Welcome to the historical archive of V1 of the Northern New England Scenic Model Railroad. This version was started in the fall of 2012 in our home in Exeter, NH and was dismantled in the spring of 2017 prior to a temporary move to Avon Lake, Ohio.
This layout was oriinally titled the MEC and B&M Scenic Railroad, but with the creation of this website, it was renamed to be independent of choice of period and railroads. The NNES was a proto-freelance N scale layout modelling portions of the Maine Central (MEC) and Boston & Maine railroads circa 1965. I would like to explain my philosophy and decision-making approach that led to the layout and locations on it. All of the locations on the layout were real locations that saw traffic in the period of the layout, roughly late September in any of the years of the period from 1960-1968. The optimal target date was September 21, 1965, but I chose to allow for any equipment, traffic, structures or other aspects of the locations modeled that would be applicable during the years 1960-1968. The choice of an early fall date as the optimal target related to my choice to model fall foliage at varying stages of color from early color in the Dover area through peak foliage in the areas from Crawford Notch to Gilman, VT.
My aim for the track work was to attempt to model yards and station track arrangements with as close to the correct number and arrangement of tracks and turnouts as my space allowed. Wherever possible, I attempted to avoid the need for significant compression, but yard lengths in particular saw substantial compression. Of course, distances between locations were compressed to fairly short lengths as would be true on any model railroad. Most structures did not require any compression. I also reserved the prerogative to omit tracks that I did not have room for and added the occasional additional spur or siding to enhance the operational interest of the layout. While the layout was built more for scenic qualities, I did intend some amount of operations and wanted to ensure the layout could be reasonable and fun to operate with 2 to 4 individuals.
As with the track work, I intended to model many structures in a manner that was sufficiently accurate for an individual familiar with the structures to recognize them as a pretty good representation. Over time, my modeling skills will undoubtedly improve, but it was not my intention to achieve perfect or even near-prefect fidelity. Rather, when looking at the track arrangements, structures, and scenery of the layout, I wanted my visitors to recognize elements with which they were familiar and to feel they were seeing a good representation of the real locations without getting too hung up on very slight variations or modifications.
I hope these pages will prove to be of interest to individuals familiar with the areas or who are also modelling some of these areas. I also hope the future pages on the techniques I use and step by step walk-throughs of future projects will be helpful to others.