Great Model Railroads

THOUGH I SWEAR IT’S NOT INTENTIONAL, when I look at the articles we’ve selected for an issue of Great Model Railroads, a theme always seems to emerge. We pick each year’s articles based on the quality of the writing, photography, and modeling on display, not to fit a theme. But almost every year, it seems that one presents itself. Flipping through the pages of Great Model Railroads 2025, you might think that this year’s theme is autumn. Out of the nine fantastic layouts showcased herein, a third of them — Tom Johnson’s Cass County RR (seen on page 16), Chris Broughton’s Little River Lumber Co. (page 36), and Jon Stetz’s Durango, Rico & Northern (page 80) — feature fall foliage. Two others, Richard Remiarz’s Great Northern Willmar Division (page 60)…

WE ALL KNOW THE SAYING that model railroads are never finished. My wife and friends laughed when I said my Waynesburg & Washington Railroad was finally done as I’d envisioned it years ago. Oh, well, we’ll see. I chose to model the Waynesburg & Washington RR because my family had influence in starting the “Waynie” (as the locals often called the railroad) and on where the track would run. The prototype ran through my Great-Grandmother Dunn’s family property. The railroad built a station there that was named Dunn Station, after the family. It was a combined passenger station, grocery store, and post office. I don’t model the Waynesburg & Washington as the narrow-gauge line that the prototype was. The Pennsylvania RR had drawn up plans for regauging to standard gauge,…

YOU’RE LOOKING AT MY THIRD MODEL RAILROAD, the HO scale Cass County RR. It’s a compact, around-the-walls shelf layout representing a small Mid-western short line operating on former Conrail trackage in the early 1980s. Though my line is freelanced, it was influenced by two prototype short lines I enjoyed railfanning during photo safaris across Indiana. One was Indiana Hi Rail in the late 1990s. The other was the Fulton County RR in Rochester, Ind., in the 2000s, which operated on some of the same track as Indiana Hi-Rail. Both were smaller short lines with simple operations that served grain elevators. Logansport, Ind., is another town that inspired me. The Pennsylvania RR built a lot of trackage there from the 1930s through 1960s that later became part of Penn Central and…

ONE DAY SEVERAL YEARS AFTER the “completion” of my Proto:48 (O fine scale) Colorado Midland layout, I was intrigued by an ad for a twin-stacked late 19th-century Hudson River tugboat in 1:48 scale. My love affair with model boats goes back as far as it does with model railroading, so I ordered it. While building the kit, I saw another flyer from the same company for a side wheeler with a walking beam, also in 1:48 scale. Too weak to resist such a beauty, I plunked down my money and bought it, too. Now that I had two O scale ships dating from the 1890s and a model railroad in the same scale and time period, my imagination took off. I began to wonder how I could merge the two…

MY WIFE AND I enjoy hiking in Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee. The mountains are rich in history and natural beauty. On one of our hikes, I kept thinking the trail felt like a railroad right-of-way. It was an unusually wide trail, and the grade was gentle and consistent. My curiosity was primed. During a stop at the Sugarlands Visitor Center at the park’s Gatlinburg, Tenn., entrance, my suspicion was confirmed. I walked out with some books and brochures on the history of the Little River Lumber Co. and its operations in the Great Smoky Mountains. The Little River Lumber Co. (LRLC) and its railroad were formed in 1901 and ceased operation in 1939. The town of Townsend, Tenn., borders the park and was named after the Little…

THE HILLS LINE, my HO scale version of the Iowa Interstate’s Hills Industrial Spur, represents a second chance in model railroading. My first opportunity was modeling the IAIS Grimes Line, featured in Great Model Railroads 2015. And while I planned to detail, operate, and enjoy the Grimes Line for the foreseeable future, a collapsed sewer line led to the untimely destruction of the first model railroad in our basement. When the dust had settled, I took time to reflect on what I enjoyed about that first layout as well as what I wanted to improve upon. Replicating the day-today practices, policies, and procedures that prototype railroaders handle is key to my approach to scale modeling. I wanted to ensure that whatever I selected would allow me to meet my goals.…