Tate's Blog

I have always been a fun of Canadian railroads, like Via Rail, Canadian Pacific, Ontario Northland, the Portage Railway in Huntsville, Ontario, and I’d LOVE to model these railroads to the maximum degree of authenticity, but, the materials available today are mostly RTR (ready-to-run) and are the same engines, with just different colors. So I thought, since, soon, I’m going to build myself a model railroad (the one I have now was bought pre-built) why don’t I create a railroad that doesn’t exist. I’ve come up with nice looking railroad, which I don’t have a name for yet, but, it’s a mix between, the Huntsville & Lake of Bays RR, Ontario Northland, and the Rio Grande. The paint scheme is black with red and yellow accents, which Ontario Northland had on the last engines they bought, 1102 and 1103. On the Huntsville & Lake of Bays RR they used small 0-4-0 tank engines, and I’ve always liked small more. And it will be set in the harsher area of northern Ontario, and like on Rio Grande steam engines (or at least some) had large snow plow mounted on the front. So I have conjured up a shortline railroad, that uses engines like 0-6-0ST (saddle tank), with large plows on the front, and in standard gauge, due to a major railroad that runs nearby. YOU can get custom paint jobs, pretty cheep, and you have a non-existent railroad that you can enjoy without ridicule from pro modelers.

I have also come up with another railroad that is non-existent is my HM&KL or Haliburton, Muskoka & Kawartha Lakes Railroad. It has engines with russian boiler jackets, red and gold skirts, celestial roofed passenger cars, and it will operate with 4-6-4′s for freight, 4-6-2′s for both, and 4-6-0′s for there sleeper trains at night.

So if you ever need to, just get away, than you can create your own railroad, is what I’m saying all-in-all that you can make your own railroad because, it’ll just be easier, if you’re the type of modeler who has to have everything as realistic as possible. (Like me) Please Comment!