Class 1, Regional or Shortline...

[Anonymous]

Texansoldier asked about N scale mainlines or shortlines.
I came up with the answer below.
Then I thought that it might be useful for Newbies and others hunting ideas so here it is.
Sorry it's not 100% on the history... someone might like to help out on what, where and when...

You might like to look at these ideas...
1. many modern shortlines are sold off bits of Claas 1 railroads that dumped trackage after de-regulation (I think you call it something different... there was an Act passed by Congress - or whoever- "Hagars"? something???). Anyway the track didn't change , mostly just the paint jobs. (You can get to have some interesting locos as they often bought in what they could get/afford to start up)
2. Same thing applies with Regionals... they were shed bits of Class 1 roads. Advantage is they are generally bigger/longer and have more of their own locos and stock than shortlines... which also stay on line. (Many/some shortlines were locations for investments... they sometimes had more cars with the line's road mark out on hire "somewhere in the USA" than they had miles of track to fit them on. I think this was before the 1980s slump... when the slump hit and the cars didn't get hired and there wasn't room for them at home they got sold off cheap to the big boys or cut up... in the former case they ended up as "Patch jobs" for a time at least. I think that since that slump cars have been leased by straight forward leasing companies.
3. To be shed from class 1s these roads had to be class 1 lines in the first place... they just weren't the most used/most profitable bits... but you can keep them alive as class 1 road by re-writing history a bit. you end up with the same tracks again... just more trains .
4. You can combine at least two of these if not all three... many smaller lines carry bridge traffic for bigger ones. So long as their track is up to standard this can mean run throughs of whole trains. So you get the Class 1 working right through the lesser lines territory with all the trimmings. If a second Class 1 had trackage rights when the route got reduced to a Regional (sometimes to a Short Line) they may still exercise their rights... so you can have them too.
5. Then again ... if a bigger road gets a derailment or a bridge out it might divert via the smaller line provided the track is up to standard. (What tends to keep track up to standard is weight of regular traffic... just because it's become a short line or Regional it doesn't mean that it doesn't carry heavy traffic... sometimes the traffic has come back, sometimes it's new traffic. Other times the Class 1 dumped a much longer route and the shortline is a bit left that didn't get abandoned... maybe isolated from the original Class 1 and now feeding to a different road where the routes used to cross but now make a straight forward junction - sometimes by a new link line.
6. Something else to remember... freight cars go where the loads are... so whatever your line, if there's a load there will be cars for it... if the line doesn't have dedicated cars for the traffic whatever cars are nearby will come in... either as odd ones and twos or as blocks. Similarly, if the load is to/from a point on a bigger road that road might be providing the cars.

Anyone want to elaborate please feel free [:)]

Have fun.

[8D]

[tjsmrinfo]

some good info there david.

i dont have anything to add at ths time but will think of some things later on


tom