Before I could start my layout design, I had to do a pragmatic review of what I liked about prototype railroading and how I would want to use the prototype to model. I like railroad history and history in general so what do I like about prototype railroads? From past layouts, I know that I want to build a layout where the focus is on the train crews and I am willing to cut back on other things to do it.

The following are all time periods that I find interesting in American Railroading:

Golden spike era (1880): To me, this is defined by the Union Pacific with the 4-4-0 trucking across the dry landscape of the west. This era has small equipment and small buildings which are both pluses. One big downer no cars or trucks which I like, plus I think horses are hard to model.

The golden age (1920): For me, this is a great era. My first thought for a 1920 railroad is the Pennsy. First class track, locomotives, rolling stock and first class trains. A tremendous amount of traffic. The whole thing would require a tremendous layout to get the same feeling and I don't think I have the space, money, time and the will to complete an extra large layout.

Super power steam (1940): For me, this is where the mechanical engineer is at his peak. After this period, most mechanical things also included some electrical component that could not be done without. For this era, the Chesapeake and Ohio does it for me. The steam locomotives like the H-8 are large! This would require a large layout to support the large locomotives and the long trains needed to make them look good.

Transition from steam to diesel (1950): I like the Southern Pacific for the transition era. The SP cab forwards and the early diesel colors works for me when you run them trough some of the western mountain scenery. One more chance to build a large layout.

Early diesel (1960): For this era, I like the Great Northern, plus I like all the history of the GN. I like the locomotive colors, the passenger equipment colors and the freight car colors. I like the size of the early diesels and the mountain and high plains scenery of the GN. I even started to collect equipment to do a GN layout in HO and thought it would be the ticket. I planned and planned and the only thing that made sense was a small branch line if I wanted to get the model down to something manageable and realistic. The trouble with a branch line is that you expect them to not have much traffic and that seemed boring.

After the 1960s, I do not like the newer railroading as much. Large locomotives, large rolling stock with less stops and less switching in short less fun to model for me.

While I like the prototypes listed above very much, it did not seem I was finding my dream layout in them. I wanted operation that would provide fun tasks for train crews in a layout that was a size that I could manage. Then you have narrow gauge which is attractive to me because older equipment made it into a more modern age. You have the advantage of the golden spike era railroad equipment and more modern cars and trucks for the scenery. Often narrow gauge is used for extraction, so traffic could be high for the size of the facilities and the train crews have a lot to think about on the narrow gauge.

Ahh thats it! a narrow gauge line used for extraction set in the 50s so I can collect cars and truck models to go with the trains! Who need a prototype to have fun!