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I’m waffling more than a politician in the 2016 presidential election on if I should switch to N scale or stick to HO scale for the Merrimack Valley model railroad layout. I went back to Charles Ro Supply on Friday and bought my first N scale Guilford boxcar and a section of Atlas code 55 flex track. But being in the store, there is just so much more option wise for HO than N scale. I mean, just look at the Walthers catalogs, the HO is twice as thick. So over the weekend, I created another four model railroad layouts using XTrackCAD. Two in N scale, two in HO scale. Click thru to see the plans.
Continue reading A Few More Model Railroad Layout Ideas

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Pan Am Engine 315 with Guilford Livery

As I continue to plan my Merrimack Valley model railroad I’ve been reading more about prototyping, or proto as kids call it these days, a real railroad / industries / locations. Some people even suggest doing a snap shot of an exact date in time. The other option is freelance, otherwise known as make whatever the hell you want. When I was at Charles Ro Supply last week, see my post from Friday, I saw some Guilford and Boston & Maine locomotives. So this got my mind thinking and I said, “Hey self! What if we made a hybrid proto model railroad of Guilford and the other older lines it gobbled up?” Not a bad idea! So here’s my story, the Merrimack Valley Railroad was a small line and purchased by Guilford. Along with Boston & Maine and the Maine Central Railroad, I should be able to combine the available roadnames without having to do a fancy custom job. And maybe just ignore that Guilford becomes Pam Am in my time frame.

As for scenery, I’ve decided to use real town names from New England but I think operations and industries are going to be freelance / proto to the region. Ex: Lumber / paper / passenger / fishing.

Continue reading To proto or not to proto

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