Ive thought of LRR as a short line railroad making just enough revenue to keep running, but not enough to really invest in much. (At one point signals on LRR where not a thing. And I still think about removing them to enhance the short line feel.) Most of the short lines I am familiar with have only a few road locomotives that do every thing. Case and point, Great Lake Central (Formally Tuscola & Saginaw Bay) only has GP35's, GP38's and 3 25 tonners. And one Ford F250 Hi-rail truck. And an RS1 might still be on the roster some place. And GLC is what FMR is loosely based off off. LRR is a even smaller operation. So to have a lot of locomotives is a bit of stretch. Originally I only had 2 LRR locomotives in the session. But it was suggested to add more in case of derailments.
I definitely got the "just enough" vibe from the route (and I LIKE that! It was one of my first comments in chat on game, smoky rumbly ALCOs on a wobbly run-down Wisconsin shortline... turns out I was one state off. Not bad for a west coast Canadian, eh?). I think this is why eleven identical C425's seems out of place to me -- I understand your reasoning now though. Instead of numerous spare locomotives, would a re-rail portal solve the issue of losing locos (and freight cars) in derailments? Maybe not far from the Durand yard so it can serve both lines? It seems to be an effective solution on the UMR map.
I read up a bit on the Minnesota Commercial Railway (MNNR) at one point. What I saw with them was a motley mix of well loved but well used road, road switch and yard switch locomotives. Even units among the same model type are very different; they have five C424's, but this one came from Erie Lackawanna, that one came from Delaware & Hudson, those three all came from Green Bay & Western but they're actually one from each of the three different "phases" of C424 production, etc. So, being limited to whatever they could afford to buy whenever they could find it, with a some quirky story for each one, may I propose the following LRR roster:
- a beat-up RS-1 that the LRR's current owners bought by mortgaging their houses to get the line up and running after the previous owners closed up shop, now mostly rented to the Lewiston Community College's brakeman/conductor trainee program
- a C415, formerly Exon until they bought the more recent SW1500 now in their yard, used as LRR's main "road" loco until the C425s came along, now switches out the LRR yard
- three C425's bought one at a time from DMR (is that meant to be FMR?) during some busy years, one with off-colour paint and less careful lettering because it was traded to Ontario Northland for a pair of RS-10's but didn't work out as expected and was returned & repainted
- an RSD-5 once abandoned by the LRR's previous owners as junk but brought back to life in the early 90's with the prime mover from an ex-AlaskaRR exx-USArmy MRS-1 bought at near-scrap price
- IN SUMMARY: All mixed up, all obsolete, all greasy ALCO smoke, all the time!
...or something like that. Which is a lot of repainting work. But hey, I'll teach myself loco painting by starting with one. If you like what you see here, I'll look at the RS-1 and C415 and determine which is easier to start with.
EDIT: The C415 model I found is unsatisfactory for a first-time repaint, so I'll look for a good DLS-only RS-1.
DID YOU KNOW? 70% of railway workers in this state can tell you where to pour hot coffee to thaw out the RS-1's brake pipe when it freezes up in winter. That might seem trivial, but it's only because 7 in 10 railway workers employed in this state are Lewiston graduates. To plan your next career, write to Lewiston Community College, Lewiston USA for a free course catalogue.
After seeing this route I am very keen to try it out and have looked quite a bit into CMTMS, which looks really good.