I should have built more staging yards and I would not have hid-
den them. I have numerous scars on the top of my head from
crawling under the layout to re-rail trains in the hidden staging
areas. If I were to do it all over again, I would have visible stag-
ing and use it as such, as a yard for trains waiting to go out on the
mainline and do their thing.
Gustav:
You grew up in Indiana and live in Vermont. Most model
the railroads of their youth or roads with which they have some
familiarity. Would you say
you're atypical?
Jim:
Yes, I'm different.
Originally, I was going
to model the Santa Fe if
only because I had some
locos left over from the
plywood central I had
built for my son. But
then around 1982-83, I
attended a national model
railroading convention
and met a group from the
Great Northern Railway
Historical Society.
I liked the color of their
locomotives and espe-
cially the goat emblem.
I didn't know anything
about the railroad. They
were out there in the west
somewhere, and I'm here
in the northeast. I joined
the society at the conven-
tion and started receiving
10: GN Mikado #3200 with a
coal drag from Fergus Falls,
Washington, to Scofield
Junction. Washington.
10
11
11: GN Gas Electric 2320 is ready to depart Broadview,
Oregon, as the evening lights are coming on.
the quarterly publications. Once those publications started com-
ing in, I was hooked! They included modeling ideas and lots of pro-
totype information. I have a whole library of reference sheets on
the Great Northern that tell me everything from the style of their
signals to what kind of ballast they used.
My Great Northern Railroad is a freelance version of a prototypical
railroad. I wanted to maintain some freedom as to how and where
to run my trains and I didn't want anyone pointing out to me that
this train never ran to that town, or that I couldn't get from here
to there and stay true to the prototype.
So the names of all the towns have been changed to protect the
innocent and the trains I'm running, like the Cascadian, don't nec-
essarily run where they did on the prototype. But that's all right
Jim Ferguson’s GN - 7
MRH-Oct 2013
