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bigredva

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Hi folks!
I've always love modelrailroading and trains. Growing up, we always brought trains out around Christmas from dad's collection. Dad always had sttories and pictures of his old (pre-kids) layout and from the large lionel layout they built in my grandfathers garage. I'm young myslef, 26 and in the military. So, with the constant moving I can't really setup anything even semi permenant.
During a recent move from CA to TX my drive route followed a BNSF mainline pretty much the entire way. This has inspired me to model a railroad that crosses the country going from west to east. With longshoremen in CA through the mountains, deserts, plains, crossing the Mississippi, more plains and mountains and eventually ending up in the tidewater, VA area where I grew up. My wife is a painter and she is really excited about painting the backdrop for the cross-country journey. While this obviously won't happen for a long time, I'd like to design it and start collecting rolling stock, locos and such. I was thinking of modeling the BNSF in the west and CSX/NS in the east.
I was wondering if anyone has had experience with a layout of this type, or knows someone who has. Maybe someone here would be able to point me in the right direction as to how I should proceed while I'm still doing the Army thing.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to joining discussions with all of you!
HOOAH!
 
Welcome. Good to meet you.

Modeling a stretch of railroad from CA to TX is difficult to pull off. I know that the Museum of Science and Industry modeled from Chicago to Seattle, but they had a little more space than most people do.

Why not pick your favorite short stretch and model it well? Lots of people here will help with design or whatever you need.

You might read my Beginner's Guide to Layout Design clickable below.
 
Welcome.

Ya I would have to agree with Chip, modeling all that stretch of land and cities would look weird on a typical home layout.

You could just model the east coast cities/industries and the west coast cities/industries. And have staging represent "everything else in between".
 
Indeed, modeling about 2,000 miles of track in any scale is quite an undertaking. One of the things about being a new modeler is overplanning what you can really do. Don't ask me how I know this. :) I agree with the idea of picking out one area that intrigues you the most and focusing on that for your first layout. Since your wife is going to help, get her ideas about what part of the cross-country jaunt she liked the best.

Once you've settled on an area to model, the best thing to do is start collecting all the pictures and information you can off the net. If you can get back to the area, take lots...I mean, lots...of pictures. They will really come in handy deciding what that one hill looked like or exactly how the track ran through that town. Until you know how much space you'll have to work with, planning the actual layout is not very practical, but you can decide what design elements you really want on the layout and how much space you shoot for to accomodate your desires. Stay safe, and thanks for serving our country.
 
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