Columbus Ohio 1953

I think I finally found my Holy Grail.

With all the research I have done in my quest to find a prototype passenger station to base my model railroad on, to date nothing has had as much of what I am looking for in one place as Columbus Ohio:

1. A small Union Station (small enough to model with 4 platforms) but plenty of trains stopping and passing through. Starting in the 1950's as we all know, passenger train travel in the US was on the decline due to the rise of the interstate highway system and airline travel. However, in Columbus Ohio even in 1954 there were still 38 passenger trains a day that stopped. 

2. A good assortment of railroads with PRR, B&O, and C&O being some of them. I have a decent inventory of HO scale PRR passenger cars already, followed by some B&O and C&O equipment, so I have a head start. The B&O had 2 trains that stopped in Columbus, N&W 2, C&O 2, NYC 10, and PRR led the pack with 22.

3. Co-located coach yards, passenger car servicing and maintenance facilities, express and freight service, and locomotive servicing.

4. A good mix of transition-era steam and diesel use.

This photo from the USGS Earth Explorer website shows the central Columbus area circa 1953. CUS (Columbus Union Station) is dead center. Visible in the photo are all 5 railroads with yards & facilities, freight houses, express and mail, and also the lines used by each to converge on downtown Columbus.

Here is a zoomed in view of the area just west of CUS.

Besides CUS itself, I'm thinking the PRR roundhouse, coach yards, and locomotive facility will be a key feature on my layout. That may even be the starting point before anything else.

I don't envision any long mainline runs on the layout, I simply don't have room for that. The focus will be switching operations fed from hidden staging/fiddle tracks and the traffic control operations in this area that was managed by several towers in close proximity to each other. 

Stay tuned!