07-12-2010, 02:08 PM
What era are you planning to model? It may have been covered in the previous thread, but I didn't try to read through page after page to find it. I ask because a lot of small industries shipped product and received raw materials by rail until the interstate highway system was built during the Eisenhower administration back in the 1950's. Basically when the best East West route was Route 66, and every town the highway ran through had traffic lights for trucks to deal with, long distance trucking was not really competitive with rail. Therefore if you are modeling early 1950's or before, the part of New England you are modeling might have a small furniture manufacturer, perhaps a bottler of maple syrup, small textile mills all shipping by rail. With the advent of the interstate highway system and the ability to drive coast to coast without dealing with slowing for cities or having to stop for traffic lights, a lot of that business went to trucking companies. Today much of the business went to china!