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The following is on topic, I am redoing my web page and this is from the new version..... My Cincinnati, Georgetown & Portsmouth Railroad really existed from 1880's until 1936. Financial problems delayed construction and prevented the tracks ever being built beyond Georgetown. Track right of way was purchased with promises of jobs and shares of ownership. This ultimately saved the road during the bad times during the Depression. It's tracks originated at the Carroll Street Station near the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks in eastern Cincinnati. The line was plagued by poor design and lacked the financial means to correct it. The track rising out of the Ohio River Valley was so steep that only three cars at a time could be pulled up the hill. In the first quarter of the 20th Century the line electrified and built generating plants every ten miles to power the trains. During off peak hours the generating stations sold the excess power to the surrounding towns. For over forty years eastern Hamilton, Clermont and Brown Counties grew up around the transportation provided by the railroad and it's subsidiaries. When the Great Depression hit the areas economy flopped. Passenger service fell as people lost jobs and no longer needed to commute or were able to shop in Cincinnati. Freight traffic dropped as the economy failed. With so many of the areas citizens connected to the railroad as owners, employees, shippers, consignees, and passengers there was a great effort by the community to save the railroad and by doing that save the community. Old steam locomotives were pulled out of mothballs to work the flat areas. Generating stations were sold off to raise money. An alternate route was needed for the steep hill out of Cincinnati and people needed jobs. A new route was surveyed. Land was bought and paid for with jobs. Stone for building and ballast was needed. This created jobs at Grant quarry in Georgetown. The need for ties was filled by Felicity lumber merchants no longer able to sell fine hardwoods to furniture manufacturers. The company even placed a one time order of one pair of work boots for every employee from Bethel Shoe Manufacturing. The economy beyond the interchange floundered but the economy along the CG&P survived and so did the CG&P. Smaller for a time. No longer electrified, most of the catentary had been removed and sold. As the Depression lifted and the nations economy went onto a war footing the CG&P was in a good position to prosper with the country. The above description of my proto-lanced model railroad is part history and part fiction. The railroad died in 1936, 21 years before I was born but I knew it from the relics I grew up around, abandoned right of ways, bridges, and an old passenger coach that was transformed into a store. There have been two books written about the CG&P The Cincinnati, Georgetown and Portsmouth Railroad by Stephen B. Smalley in 1977 published by Trolley Talk and Railroad with 3 Gauges: The Cincinnati, Georgetown and Portsmouth RR and Felicity and Bethel RR by David McNeil self published in 1986. One day I hope to have both these books. I have seen the McNeil book, it is the basis for the non-fiction part of the above history. ........Back when this thread first came around I wanted to model "those abandoned tracks across the road from the farm house" I have learned a lot since then. I have been thinking about color schemes and heralds to....... As much as I want to model the CG&P there are road blocks to doing that. I have never seen a color photo of any locomotive or piece of rolling stock that belonged to the railroad. The black and white photos I have see seem to be a single darker color with lighter color lettering. Doesn't narrow it down much. Growing up in the area helps think of something plausible. To this day Georgetown's, the entire area's, big claim to fame is President Ulysses S. Grant. Red, white and blue is a little flashy and the photos looked like they were one solid color. General Grant led the North in the War of the Blue & the Gray. So blue it is. I decided that the passenger cars would have white roofs early on in the project. Heating the cars is easy. Cooling them is much harder but a white roof reflects the heat of the sun and is very practical. I think that white lettering will show up better on the blue then black would but I am not sure they are available. When I started building the station kit I decided the company colors should be used there to. The upper half of the walls are off white, the doors, window trim and lower walls get the blue paint. I have always liked tile roofs so the stations are ending up Red, White & Blue. Once I had them painted it reminded me of an old Sohio gas station back before BP. .......I have not designed the herald but I know what I want, I just need to pick the font and find a silhouette of General Grant. I am thinking, the name in a good sized font with Grants head to the right and in smaller letters under the name "The Grant Line"
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