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Thanks all! Appreciate your help. More help welcome. Anyone good on Interlockings? Yes I'm from UK... started looking at US about 1990 when UK scene finally drove me nuts... too many people seeking the exact colour of "Midland Red"... anyone seen an old paint recipe... ran along the lines of "Take one 40 gallon barrel, tip in twenty gallons of solvent, tip in 20 lbs of white lead powder... My theory is that the works could get a "near enough" colour... and made up enough to do one side at a time... most passenger cars had black ends... solved one problem. The other thing of course is that older paint was less chemically stable and less able to resist change from the effects of weather and light than modern paint. Just think what the "Health and Safety" people would make of it. They have a heart attack about removing a signal gantry with a square inch of lead based paint left on it. No respirators back then. Then again the GWR c1905 had a brilliant eye-protection campaign... it said "We can give you as many eye protectors as you need. God only gave you one pair of eyes". Eye protection then was fine wire mesh goggles. I've learnt so much about the USA from my interest.... but clearly didn't learn where which railroads go! If you look at a map of the UK, even in an Atlas, you will see that the country is pretty much North and South... the USA goes a huge long way East and West... that's real confusing. There's a book called "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat Moon... only book except for "All Quiet on the Western Front I've read six times... brilliant... comments on the experience of early settlers travelling west in covered wagons... behind a horses rump (or an ox) for day after day. Must put Amtrak service in a whole different light... I've traced most of the Blue Highways route on a Rand Mcnally Atlas... have a dream of following it one year... just needs RR hotspots adding in... Back at the question... Outer Belt looks good... did they see much loco run through or use their own... I have a Belt C424 (Atlas) ... 'cos I like it. But only Belt loco I've ever seen (and that was by accident). MR or RMC had an article many years ago about a north-south line west of Chicago which they thought would make a good regional/shortline... anyone know this article...I've lost it... my ideas are loosely based on this... I figured a regional crossing and linking north-south and providing a bridge traffic connection...poetic licence? Then again that Conrail idea is intriguing... except I only have a couple of Conrail locos (Well, everything ran everywhere as far as I can see...) When was Conrail formed?? From?? CSX? Or is there a good chronology I can look up somewhere please??? I think that "What was where, when is the most difficult thing for us to work out... how do you manage? Incidentally...we're not "Brits"...we're English, Scottish or Welsh...just like the Freight Company... . Some of course are Cornish, Ulstermen, Manx... Me, I'm from Surrey, via "Sarf Lundun". I've escaped to the Midlands. The quiet is weird! Oh yes... reason for Chicago.... well, where does a "Brit" look to start in the USA...it's so BIG... family legend has it that a reltive was in Chicago about 1905. He was grabbed by both arms and rushed into a hotel foyer. The man kept hold of him and told him not to touch his nose when he let go... his nose was frost bitten... don't know if it's true but it's as good a reason as any I've heard...
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