I'm a looper AND a switcher. First I watch the Royal Gorge in the Summer of '64 make it's way from Pueblo to Provo on the loop of track around the perimeter of my 11X12 train room. Then I operate the present-day Titusville/Bradford/Petrolia/wherever Turn from interchange to town and back, setting out and picking up empties and loads at the several on-line industries.
All model railroading is caricature because we are always compressing huge geographic distances&features into a tiny fraction of the land travelled by any prototype except the shortest shortlines. One could accurately model the Strasburg Rail Road but that wouldn't be very exciting, would it? Caricature is a powerful tool, though, and the suspension-of-disbelief created by an effective model railroad gives great pleasure, amirite? 
