Bill N,
My layouts resemble real places but do not look exactly like any particular place except for structures such as a station, factory, house or store. If one chooses to model a region such as New England - as I do - the layout does not necessarily have to be a model of a specific place. It can just resemble the general characteristics of the region. For example - New England has small towns, small factories, hills, trees, rivers, creeks, tunnels, short truss bridges and wood trestles. Those features are sufficient to create the scenes that I want (and have room for) on the layout and then populate them with trains of the New England railroads. For most people, space limitations preclude exact modeling of multiple scenes on a particular railroad. That is certainly the case for me and, especially, O gauge/scale.
MELGAR
