I’ve been slowly working my way through a large pile up of magazines, I’m way behind on my reading. I recently got to the July, 2021 issue of Model Railroader and the “Trains of Thought” column by Tony Koester. This installment is titled “Seven milestones in model railroading,” which outlines seven specific contributions to model railroading that were made by W. Allen McClelland, the builder of the Virginian & Ohio model railroad, one important enough that it has a Wikipedia page!

The Norfolk & Ohio influenced the Virginian & Ohio

But McClelland was influenced by those that went before him, and I felt sure that somewhere I had read McClelland mention the Norfolk & Ohio of Carl Appel as a specific influence on his V&O. The Norfolk & Ohio should be familiar to American OO Today readers, but if not, this article gives an overview of this great OO layout, one at the top of the list of great OO layouts and almost certainly the one with the most lasting impact on model railroading. I finally pulled out the original series of articles on the V&O and found the key quote in the March, 1977 issue of RMC.

I’ve been asked if I deliberately avoided the Western theme which John Allen, Bill McClanahan, Whit Towers and others had made so popular with modelers during the V&O’s formative period. While no effort was made to not model the spectacular Western scenery seen in abundance on the Gorre & Daphetid, Texas & Rio Grande Western or Alturas & Lone Pine, I was a little irritated that on one seemed to see the potential of Eastern mountain railroading. There were oases of Appalachian railroading in miniature to be sure – Carl Appel’s superbly scenicked OO scale (4mm to the foot, or just larger than HO) Norfolk & Ohio comes readily to mind – and these pikes simply reinforced my beliefs in the feasibility of an Eastern coal hauler.

The V&O influenced my thinking

But also, I was intrigued, high school freshman me underlined a quote on the previous page in that issue of RMC. McClelland described his philosophy behind his theme. This is what I underlined:

I believe that the key to design is simply to observe the prototype – it’s operation and signals, the geography through which it penetrates, the structures which surround it, the rolling stock and locomotives which make it function as a transportation system.

This is right in the timeframe that I was starting out in model railroading and refining the concepts of my freelanced roads, all of which I have built models in HO and in OO for. And all three lines were modeled to be in the area of Kansas that I was from and familiar with, relying also on an assumption that the area was a bit more prosperous than it really is.

The Fall River Railway

The original OO models I built were decorated for the Fall River Ry. This was a small short line envisioned as running maybe 15 miles northwest from Eureka, KS up the Fall River toward Teterville. It would have gone right by the farm of relatives we visited at least every year. My first OO Diesels are seen below, and I have recently expanded the roster.

The Orient

For models that could not reasonably run on the Fall River Ry. I focused on the Orient, more properly known as the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway, which I had learned about from a book on in our local public library. The real Orient ran from Wichita KS south into Texas with other lines in Mexico, and was absorbed into the Santa Fe in 1928 (to gain access to Texas oilfields). In my world though the line extends (as originally planned) up to Kansas City and survived into at least the 1970s! It can operate any model that a road like the MKT might have run, and the MKT influence may be seen in the Diesel paint scheme as well.

The Madison-Quincy-Southern Railway

Finally, I had a project that I called the Madison-Quincy-Southern, again sort of a play on MKT for reporting marks, running maybe 100 miles south from Madison KS along the Verdigris river, where my family owns a farm near Quincy. (I built HO models for this before I got into OO, and eventually built OO models too). Quincy Kansas was on an ATSF branch and never was that large a town, but in my world, it is a more significant town! This concept allows for another group of models that suit a somewhat larger short line.

Projecting the line forward into the 1970s was also an interesting change. I’m imagining that they took over parts of the MoPac branch or other lines, expanded a bit, letting me run engines like this SD24.

Success?

The success of the overall plan envisioned in high school is that I still model all three of these freelanced roads, which all suit my small layout. In any given session of running trains, I just mentally convert the layout to that road (or to the ATSF) as I run it. But also note, I’m trying to have a plausible town scene (down by the tracks) that reflects towns of that area of Kansas. For me this has helped a great deal in focusing my thoughts, and perhaps this discussion might also help focus yours as well. Remembering also the old saying, “Model Railroading is Fun!”