3: Train 52, the Pueblo hauler, passes a work extra on the
spur at the Tennessee Pass siding on the upper deck.
3
Rob:
That’s actually an evolution. When I first got in the hobby, I
chose N scale to get more railroad in my limited space. There were
very few Rio Grande models to choose from back then. Everything
was New York Central or Santa Fe. So I looked at the map to find a
place where the Santa Fe and the Rio Grande intersect.
The Santa Fe northern mainline was near Trinidad, Colorado. I fig-
ured that by modeling that area I could augment the few D&RGW
engines with more readily available Santa Fe engines. I suppose
the limited availability of D&RGW rolling stock along with the
more prevalent ATSF equipment set the locale for my layout.
MRH:
It looks like you've really embraced the Tennessee Pass
and you’ve got a pretty accurate version of it here. Do you con-
sider yourself a prototype modeler?
Although this scene is relatively shallow, N scale and its
nearly eye-level height make it seem deeper.
Rob:
I would say so, for the most part. My first layout in
Trinidad was totally freelanced. The only thing on it prototype
were the town names. I did hardly any research, I just came
up with a vision in my head of what I wanted and that’s what
I implemented. It was later on I started leaning toward proto-
type modeling.
MRH:
Why was that?
Rob:
I can't say for sure. Maybe it was my personality or maybe
I wanted to be more faithful to the real thing. I know that free-
lance has advantages over prototype modeling, but I wanted to
do something that was maybe a little more faithful.
Tennessee Pass - 3
MRH-Jun 2013
