Dave...that is an excellent response. So much in fact, I'll check out commodity guides for my railroad. A whole new door just opened...thanks.
Mac
That is a good idea about the Wisconsin & Southern, and fortunately that railroad maintains an unusually helpful website with lots of info useful to model railroaders and railfans.
http://www.wsorrailroad.com/
Modeling Santa Fe maybe your most logical connection would be to Andy Sperandeo's layout which was recently mentioned in Model Railroad Planning. Jim Hediger has also published quite a bit about the prototype assumptions behind his Ohio Southern.
When trying to figure out things like, what New Haven cars would have been routed to Texas, you are getting into the area of railroad research which can be very enjoyable and challenging.
One of the really interesting railroad paper collectibles that you sometimes see at swap meets is wheel reports showing loads, origins, car reporting marks and numbers and destinations. Just a few of those from your area and era can provide a wealth of suggestions for what foreign road cars you should expect to see. Also the Morning Sun color books sometimes have incidental information in the captions -- such as that dedicated service Seaboard boxcars were regularly routed empty -- not back to the Seaboard in Florida but back to Wisconsin -- to be loaded with air conditioners! Makes sense once you see the connection. That tells me I needed more Seaboard boxcars for the through freights on my layout.
One common New Haven product that might well have been routed to Texas is potato loads. NH had some of the same red white and blue potato cars that the BAR had.
Modeling the CNW and being interested in the Milwaukee Road, I am also fortunate that midwestern rail expert Ted Schnepf has reproduced two shipper's guides from the past for those roads. here is a link to his website
http://railsunlimited.ribbonrail.com/Books/shippers.html
These reproductions of vintage guides go commodity by commodity and town by town showing what the railroad shipped in or out. I do not know if anything similar is available for the New Haven or for the towns along your Santa Fe prototype (I do know the origianls of these guides go for high prices at swap meets but the reprints are reasonable in price). But with some digging you can learn (or arrive at educated guesses about) what off road cars regularly were routed to your area and why.
Dave Nelson
leighant wrote: Anyone else have any......potential connections on your layout?
Anyone else have any......potential connections on your layout?
I always liked the way Allen McClelland, Tony Koester & others linked their railroads together via the physical exchange of rolling stock & locomotives. Perhaps you can develop something with the MR guys and the Wisconsin & Southern Troy Branch.
I have enjoyed Model Railroader magazine so much over 45 years, I try to find connections on my layout. I model in N scale and I enjoyed seeing David Popp's Naugatuck Valley. But my layout is Santa Fe on the Texas Gulf Coast. What kind of traffic would connect the New Haven with the Texas Coast. I have an old AHM New Haven gondola. A little research brought me word that brass working is a specialty of that area. I have a place on my layout for a shipyard, and that New Haven gon can deliver brass ship's propellors.
But it was easier seeing the connection in the photo that appeared on Trains-dot-com just a couple days ago. Cody Grivno eating a banana.
Santa Fe ran banana trains north from Galveston about once every 8 days when the banana ship arrived from South America. It will be a natural to divert one of those northbound reefers to the Milwaukee area.
Hope this is appealing to Cody.
Anyone else have any Model Railroader connections or potential connections on your layout?