Before I get tied up into the layout room, I want to cover a couple of other things in designing a model railroad. If you're freelancing, you options are limited only by your own concept of what you want. If you're a prototype modeler, the options are much less- the more of a stickler you are about getting it right (what we medical lab folks call being anal), the less the options.
I'm leaning towards the prototype, but following the philosophy of Allen McClelland, who built & operated the Virginian & Ohio, an HO scale line depicting a fictitious railroad serving the coal mines in the Appalachias. Even though the V&O was freelance, Allen added details to buildings, locomotives, rolling stock, and the general scenery to make one think he or she was actually in the Appalachain mountains. He followed the philosophy of "good enough"- that is, adding sufficient detail to make something appear realistic. While some would go so far as to paint the caboose toilets in a color that existed on a certain day & time (OK, an exaggeration, but you know what I mean), Allen added enough details, say, on a diesel locomotive to make it look like it was ready to lug coal.
As a clinical laboratory scientist, I have to pay close attention to details to ensure the results I turn out on patient samples are correct, 100% of the time. I do pay attention to detail in my hobby, but my work is not nitpick-free (warning to potential nitpickers who come to visit: DON'T. Nitpick, that is. Ever. ). Still, I want enough to make people think I AM modeling a small town in northeastern Texas.
To that end, I rely on topographical maps I find on the Internet to see where the tracks go (or went, if they've been abandoned). Since I lived in & near Paris for 12 1/2 years, I have a good sense of where the Frisco's trackage goes, since this later became BN and later Kiamichi. I also can get an idea of where the shippers are that were served by Frisco.
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