A common question asked is why 1907? Well, why not? Most layouts today are set in the 1950's (the transition era from steam to diesel) up through modern day. Of course, you can't model the real Cornwall Railroad past 1964, otherwise you would be modeling the Cornwall Branch of the Reading Company. Turn of the century modeling (circa 1900, not 2000) is rather rare among model railroads today and those set even earlier are fewer and farther between. This in turn can make modeling this era more of a challenge but it also has a lot of benifits.

Even if you are not interested in modeling the Cornwall Railroad, turn of the century modeling has many perks. Equipment and industries back then tended to be much smaller in size (many industries in the Cornwall and Lebanon area being an exception...). This means you can fit more in a given space. Almost anything was shipped by rail back then which mean even very small industries shipped or received car loads. Train speeds averaged much slower with 25 mph being quite normal (once again the Cornwall Railroad and C&L have exceptions - read about the train races on the "History" page - passenger trains regularly hit 60mph at one time...) This slower speed in turn makes shorter distances seem longer. Another nice perk for history buffs is that you can combine a love with history with a love of model railroading - two hobbies in one! The resulting research allows you to recreate in minature an almost forgotten time in history.

Personally to the author of this site, the Cornwall Railroad's heyday around the turn of the century was most appealing. Although research can be very tedious and time consuming, the resulting picture of history is very rewarding. In addition, two of his friends were already modeling the 1950's, so a pursuit of something different and much earlier was a logical choice.

In March 2009, the author met Erin Lorah at the Charter Day open house at the Cornwall Iron Furnace. Erin too is working on turn of the century Cornwall Railroad models, something rather odd that another person in this world would chose to do for such a small and not as well known railroad.

That lead to the question of what time frame to model. The following was taken into account:
- We did not want to redo what was already done on the N scale layout (1912).
- The Cornwall Ore Banks started construction of their "Mining Improvements" (which is present on the N scale layout) in 1908.
- The Cornwall & Lebanon Railroad should be included prior to its take over by the PRR in 1918.
- The anthracite powered furnaces of the area should still be present (they were torn down in the 1920's).
- We wanted to avoid the gaudier paint schemes and "Russian Iron" used on earlier equipment prior to 1890-1900 or so.
- We would prefer the Cornwall locomotives to still have names not numbers which were changed on July 1, 1905.
- We wanted to include Cornwall RR locomotives #6 and ex CNJ #709 (CWL#7 or 9) which were acquired in 1905.
- We wanted to include the new steel drop end gondolas the Cornwall RR bought late in 1907
- The Cornwall Ore Banks received a new locomotive #5 (which is believed to still be in existence) in 1907

The end decision from all of that is to model the year 1907. The only downside from that is that the locomotives of the Cornwall Railroad were numbered by that point and the steel drop end gondolas were not yet delivered.

Space for a layout was finally aquired in 2012 in the form of a house with a good sized back yard. A section of said yard has already been claimed for the consturcion of a large insulated shed or metal building to house the layout. While plans are still being drawn up for the big layout, a smaller "experimental layout" provides a place to run and test current modeling projects and the equipment for the Cornwall layout. Click on the links to the pages above to see what is planned and in progress.