You want trains? Old Saybrook's got trains!

So far, my model railroad depicts only the Valley Line from Hartford (staging) to Middletown and the Air Line from New Haven (staging) to Middletown.  Two local freights.

Eventually though, I plan to extend the Valley Line from Middletown to Old Saybrook.  If I do get to Saybrook, operations could get VERY intense.  I'd of course have to have staging on either side of the Saybrook station scene in order to simulate traffic on the New Haven Railroad's famous Shoreline, and the four(!) mainline tracks and the traffic they support would provide a very interesting (and prototypical) contrast to the meandering single track that heads north from the Saybrook wye to Middletown & Hartford up the Connecticut River Valley.

How intense, you ask?  Well, I plan to do a more formal compilation in a spreadsheet to get my arms around all the trains that passed through Old Saybrook in a typical day, but a quick review of the Employee Timetable and the Arranged Freight Train Service Symbol Book from c. 1946/1947 reveals the following:

• Two local freights, one eastbound (PDX-1) & one westbound (PDX-2).  But you knew about these already.
• Twenty-three (23!) through freight trains.
• Forty-eight (48?!) passenger trains.

I think I'm going to need to beg/borrow/steal more equipment.  A lot more equipment . . .  And I may need to blow out the side of my basement to build all the staging I'm going to need . . .

Hmmmm..... maybe I won't be in such a hurry to get down to Old Saybrook - not for a while at least....