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I can always remember that as a youngster, I would look at a map or at a countryside, and imagine were the railroad lines would be. After reading JRR Tolkein's Lord of the Rings and looking at the maps that he had drawn, the Idea of placing a railroad here came naturally to me. Here there were cities and peoples, in a whole countryside, with distinguishable trade patterns and transportaion needs.
As my model railroad developed, I leaned more and more to the Idea of this setting, and I then created in my own mind the whole railroad, not just the portions of it that I was able to model. And the timetable and operations of the small area modeled fit into my concept of the whole railroad, and not just the Eregion Railroad, but also the Gondor and Southern, and the Iron Hills and Redwater Railroad that feed traffic into the ERR. All destinations on the ERR are represented either as a model or as staging yards. Hence all trains shown on the timetable as passing through Bree, actually do run through the model.
The setting is late in the Fourth Age, an age of Men, but Elves remain in places such as Rivendell, Mirkwood, Lothlorien, and in the Gray Havens. Dwarves continue to exist in the Blue Mountains, in Khazhad Dum, and in the Lonely Mountain, and in the Iron Hills. Hobbits are still found in the Shire and in Bree. But all of these peoples have become more like Men in their appearance and manners, so that unless you knew of their family roots, you might not be able to distinguish a Man from an Elf, or a Dwarf from a Hobbit. The trade patterns, however continue to be those as one might expect to find from reading the Lord of the Rings, and this is the role of the Eregion Railroad.
Now as it turns out, the ERR is subsidised by the High King in Gondor, and serves both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. The existance of the railroad, like the American interstate highway system has its roots in national defense. It was, in its inception, a project necessary to move armies and material across a vast land. That there are no need for troops and armies in this place and age is besides the point. People have become accustomed to the King providing for the Railroad, and that is that.
Actually there are several smaller operations within the Eregion Railroad. The portion of the railroad represented by my model is also know as the Bree Line and is supported by local subsidies to provide commuter service in the Bree area. Some of the Local trains are marked for the Bree Line, but the Locomotives are all marked for the Eregion Railroad, and the color shcemes are identical. Operating crews are employees of the ERR, even if some equipment and all management is provided by the Bree Line. The same is true of the Shire Electric operating further west in the Shire. However, in the Shire there is also a privately owned line called Tuckboro Traction which provides service in other areas of the Shire. (Its equipment is a dark green in color)
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This photo is of Fornost, looking South along Crystal Street. The buildings are named for monks of our Abbey. To the left and out of focus is the Roman Arms Apartments. Across the street is Ben's Tobacco, Jensen Music, the Muggli Bank, JP Phots, and Louie's Veggies. The next large building is Albert Brothers Department Store, and starting on the next block is the St. Lawrence Hotel, with the Monk's Table Resturant on the ground level of that building. The four tracks of the Fornost Station are just to the right of the station. There is a track curving around behind the Roman Arms Apartments just in front of the cammera that leads to the freight yards on the east side of town. The streets in town are made of use roofing shingles, and since these are too coarse for HO scale, I took some fine N scale ballast and spread it out on the shingle filling up the larger crevases. The city blocks are set on quarter inch masonite, painted gray to look like sidewalks, and where necessary, Woodland Scenics grass is applied to the boards. Awnings are made out of bookbinders paper. |
There are several long-distance trains run by the ERR that call in Bree daily. Indeed Bree is the meeting point between the North-South mainline between Fornost and Minas Tirith, and the East-West mainline between Blue Mountain and Lonely Mountain. The KINGS EXPRESS (Trains 1 and 2) is the premire North and South train, while the NORTH STAR EXPRESS (Trains 3 and 4) hold this honor on the East and West line. All of these trains arrive in Bree at 1300 daily for a one hour layover. This provides a convient connection to all points in Middle Earth. They also manage to hobble Bree Station for that hour, brining commuter traffic to a halt. But then that particular hour is not a very busy time for commuters anyway.
There are a few more regional and inter-regional trains that call in Bree, but they are melded into the flow of commuter traffic. The Marinar, and the Northern Marinar (Trains 5, 6, 7, and 8) meet in Bree at 0100 hours, but these are all-sleeper trains, and while passengers sleep, the cars are moved from one train to the other so that there is no need to get up to change trains. This service is very popular, since given the distances, a business person can catch the train at the end of one business day, and arrive at his destination before the start of the next business day, refreshed and ready for the day's tasks. (Amtrak- are you listening?)
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