Some of my earliest and warmest railroad related memories had to do with visiting the legendary Strasburg Rail Road. A recent arrival made me realize that I’ve secretly been modeling with almost every layout I’ve built. Let me explain…

When I was a kid, my dad built me an amazing NTRAK module recreating East Strasburg.

As part of that project, he also kitbashed a model of the iconic Strasburg #90 to go along with the Bachmann Strasburg cars that spurred the whole thing.

This version of 90 was made from a combination of Rivarossi and Minitrix parts and has served us well. Back in the early 2000s my dad tried converting it to DCC without much luck. My dad and I in the middle of making some big changed to the Strasburg module to ensure its bright future for the next 35 years (yikes, I can’t believe both it and I are that old, but it’s true) and I realized it was time to bring 90 into the modern era too. While it currently lives with my parents and the module it recently came for a visit to be run through the shops for some upgrades.

When my dad was dropping off the model we couldn’t resist the chance for some Glamour Shots posted on the new NCR.

I’ll share more on #90’s modernization in the future, but looking at these photos this morning made me come to an interesting realization. I have actually been modeling Strasburg on almost every layout I’ve built: my apartment “kidney”, my NCR shelf, my new NCR, and even my Windsor Street layout incorporated strong influences from the Strasburg.

In my mind, this is the iconic Strasburg scene: a gently sloping field leading toward the tracks with a slight wooded rise right behind it. This photo is of Groff’s Grove, but most of the railroad is like this.

Looking back at my various projects, lets start with my very first modern layout, my Apartment Kidney. What do we have here?

You can definitely see the influence, right?

One of my next projects was my “NCR Shelf” layout.

Look at that. A little more EBT influence (I love their long fills in the valley between Orbisonia and Mount Union), but it’s still got that Strasburg look.

I built another layout in the space that that shelf layout occupied. This one was quite a bit more expansive, but it definitely featured another “Strasburg stretch”.

You can see the through-line here again.

And lastly, one more rendition on my New NCR’s Layout’s “temporary return loop”.

There’s a great saying: history doesn’t repeat, but it does often rhyme. I think these photos show something similar in my modeling life. The question now is: now that I know, will I keep doing this? Who knows, but I have been thinking about how Groff’s Grove would make a pretty neat TTRAK module. Hmm.