This will probably be sort of a long and rambling blog entry but it's something I consider quite often and in light of some  random but sort of serendipitous coincidences it's been percolating in my mind lately. I've really been thinking a lot about the various influences on my freelance modeling and the sometimes simple events that sparked and shaped them. The most obvious influence on my work, I think, is John Allen. An early memory in the hobby, that I've recounted before, is standing in a hobby shop at the age of eight or nine and opening "Scenery For Model Railroads" and seeing the classic center spread of "French Gulch" for the first time. Fifty years later, "Meeks Canyon"  on my own pike is an homage to that and one of three direct tributes to John.

Another very happenstance event, also at the age of eight was the road name and colors of the diesel in my first HO train set. I'm sure my Mother and Father, sisters, or whoever else helped to pick it out gave little thought to it, my Dad wasn't a train guy after all, but it influenced me greatly. I fell in love with the blue and yellow Santa Fe loco and for years that's the main road name I was interested in even if at that time I knew very little about it. As I got older and into my teen years, right before guitars and girls took over, I had started to learn more about it. Fast forward into my twenties and I took up the hobby again and started learning about other more "western" lines like the Espee and the D&RGW. By this time I was modeling in N-scale and I had developed a love for the short lived "Kodachrome" livery of the SPSF ICC nixed merger. "Shouldn't Paint So Fast". Another weird little thing that happened at the time was that I never looked twice at the Burlington Northern because the locos were in a predominantly green livery and I dislike that color. That figures in later in this tale. The point is that all of this influence grew from the small seed planted by a random choice by my parents. It's weird too because the Southern, later Norfolk Southern, ran all around the area I lived and I train watched but it never sparked an interest for modeling it. My heart was with the lines out west although I'd never seen anything but photographs of them.

Over the years, I had many failed starts of N-scale layouts and half to three quarters finished ones before I finally started down the path of  figuring out exactly what I wanted. I switched back to HO and began to model steam rather than diesel because in the end I figured it was hard to emulate John's style of modeling with 1970's diesels. I tried a brief attempt at an Appalachian themed layout but my heart was still drawn to the west and then more specifically to the Pacific Northwest. I had noticed pictures of the CP's Slocan Lake carfloat operation and filed them away in the back of my mind. My present little logging and mining line had been started already and I had no room for that kind of scene. What I did have was a Pola kit of the Jack Work Coal Mine and researching that brought me to Vancouver Island B.C. I still hadn't nailed down any specific location for the Black N' Blue though but I did kind of imagine it in the Pacific Northwest and I thought my conifer trees started to evolve into the suggestion of that. But wait... enter another influence.

I've always liked to vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains and stay in the town of Gatlinburg. My mother absolutely loved it there and I inherited that love from her. Strangely we never ventured much into the Elkmont and Cades Cove area and I didn't really "discover" them till I started vacationing with my own family. Even then, I didn't give much thought to railroads up that way, I never saw much evidence of them. Then on a trip, I discovered a book called "Last Train to Elkmont" that clued me in to the existence of "The Little River Railroad" in Townsend TN. Part of the old right of way had been right under my nose in the form of the road to Elkmont and Cades cove. Another coincidence I discovered was that it was a standard gauge logging line like my pike. I considered modeling it in a semi faithful fashion but it would be a hard project, a lot of the old roadbed up into the camps is completely grown over now and my love for pure freelance and my logging and mining concept won out.

Fast forward to present day and those that follow my blog will know that I recently got rid of a large aquarium and opened up space in my room. I was finally going to have my lake harbor scene mostly from my imagination but at least partially inspired by the CP. As already described in other post and blog entries, I decided that I might like an early diesel to switch my harbor. I pulled RS-1 off the top of my head as an early diesel and began looking to see what was available on E-bay. There were other earlier boxcabs that might have fit in better with what was, up until recently,  my supposed era for my pike which was roughly anywhere from the 1920's to 30's but I just happened to fall in love with a livery I'd never seen before on a Northern Pacific RS-1. Remember the reference to the BN earlier and the fact I never even looked at it because I didn't like the green livery? I have circled all the way back there. The NP is a forerunner of the BN.

  I started researching the NP and lo and behold, guess where the NP ran? From Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest. Further, there's a place called Sumas WA where the NP ran and it's fairly close to Vancouver Island. Now it reality, the NP never had any connection with the island that I can find, that  became CP territory but this is freelance. My little line just might be on a fictional smaller island in the same area and the NP has a harbor/carfloat connection. It fits nicely and it's plausible enough for me to stretch my imagination that far. For quite sometime, that idea that my little line is on an island has been creeping into my mind anyway. I'll call it  "Blackwater" Island.

One last little coincidence before I wrap up this long winded dissertation about nothing. I hit upon the name "Blackwater" in a very simple way. I like to paint the water on my layouts to mostly black and cover it with Envirotex two part epoxy resin because I love the reflective mirror effect. I've looked up the name and there are several places called Blackwater all over the US but recently, in the last day or two, I found a "Blackwater River". Guess where it's located? Vancouver Island B.C.! I've just got to nail my time period down a little better and I think I'm done.

If you've come this far, thanks for reading my rambling!