Norway Revisited?

Longtime readers of this blog (are there any?) will know that I at one point had a layout based on the Grand Trunk New England Lines (GTNE) branch to Norway, Maine. This layout was built in modules but was disassembled when I moved in October. Recently, I've been thinking about layout design, and I've been trying to decide on a new layout to build. Yesterday, when I was looking through my phone at some of my older photos, I came across some photos of my layout based on Norway. Looking at them, I decided that I had a fairly good layout in that, so I've decided to revisit that layout and that prototype as a possible prototype for my next layout.

You can find the original post on the track plan and layout design for my previous layout here. Or, you can access most posts on the topic of the GTNE by clicking on the Grand Trunk New England Lines category on the categories sidebar, though that may not get you to that particular post as it may have been posted before I added categories to my blog.

Now that I've essentially been without a layout since September, I think that it is about time to start on something new. While I posted a bit about layout design in December, I never actually started work on any of those layout ideas that I discussed. None of those layout designs were quite what I was interested in, and besides, they would not have fit into the space that I have even with a modular design. However, looking at the track plan that I drew up for my original Norway Branch layout, it seems as if it would fit quite nicely along a wall that I have access to. This wall is about eleven feet long and reserved for train space, so I the main section of the Norway layout, that of the GTNE facilities in Norway itself, would fit nicely along that wall: in fact, I might even be able to extend the length of the facilities in Norway to fill the entire wall, which would give a greater sense of space for the layout.

As for the prototype, I looked through the Morning Sun Books Grand Trunk New England Lines book last night, and I came to the conclusion (again) that the Norway branch is one of the best, if not the best, compact prototypes in Maine. One of the problems with modeling Maine railroads in a prototypical fashion is that locations tend to be either to large for a small layout (paper mills, dozens of potato houses, etc.) or have absolutely nothing there. There aren't really any small yet interesting prototype locations in Maine, particularly if one wants to model the end of a branch line. Most branch line termini in  Maine tend to have odd track arrangements that don't lend them selves to being placed on a layout, and Norway is about the only one that is mostly made of parallel tracks. Norway, in fact, had a similar overall look size, and operational complexity to  Port Rowan, Ontario, made famous by Trevor Marshall.

At any rate, I think revisiting Norway is the best option for my next layout. However, the one problem with this proposition is that I've recently acquired both a CP Rail S2 and a Bangor and Aroostook GP9, neither of which, rather obviously is appropriate for the GTNE. This is probably the only reason that I'm not sure of whether to model Norway or not, but, on the other hand, I have an undecorated Atlas Alco RS#, which would work for the layout, and I believe that there are locomotive models available that would work for GTNE.

Over the weekend I might try to draw up some new trackplans for Norway to fit the space that I have available. I want to start construction of a layout fairly soon, so perhaps things will be more active on this blog soon, as I get started with things like benchwork and all the other tasks associated with a new layout.