into the EL then my dad took me and my younger brother to the B&O/Chessie  In 1980 we would go for walks along the tracks and hence I became a big B&O fan but still liked the EL but the EL was freshly abandoned through my town, then fast forward to 1989 I went trackside with some friends on the Conrail former Pennsy Cleveland Pittsburg line and did some research on the line and discovered the Penn Central and became somewhat of a PC fan I liked Conrail but if I had to pick the railroad that snuck up on me it would have to be PC because I never seen but maybe one PC train when I was very young in about 1975 so PC had a legendary status which I think has grown more in recent years. Here is a picture of the Cleveland line not far from my house http://thecrhs.org/image/view/5173/_original another thing is the bridge in the backround was a mystery there was no track leading to it after some research I discovered NYC which with Pennsy built the branch line known as the LE&P which crossed the bridge after leaving the pennsy tracks below(the le&p had trackage rigths on pennsy and B&O at certain points hence the missing track mystery solved) the track on the left is the return line joining the pennsy so even the LE&P and NYC snuck up on me too!

[sirenwerks]

Actually, if I lived further south (trying not to let that happen) my closet SAL habit would probably become rampant.  If my book collection is any indicator, I like anything that runs into or remotely near the Twin Cities.

[mionerr]

Well, and then there are the MTL state commemorative cars that will never roll on my layout:  Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey and Texas.  Guess why these?

If you're like me, those are the states you've lived in. (for me it's CA, TX, IA, WA, CO, AL, MN)