Samuel, Willie &
Southern Railroad

When Presbyterians in a church downstate gave me a large honorarium for preaching and teaching in their congregation for a special event, I decided that 2001 was the year to start an HO model railroad. Despite my fantastic O Scale upbringing, HO attracted me at that stage of my life with its smaller footprint and cheaper equipment. Besides, we had enjoyed a little HO amidst the O during our family's Huntsville years. I found a point-to-point plan I really liked and set out to develop the Madison County Railroad — a fictitious shortline loosely based on the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis branch that came south out of Tennessee to serve my birthplace of Huntsville, Alabama. With enthusiastic support from my Old Man, I made good progress on the MCR: three sections of benchwork, a working DCC mainline, and about 1/4 of the scenery and buildings.

A move to western Pennsylvania put all the HO on hold, and then my Dad's illness and demise brought an end to my foray into HO: Suddenly my brother and I had to figure out what to do with Dad's O Scale layout and large collection. As such, I decided to rework the defunct Madison County Railroad into a smaller HO pike as a surprise gift for my nephew and Ella's cousin Samuel, who at the time showed good interest in trains. I found a good single-table plan in a book, and with everything I had amassed for the previous layout, I was able to put together a nice little HO world in just a matter of months. Ella helped me a lot, and we had fun naming all the industries and structures for members of her family: Lillyville, Brianna's Brines, Ella and Claire's Dance Studio, Necessary Concrete, Willanda's Wonderful Widgets, etc. In the fall of 2013, I transported the finished layout down to Bristol, Tennessee for the great unveiling.

As an aside, one of the locomotives I had secured for the previous HO layout was an Ashley, Drew & Northern Railroad CF7 road switcher. Dad and I agreed that any respectable Hawkins-built HO pike needed at least one locomotive in Tedder Green. The CF7 ran so well, so dependably, I decided it would be good power for a layout run by and for kids. Tickled by this turn of events, I wrote our old friend Mr. Russell Tedder a pretend official letter about one of his Cleburne rebuilds working a new shortline in East Tennessee. True to his nature and enjoying retirement from corporate railroading, he promptly wrote back with delightful prose and a twinkle in his eye. Long live Tedder Green.