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My son Ethan actually prompted me to do something more pro-
totypical. When I had the Trinidad layout I showed him some
pictures of the area and he asked, "Why don't you model this?"
Later on he was looking at some Rio Grande books, "Why don’t
you redo a section of your layout and model the Royal Gorge?"
That suggestion floated around in my head for several years
until I was planning this layout and I decided to model the
Royal Gorge and Tennessee Pass.
MRH:
How prototypical is this layout?
Rob:
It is definitely not 100% prototypical. As we all know, in
model railroading it’s all selective compression. There are quite a
few things I had to leave out. Also, I really like operation and indus-
try switching, but the Tennessee Pass line and the Royal Gorge
4: The classy D&RGW paint job on loco 5359 looks great
coming off the bridge over the Arkansas River. Rob's
scene-scapes really have a prototype flavor.
5: Aspens glow in the afternoon sun near Red Cliff.
Locos 3131 and 3141, train in tow, emerge from the
Pando tunnel, almost to Mitchell and the summit.
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didn't have many online industries, it was mostly bridge traffic. So
I used modelers license to add switching opportunities.
So while there are many things that are prototypical, or close
to it on my layout, there are also areas that are totally free-
lanced because I wanted a lot of industries to switch.
MRH:
Your model of Mitchell is quite striking. I was watching
Denver & Rio Grande on NetFlix. It dramatizes building the rail-
road through the Royal Gorge. In one scene, a passenger train
raced through a place that looked just like this. How prototypi-
cal is Mitchell on your layout?
Rob:
Both my model and the prototype have an S-curve and
some marshy areas high up in the mountains, but that’s about
as similar as they get. It would probably take about my whole
train room to model Mitchell because the S curves were
Tennessee Pass - 4
MRH-Jun 2013