The train enters the layout from staging tracks and approaches the station at Buchanan. The train will pause here to drop off mail and express for the village before whistling off for Shoups Run. Against the backdrop sits the cardboard mock-up of the RI&S ore crusher and tipple in Buchanan. The hopper coupled to No. 8 is painted and lettered for the Cumberland & Susquehanna, Deane Mellander's On3 railroad, which interchanges with the B&SGE's Path Valley Division at Spring Run, PA. Although C&S hoppers in Deane's basement feature the 1944 black and white scheme, in 1938 they were still painted Freight Car Red with large Roman "C&S" lettering. This fact was discovered when the B&SGE Historical Society discovered an old hand-tinted postcard at a flea market.
Here, the rear of the train passes the section house, midway between Buchanan and Shoups Run. It is an AM Models trackside structure. These little kits are inexpensive and easy to build, making it feasible to populate the layout with "standard" auxilliary structures. Note my layout's basic dual-cab wiring system, using Atlas selector switches. The color coded diagram at lower right shows the fairly large number of isolated blocks necessary even for a layout as small as this.
On the curve approaching Shoups Run, the train's head end passes over a concrete box culvert. On the other side of the tracks, the stream has been culverted and covered by the development of housing and businesses in the area.
This is a closer view of the small Crappe Fuel complex.
The train has arrived at Shoups Run. The conductor will next cut the combine from the rear of the train. While he and the rear brakeman unload mail and express, the engineer will pull forward and back his train down onto the passing siding.
This is an overview of the village of Shoups Run. The track from Buchanan enters the scene on the right, curves past Crappe Fuel and the station, and continues to the RI&S ore mine in the shadows, left background. D.A. Mitchell Supply Co. (named for my wife, Deborah Ann Mitchell, a retired Army Quartermaster Lieutenant Colonel) is served via the spur across from the station.
After spotting the train on the passing siding, the crew coupled the C&S hopper to the combine and ran up, past the ore mine, to turn on the wye. Leaving the empty combine spotted just past the switch for the tipple, engine No. 8 ran around on the main, with the loaded hopper, to Crappe Fuel. In this view, the crew has spotted the full hopper on Crappe's coal trestle. Shortly, they will couple to the empty EBT hopper in the foreground and back around to the waiting empty ore cars.
The crew has picked up two iron ore loads, coupled them to the combine, and has just spotted two empties at the tipple. This portion of the layout is still in the "roughing-in" stage. The plastic Bachmann coal tower serves as a mock-up until I decide on the final configuration of facilities here. Parsons Machine Shop, which performs an essential out-source repair function in this mining community, is partially visible behind the combine. In the distance, though blurred, you can make out three duplexes rented to the miners by the RI&S Co. The privvies behind them are still in use in this year of 1938.
The crew has finished its switching chores and the train is coasting past the station. After picking up down-bound mail, express, and passengers in the combine, the train will return to Richmond Furnace, via Buchanan, where it will service the other ore tipple on the Buchanan Branch.
Combine No. 7 and a fresh load of iron ore bring up the rear as the train approaches Buchanan.
This concludes another tour of the Buchanan Branch. I hope you enjoyed it and will visit as often as the mood strikes. Happy Model Railroading!