Snow Day

With up to 24 inches of snow today, the whole family is home from work and school.   It is a bit chilly to work in the basement so I figure I will talk about the concepts behind my modeling.   I have always liked the New Haven Railroad; this is really a factor of having grown up in a family were my grandfather worked for them for over years and my mom worked for them for a few years.   Unfortunately my grandfather passed away shortly after I was born, but I do have many New Haven related Items that he had accumulated.

So now you know why the New Haven Railroad, why the Norwich and Worcester line.  I first looked at the Springfield line, but there is too much railroad to deal with, something like passenger train and through frights in hours.  After reading about Putnam in the NHRHTA Shorliner, I decided it would be a great option with two secondary main lines crossing over each other and running parallel for a bit.   The one problem is that the line between Boston and Hartford in the August, 1955 floods.  I like modeling the New Haven in 1958 giving me the opportunity to model both McGinnis and earlier paint schemes, and all the diesel locomotives except the U-25b’s and C-425’s that came in the mid 1960’s.  I have decided to proto freelance by having the Boston to Hartford line still in service and the East Wind passenger train still operating between New York and Portland Maine.  I also have the State of Maine routed of the N&W to increase passenger service over the line.  Based on using early 1950’s traffic, there are around 13 trains a day over the line.  Plenty to keep a few operators busy.

I have a thing for mixed consists, be it locomotive lash-ups or passenger trains.  Penn Central in the summer of 1969 gives me that look.  Stretching the proto freelancing more, there still is passenger service over the line using a mix of NH, NYC, PRR and PC equipment, the same with locomotives and cabooses.   The 1977 goes one more step with Conrail and all of its components as well as Amtrak.  I have additional plans or the later eras but will touch base on them later.  For now I am just getting the first section of the layout built.