I came up with the idea for my freelanced Southern New England Railway in conjunction with Iain Rive during one of his visits to Wisconsin. But not many people know that I had a “railroad of lies” long before the SNE named the Maryland & Ohio Railroad. I created the M&O when I was 10 or 11. As the name implies it was an Appalachian bridge route with lots of coal traffic. It had blue first generation diesels, and a lot of coal hoppers … I’ll let you guess which railroad may have heavily inspired the M&O… they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
With the news that Jim Hediger recently passed away, I was digging through my box of freelanced railroad cars looking for an Ohio Southern (Jim’s railroad) car and came across what I believe is the one surviving example of M&O rolling stock. Note the use of Champ “word” decals – an alternative at a time when I certainly didn’t have the resources to get custom decals made!
