"Yep, it really was this cool..."

One of the tricky parts of the illusion of modeling railroading is the need to model mostly plain, common equipment.  Exceptions should be just that: not all the time.  Many modelers will tell you that you need more plain freight cars than brightly colored ones, and that most of your locomotives should be run-of-the-mill daily workhorses.

Right?

Well, right - except in some cases, the prototype had an incredible variety, and there really was an amazing diversity you could see in the operations.  The case in point here is the Chicago Line, the prototype for the Onondaga Cutoff.  In the Conrail era and especially into the 1990's, it was a busy railroad with much of the traffic coming from interchange in the Chicago or St. Louis areas and headed to Selkirk for forwarding to the New York metro area, or to New England.  A quick internet search at www.rrpicturearchives.net gives us a number of examples that appear rather incredible.

In this Tom Beckett photo, Conrail train TV200X rolls east through New York State behind three Santa Fe locomotives: two C30-7's bracketing an SD45.  Solid lashups from foreign railroads were rare in most places in North America, but on the Chicago Line, you could see anything.

Rich Carl captured this power from train CNSE at Selkirk, NY, with a Grand Trunk Western SD40 leading a Conrail, former Erie Lackawanna SD45-2.

On a different day Rich saw this coal train on Conrail at Selkirk with a Santa Fe GP39-2 and a Union Pacific SD40-2.

In February of 1998, former Denver & Rio Grande Western SD40T-2 leads a 'ballast express' C32-8 into the engine servicing at Selkirk, coming off inbound train COSE in this photo by Ed Lewis.  Rio Grande, leading across central New York!   They're passing a brand-new CSX General Electric AC6000CW locomotive, likely being delivered to CSX via train SECS later this evening.  

Collinwood Yard in Cleveland, OH hosted an amazing variety of power in this 1993 photo by Alan Gaines.  The Santa Fe C30-7's and P&LE GP38 are awesome, but so is the shop switcher in the background - a Conrail GP30, moving a brand new SD60M around the shops.  Wow!

And we have two more Tom Beckett images to finish it off, both from 'Bens Bridge' in Selkirk in January 1994, showing locomotives from no less than 6 railroads in one view above and a closer zoom below.  The variety is almost absurd and would be criticized on a model railroad as a fantasy.  

Well, nope.  Not a fantasy.  Just another day at Selkirk, actually.  

This was railroading in the 1990's on the Chicago Line.  Leaders from nearly any big railroad in North America were possible, and some even near-daily common.  They mixed freely with locomotives from Conrail, who owned the route and ran the trains, but the variety really was special.  This is part of the magic of the Chicago Line, and what we work to capture on the Onondaga Cutoff.

Yep, it really was that cool!

Shifting Gears

One of the best parts of this hobby is that it really is many hobbies at once.

How many hobbies out there involve carpentry, electrical wiring, computer programming, plaster work, painting, mechanical and electrical construction and maintenance, operations planning, weathering, history, and planning?  Not many.  But one of them is model railroading. 

And so, after major scenery progress, it is a nice change of pace to change categories for awhile and focus on progress somewhere else.  Over the last few weeks, I've finally been able to make some headway on several mechanical projects.  First off, I finally finished up one of Lenny's 'Suffern Hoboken Interstate Transfer' GP35's.  As Lenny contributes his weathering mastery of freight cars and locomotives to the Onondaga Cutoff, I am adding DCC, sound, and ditch lights to his locomotives. 

Lenny's paint and decal work are second only to his weathering skills.  It's such a pleasure to bring some light and sound to his locomotives!

After that project was packed up for delivery to 'home' rails, I opened up a few new additions to the fleet on the Onondaga Cutoff as well.  Conrail's Chicago Line was a kaleidoscopic experience of foreign power in the 1990s - locomotives from all major railroads and many regional railroads as well made appearances on Conrail's trains, with and without Conrail locomotives mixed in.  That allows a fun and dangerous little side hobby for me in modeling run-through locomotives.  

Here we have two ScaleTrains SD40T-2's and one of Athearn's latest-run SD50's.  Each of these models is testiment to the fact that this hobby has never been better.  Adjusted for inflation, you get more than we have ever paid for these models, and it's done perfectly - all we need to do is program their decoders and weather them up, and they're ready to represent run-through power from UP and SP alike on Conrail trains through the 1990's.  Each is factory-detailed to match the look of these engines in the later 1980's and early 1990's - the stuff that used to take me dozens of hours to change on generic models.  Today's stuff is simply amazing.  

While all are nice, boy - these recent ScaleTrains offerings (with new drives, LocSound V5 decoders, dual speakers, keep-alive circuits built in, and the see-through grating) are just incredible. Next time we will have photos of the completed weathering.  Paint and detailing are top grade and it's exciting to spend time weathering them up for service!

~RGDave