LDJ, Part I: What to Model?

Layout Design Journal, Part I
What do I do now?

If your interest survives your first train set, eventually there comes a point where you want to take it to the next level.

The question then becomes, how do I get there?

If you're anything like me, that can be a really tough question. We live in a golden age for hobbies. There are more high-quality products in more scales than ever before. Prices have climbed some than they were ten years ago - but what you're buying is better, too. The paint and detail on an Athearn SD40-2 is worth the doubling in price, at least to my mind. In the end, it comes down to a couple of simple things: you get what you pay for, and quality is better than quantity.

Not that you would learn that from me. I'm a rolling-stock hog. My current state of living has allowed me to spend a lot of money on cars and locomotives "that I've always wanted," and far more than I should have. And I have no desire to part with any of it. Even though I really have no need of two Atlas Rio Grande GP7s (or do I?).

For there is the rub. I want all this stuff, but I don't do anything with it. I'm suffering from a self-inflicted dose of analysis paralysis. So many things I could/want to do! For example:

• Burlington Northern in the Pacific Northwest - mainline railroading in spectaular scenery.
• Milwaukee Road, in same.
• Northern Pacific (BN predecessor) in same, and in either the steam era, the early diesel era, or right before (or right after) the 1970 merger that created BN.
• Southern Pacific in Oregon. SD45's on the main and SD9's on the branchlines. You can model a gillion* trees or not, depending on where in the Willamette Valley you set the scene.
• Union Pacific over the Blue Mountains of Oregon and through the Columbia River Gorge. This could be fun in either steam or diesel, set in the 1940s/1950s or in the 1970s/1980s.
• Branchlines! Of the BN, MILW, or the SP, in Oregon, Washington or Idaho. You won't see any big trains here, except for mine trains. (Usually.**)
• D&RGW branchlines in Utah. Two really good ideas here: the D&RGW line west from Provo to Eureka, or the line south from Thistle to Marysvale. Both lasted into the 1980s.
• Shortlines, little railroads that connect a few shippers
• Freelancing. Make up your own railroad! Take it anywhere you want, anytime you want, using anything you want! ***
• Proto-freelancing. A combination of freelancing and real railroads, modeled together. An example would be modeling a city where your railroad interchanges with models of a real railroad.

So many options! How do you decide?

If the truth is to be told, I have to admit: I still don't completely know. They all still look pretty good.

I do know this, though: I want to run trains, my own trains, and soon. If I'm going to do that, I have toi start making some decisions.

*gillion - geek slang for "a lot."

**A well-known model-railroading axiom - "There is a prototype for everything." In other words, you can find almost anything somewhere on some real railroad. Whether that would be fun to model or not is a whole other question.

***Freelancing can be a lot of fun - or it can drive you nuts. It all depends on what you want your railroad to be, how detail-minded you are, and how anal-retentive you are.