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You also have to ask yourself if you want to model cars or horses.

Concept

Preface by saying its freelance so you can do whatever you want.

Era : The 1920's and 1930's aren't as well represented by the manufacturers as the WW2 era.  The era is during the depression so the traffic and maintenance will be down.  Basically the size of cars in the 1920's was roughly the same size as the cars in the 1950's (40 ft house cars, 40-46 ft flats and gons, 34-40 ft hoppers).  Most of your traffic will be merchandise, perishables and lumber products.  Train size was determined by what the engines could haul (pretty much more than a typical model train).

Depression era means more reefers, billboard reefers, wood side boxcars, fishbelly underframes, 8-10K gal tank cars.  Virtually no covered hoppers of any kind.

Locale :  When you get back in those era's railroads were a lot shorter than they are now.  There was no one railroad that went from Chicago to Frisco, it took 2-4 railroads to make that trip (see preface).  By the way its the WP in the Feather River canyon.

Steam engines tend to be lighter pullers on grades than diesels (one of the reasons the prototype replaced steamers in the mountains) so a steam era mountain railroad with tight curves and steeper grades will be be a challenge for model steam engines.  Not saying it can't be done, just don't expect a stock 2-8-8-2 to haul 25 cars up a 3% grade by itself.  There are dozens of modelers doing mountain scenery.  Caveat, big mountains means you need a bigger area to model them and the track density goes down, plus you have less space for industry and yards, etc.  If you are crossing the Sierras in an 8x10 room in HO it will be more challenging to make it look "right"  than doing it in a 20x40 basement.

Freelance Still needs Parameters

You still need to decide on an era, locale and type of railroad. Sounds like you have some ideas. It keeps you from buyng everything that comes along that catches your eye. It's easy to justify by saying you are not following a prototype and pretty soon you have a really odd collection of stuff. Been there, done that.

I am modeling mid 50's SP over Donner from Roseville to Truckee. Switching operations are limited once you get into the mountain area itself, Most would occur at the lower elevations.

One thing to think about is narrow gauge. There were several narrow gauge railroads built in the Cal-Nevada area that offer lots of creative possibilities. In my case the old Nevada County Narrow Gauge ran from the SP connection at Colfax to Grass Valley/Nevada City and the Gold mining regions therein. It unfortunately was closed and tore up at the beginning of WWII. BUT in my world, it was resurrected after the war, the property being bought by a fictional company called California Mining & Minerals who theoretically handle various mining operations in the west, so this is just a small part of it's total operations. Gold is only a very small part of rail operations as it is hauling gravel and rock from a quarrying location discovered near Nevada City. Since it was also standard gauged in its rebuild, the railroad uses second hand steam and second hand cars. lots of 50T open hoppers,  relettered for the CM & M to handle its business. It makes a nice little operational hub that is a part of the bigger layout and can be operated separately from the mainlne operations. But it gives me the chance to do something a little different from the SP

Gives you something to think about.

Espee over Donner

Either way I still like the

Either way I still like the idea of modeling that particular railroad - I may not end up modeling a mountain division, might be easier (and leave some more potential for operation) to model another portion of the road, maybe the desert in Utah or Nevada, something like that.

The thing about switching is that it's not necessarily something I think the eventual layout needs provided I can still get some interesting operating done. I'm thinking a single-track line over some heavy grades would keep train speeds down so operating would still be interesting, and threading helpers back down the hill after pushing trains up would be a nice touch as well. I also like the idea of a yard at the base of the grade being a focal point of the layout as well, so that would leave some opportunities to kick cars around.

I lean towards the 20s moreso than later periods because I think Timetable & Train Order operations would be more fun, and I think if I model the transition era on a big-time Class I CTC would seem more realistic. Then again, like I said, Northerns and E Units on the passenger trains sound appealing as well... Making these decisions is a lot harder than I expected it to be!

Mountain Railroading has

   If you have enough room for some mountainous scenery you could model a freelanced line crossing the Sierra around today's highway 88. The line could climb up Hope Valley from the Nevada side then bore a tunnel near Carson pass to cross the summit. Helper operations on a steep route could be fun, I always enjoy a visit to Tehachapi  even though no switching is involved....DaveB 

I freelance and really enjoy

I freelance and really enjoy it.

I originally wanted to model either the Northern Pacific or the Milwaukee Road in southwestern Montana in the area where I live, but with my available space I really couldn't do justive to even part of a subdivision of either railroad, so it became freelance time.

I built a branch line/short line that does connect to both the MILW and NP so I can have power from both railroads show up on my layout. All of the towns on my layout are actual towns with industries that either were there or could have been there. Yhe layout was built mainly for switching and is a point to point layout but with the use of hidden staging tracks, continuous running is possible,

I came up with a "family" looking paint scheme and the layout has been a lot of fun to operate and it works for me.

1920's the Other Transition Era

The 1920's was the other big transition era, the big change was from largely wood cars at the beginning of the 1920's to steel by the end of the 20's. This meant that the cars got bigger and consequently heavier, requiring larger locomotives to pull them. The smaller engines and truss rod wood cars were still in service, but not necessarily on the mainline or on fast or priority freight. I model this time period and it allows me to have lots of wooden freight and passenger cars mixed with some "new" steel cars and various steel and wood combinations. Smaller trains, shorter cars, are well suited to a model railway.

If you are modelling a short line or branch, then the Bachmann 4-6-0 or the 2-6-0 are good starting points, for heavier power the 2-8-0 is also a good runner. With grades you can justify double heading locomotives with a relatively short train since that is what actually happened in that time before the really big power came about. The downside is that you are going to have a lot of brown boxcars, not a lot of variety in car types, but you can make it more interesting by the different types of construction of the box cars, double sheathed wood, single sheathed wood, truss rod, fish belly under frames and some all steel cars.

TT&TO vs CTC

 Nothing says a 1940's-1950's era railroad has to be CTC.

Even today the UP is about 60% CTC, 20% ABS-TWC and 20% dark TWC or other.  In the 1920's thru 1970's double track would more likely be rule 251 rather than CTC.

You have interest in the

You have interest in the 1920s but you expressed interest in 2-6-6-6s which did not arrive till the 1940s. Superpower steam did not become a major item till the 1930s and was really strong in the 1940s. Diesels were beginning to be the wave of the future at the same time.

Here is a video of pusher

Impressive train, Rob!

As a (primarily narrow gauge) modeler of 1907, I'm no expert on big steam, but there were at least a few examples around by World War I, including the D&RG's first 2-6-6-2s and 2-8-8-2s, delivered in 1910 and 1913 respectively, as well as the Denver & Salt Lake's little 2-6-6-0s.  None of those are probably "superpower" steam by most definitions, but they capture some of the drama of big articulated engines while also being a manageable size for a midsize layout.

Another idea for your layout, if you have a bit more space, might be just to model the helper grade itself, from helper station to summit.  If your freelanced helper station is co-located with a small town it could provide some local switching opportunities, as well as a small engine-servicing facility.  With a staging yard on each end, you're set to run trains through, and if you opted for a double-ended staging arrangement you could have a built in continuous-run capability (although the grade would probably require some creative engineering for that, perhaps with a helix on one and/or both ends.

Regardless, sounds like a fun concept for a layout!

Rail fan fiction... who knew!

Thanks for the post Chriss, I don't have much experience yet but I can tell you from my struggles you are on the right path, getting your concepts down first.  I found making at  Givens and Druthers list most helpful in focusing my mind on the big picture.  Here is a link to my G&D list (a work in progress)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SKlLlnS3sfDcGuqSP6vjUgAKLuL4czuqKmjn5rAvJu0/edit?usp=sharing

Scott

Over the Sierras

Another possibility is to follow hwy 20. It started in Yuba City and climbed over the Sierras going thru Grass valley and Nevada City. Both mining towns and as mentioned the narrow gauge Nevada County Narrow Gauge ended in Nevada City.

I have always thought that a free lanced version of the NCNG would be to run tracks up along side of Hwy 20 and put in another mining/logging town higher up. Hwy 20 by the way comes out very near the top of Donner Pass. No reason you couldn't add some more mining sites to spruce up switching or throw in a resort of some sort.

Don't know where you are going to school, but if there is a possibility of getting a summer job in the area it would give you a great chance to explore.

Jack

The pusher-grade concept was

The pusher-grade concept was sort of along the lines of what I was thinking - maybe squeeze a few passing sidings in along the grade to add some operating interest.

How much space do you intend?

"Steam engines tend to be lighter pullers on grades than diesels"

You could trick the eye with very moderate grades and dramatic changes in scenery elevation.  A level line at belt level in the middle of  cliff that starts near your knees and rises to eye level, then the scenery transitions to a flat around belt level.

No reason to wait.  you can build a short layout on a hollow core door and experiment with construction and scenery techniques.

Freelance

As for the name, Midland Pacific rolls off the tongue a little better and keeps in practice of how other railroads were named since the Pacific part was the second destination of most railroads that began in the middle of the country. One lower priced option for large articulated locomotives is Bachmann's EM-1 I bought two of these slightly used for less than $200.00, each, separate purchases, and that included the sound modules. There are still some new on eBay for under $250.00, and the sound module can be added later on these. They are great running and pulling locomotives and really look and sound impressive. You could back date them to Mallet style by making the front cylinders look bigger, to represent low pressure cylinders, and change out the sand domes, (they are detachable) to make them fit in with the 20's to 30's era. The Mehano 2-6-0 locos (discontinued) that were marketed by I.H.C. can still be found for under $50.00, but would need conversion to DCC if wanted. Coal, silver, gold, and copper mines would fit in to that area for industries, along with logging, all of which would provide a diverse traffic mix when combined with overhead bridge traffic running from west to east and returning back across the mountains. Just my thoughts, Jim

Pushers

You might want to experiment a bit by getting a sheet of foam insulation and make a test grade to see how the engines and helpers perform. 

What I did when I wanted to test performance of steamers on grades (and mock up double decks) was attach some of those shelf bracket channels to the wall and then adjust the brackets on the channels to make different grades (or double deck heights).  I laid some 1x4's on the shelf brackets and then some foam on that to make the grades, then temporarily attached some flex track.  I also stacked boxes at various "aisle" widths to get a sense of the space I would have to work with.

I realized that the small steamers I had wouldn't work with a "normal" size train on my layout on grades my space would allow, and that I wasn't fond of less than 36" aisles with two decks.  Since I would have switching on both decks I ended up with either one level ok and the other really bad, or two decks that were less than good.  So I went to a single deck layout with very few grades.  On my current layout I will hav two switching areas on a lower deck accessed by helixes, but they will operate with locals that will only have 4-8 cars instead of a full train of 12-16 cars.