Why Grand Trunk New England Lines?
Please excuse the wordy nature of this post, but I think it is necessary to explain the concept and ideas behind my layout.
First, I will explain a bit of historical background of the Grand Trunk New England Lines (GTNE), which seem to not be very well known.
The Grand Trunk New England Lines ran between Portland, Maine, a mid sized port city on the Atlantic coast, and Montreal, P.Q.. Two branch lines in Maine, one to Lewiston Maine and the other to Norway, Maine, split of the main Portland to Montreal line. Portland was the main winter port for rail traffic on the Grand Trunk System until the 1920s. Portland was therefore a major grain exporting port, with two terminal grain elevators, each with a capacity of over one million bushels of grain.
During the early 1920s, the Grand Trunk system ran into debt problems due to its Pacific extension and was nationalized by the Canadian government. It thus became part of the Canadian National Railways. However, the Grand Trunk New England Lines remained a subsidiary corporation as they were located in the U.S.
This left the GTNE in an interesting position as being one of the few railroad lines in the U.S. ultimately operated by and under the control of an arm of the Canadian government. In my opinion, this interesting status makes the Grand Trunk New England Lines all the more interesting to model.
However, after nationalization and incorporation into CN, the line to Portland declined in importance as the Canadian government, understandably, wanted Canadian grain and other products to go through Canadian ports. Into the 1950s, though, the Montreal to Portland line remained quite busy.
My two main interests in railroading are the railroads of Maine, followed by Canadian railways. The Grand Trunk New England Lines thus offered a combination of my two main interests in terms of railways to model. Also, the Grand Trunk in New England saw mostly Canadian National locomotives and cabooses by the 1950s, my modeled era. This was a big advantage over the Maine Central Railroad, which has litttle to no equipment available for it, while there is a large selection of models for Canadian National.
I also had difficulty finding a suitable location on the Maine Central to model. Most of its branch lines involved a major paper mill or two and not much else, which made it difficult to find a location to model that would fit into a smaller space and would be very complex to model. The Grand Trunk New England Lines, however, had two compact branch line terminals that had a variety of businesses served by rail. This allowed me to make a layout design that was more faithful to the prototype and more interesting from a structure building standpoint.
Ultimately, I chose to model the branch line terminal in the town of Norway, Maine, a decision I'll explain in a later, and similarly wordy, post. After that, I'll get back to layout construction and other more interesting (and fun) topics.
First, I will explain a bit of historical background of the Grand Trunk New England Lines (GTNE), which seem to not be very well known.
The Grand Trunk New England Lines ran between Portland, Maine, a mid sized port city on the Atlantic coast, and Montreal, P.Q.. Two branch lines in Maine, one to Lewiston Maine and the other to Norway, Maine, split of the main Portland to Montreal line. Portland was the main winter port for rail traffic on the Grand Trunk System until the 1920s. Portland was therefore a major grain exporting port, with two terminal grain elevators, each with a capacity of over one million bushels of grain.
During the early 1920s, the Grand Trunk system ran into debt problems due to its Pacific extension and was nationalized by the Canadian government. It thus became part of the Canadian National Railways. However, the Grand Trunk New England Lines remained a subsidiary corporation as they were located in the U.S.
This left the GTNE in an interesting position as being one of the few railroad lines in the U.S. ultimately operated by and under the control of an arm of the Canadian government. In my opinion, this interesting status makes the Grand Trunk New England Lines all the more interesting to model.
However, after nationalization and incorporation into CN, the line to Portland declined in importance as the Canadian government, understandably, wanted Canadian grain and other products to go through Canadian ports. Into the 1950s, though, the Montreal to Portland line remained quite busy.
My two main interests in railroading are the railroads of Maine, followed by Canadian railways. The Grand Trunk New England Lines thus offered a combination of my two main interests in terms of railways to model. Also, the Grand Trunk in New England saw mostly Canadian National locomotives and cabooses by the 1950s, my modeled era. This was a big advantage over the Maine Central Railroad, which has litttle to no equipment available for it, while there is a large selection of models for Canadian National.
I also had difficulty finding a suitable location on the Maine Central to model. Most of its branch lines involved a major paper mill or two and not much else, which made it difficult to find a location to model that would fit into a smaller space and would be very complex to model. The Grand Trunk New England Lines, however, had two compact branch line terminals that had a variety of businesses served by rail. This allowed me to make a layout design that was more faithful to the prototype and more interesting from a structure building standpoint.
Ultimately, I chose to model the branch line terminal in the town of Norway, Maine, a decision I'll explain in a later, and similarly wordy, post. After that, I'll get back to layout construction and other more interesting (and fun) topics.
Comments
Post a Comment