Your Layouts



Enough about me!

If you have a smallish or simple layout or diorama, I'll be glad to post a picture or two here. Or if you have a web site, I'll post a link. Make sure to let me know if you did anything differently than mainstream model railroad production.

Any other feedback - comments or questions - are also invited.

 

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My new friend John B. from Bristol, PA sent along a few pics of his layout, as well as a few words about each of them.

1. The early years of the W&SV saw it doing a brisk trade carrying lumber and coal up and down the Valley. Today most of the income is generated shuttling empty hopper cars. Occasionally they get lucky and pick up a few revenue loads of hardware and fishing weights. You make money where you can.

2. The harsh light of a late afternoon sun streams through Basement Window Pass and silhouettes an Alco FA2-FB2 lashup as it emerges from Plaster Peak Tunnel on former PRR trackage. These new powerhouses are on lease from the PRR.

3. A Santa Fe EMD F9 rounds the bend past local industry on the Williamsport and Susquehanna Valley. This unit is on lease, as is all motive power on the W&SV. Power is brought in from the PRR, NYC, EL, and, oddly enough, even roads based halfway across the country.

4. A view of the imposing Plaster Peak that blocked the way of the rails west. But W&SV President Augustus Cosgrove ("A.C." to those in the company) and Chief Engineer Denby Collins ("D.C.") were unstoppable. It was often said, "Locomotives may pull the trains, but the power behind them is A.C. and D.C." A tunnel was started. Test bores indicated that the mountain was solid plaster. Easy drilling. Then tunnelers encountered veins of plywood and wire-mesh screen. Some in the media questioned the wisdom of the endeavor when, by laying tracks only 135 feet further south, they could entirely bypass the mountain. Cosgrove was undeterred. "We choose to complete the tunnel in this decade," he said, "not because it is easy, but because it is hard."

Thanks, John!




I received another email from John a while later:

Classic Toy Trains' YouTube had a neat idea to create two separate scenic areas out of a very small area. It's a vertical panel that goes in the middle of the oval. On one side is a city or industry, and the other side is a  country or farm scene. It's a false front kind of cheat. Mine is made from corrugated covered with poster board. I printed buildings and pasted them to plywood cutouts, adding just a couple small details.

Thanks for sharing that great idea, John.

And here is a link to John's YouTube videos.


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