I spent the weekend at the Train Expo Colorado (TECO) show here in Colorado Springs with the SlimRail modular Colorado narrow gauge club. I have been engaging in egregious acts of anachronism for which I am not the least bit repentant. I got a great deal on a Blackstone diamond-stack Class 70 2-8-0. Here she is on my home layout:
...and on one of our club modules:
And, much to
@eric220 's delight, my love for the Colorado narrow gauge has bled over into the Colorado & Southern. I now have
five refrigerator cars, two of which are C&S (and lettered with the very early block C&S logo which just looks
so railroady) even though there is very little photographic evidence of refrigerator car use on the RGS in my era (save for a few photos near Dolores on the part of the railroad I didn't model!).
Which makes me think about the old "Rule #1...It's my railroad!" Yes it is. I've seen Rule #1 used and abused beyond all plausibility. And yet as I get deeper into this I find that there's a liberation behind it. You know, I remember visiting Todd Treater's layout for the first time some 11 years ago; my first view of his Enola Yard full of NS, Conrail, Penn Central, and Pennsy all mixed together was like a "greatest hits" view of Pennsylvania railroading. And yet he could just as easily operate in a single era. Well...that's where I feel myself being pulled. My layout's trackage can accommodate any 3-foot-gauge equipment that suits my fancy (even EBT?) but yet can revert to a very faithful representation of the RGS in a single era. Rule #1 can be a slippery slope to confusion and implausibility, but it can--if used correctly--give you that warm feeling down there <ahem>.
Anyway, that new little diamond-stacked filly is destined to become Silverton Railroad Co. #100, the "Ouray."
http://www.narrowgauge.org/images/tkcok/mx00443.jpg
