Finally -- we got the railroad clean enough to photograph! A few friends came over to see our progress, and it's amazing how much gets done when a deadline looms!
There's been a lot of railroad built since I posted photos...
We finished installing
the hangers and brackets for the upper level, and constructed 95% of the
lower level box-style benchwork.
Finished installing
the upper level backdrop around the outer walls and on most of the peninsula.
Some sections of lower level are incomplete, as is the backdrop over the
East End Staging Yard. Painting is under way, but we have been focusing
mainly on tracklaying recently.
The suspended ceiling
is complete. Since it hangs from the outer wall benchwork hangers and the
penisula backdrop, we had to complete both before we could install the ceiling
and lights. What a difference a finished ceiling makes!
Subroadbed (Masonite splines) has been constructed for the entire main line. The "Golden Spline" was installed November 9, 2006, and we've been installing roadbed and track since.
Track has been laid to the top of the grade, and is moving east. Roadbed has been built through Tobyhanna Station, and the track is being constructed at the Army Depot.
Bridge 60 trackwork is mostly complete, but the Scranton Yard west throat still needs a bit of work.
We'll start this tour at Scranton, since the West End Staging Yard is now covered
by the future Taylor Yard.
Scranton
The mainline enters the
visible portion of the railroad at Hyde Wye, just west of Bridge 60. This
photo shows the wye, the Repair In Place facility located inside the wye,
and Bridge 60.
To the right of the last photo is the west end of the yard and yard throat,
where the climb out of Scranton begins. In the photo below, note the beginning
of the grade just beyond the yard throat. The mainline climbs to the Scranton
Station, where it levels off to allow passenger trains to start from the station
without helpers. The grade begins in the yard about halfway down the body
tracks, and the two grades meet where the east yard throat rejoins the mainline.
In the photo below, the helpers
have been placed in front of the caboose and the train's ready to start the
climb to Tobyhanna. The mainline grade begins just in front of the hoppers. Continuing east, the mainline
passes the Mattes Street Tower, one of the Lackawanna's indestructible concrete
towers, and then the beautiful Scranton Station. As noted in this photo, the
Station will be a flat against the backdrop. The main and east yard lead rejoin
just out of the photo to the right. In the overview below
three levels of layout are visible: the mainline climbing out of Scranton;
the upper level Mount Pocono Auto Facility; and the Reading/EL interchange
yard in Rupert. The mainline continues east from here to the Nay Aug tunnels.
These three photos show
the approach to the tunnels (there are two bores, but after the west portal
area was washed out by Hurricane Diane in 1955, only one was restored to use).
As on the prototype, the grade levels through the tunnels and resumes to the
east. The west portals are concrete while the east portals are natural rock.
First, the approach to the tunnels: Next, the location of
the west portals: And the east portal location:
Elmhurst Some lighter trains cut
helpers off at Elmhurst, location of a crossover and the Elmhurst Reservoir.
Riding the Steamtown excursion, one can really see the grade the trains climb
as the view from the train changes from looking up at the dam to level with
the water to looking down at the shoreline. Below is an overview of the Elmhurst
area. The reservoir will be in the corner of the backdrop, and the dam will
be a flat along the backdrop to the left. Around the bend from
Elmhurst is Moscow, now on the upper level. Moscow features a team track and
feed distributer (Skelton Feeds, located on the rear track in the photo below).
Barely visible to the left is the end of the siding for a free-lanced gravel
distribution yard which leaves the mainline just to the left of the photo. East of Moscow is a location
where I've been forced to take some liberties with the prototype to make the
model work satisfactorily. In order to achieve the grade length and deck separation
I desired, we had to raise the deigned track elevations between Nay Aug and
the crest of the grade. Unfortunately, this meant that access to the east
end staging yard would need to be via an at-grade crossing near the bottom
of the stairs. Since no such crossing existed on the prototype, we had to
free-lance. The physical location on the layout is between Moscow and Tobyhanna,
and the crossing track is the mainline east of East Stroudsburg before it
enters the upper, east end, staging yard. Based on its location east of East
Stroudsburg I'm tentatively calling this location Slateford Junction. That
may change to a purely fictitious name, though, because it really bears little
resemblance to the real Slateford Junction. "Slateford Jct"
from the west. East Stroudsburg is to the right in the foreground, Tobyhanna
Army Depot is to the right along the far wall:
Moscow
And from the east. In this view the entrance to the upper staging yard is visible. Moscow is to the left. Once this scene is scenicked, the staging yard entrance track will disappear behind a row of trees:
Tobyhanna
East of the troublesome junction is the Tobyhanna Army Depot and crossovers, where most of the eastbound trains stopped and cut off their helpers. From the junction to Tobyhanna station proper the track is on a slight downgrade to return to a comfortable operating height. The grade levels at the crossovers, however, to make cutting the helpers off a little easier (no chasing a runaway caboose!)
The photo below shows the crossovers and Army Depot switch. As on the prototype, the station is to the right around the bend. Normally, eastbound trains stopped here and cut off the helpers, which would have been placed ahead of the caboose. The caboose was re-attached to the train, and the helpers ran light back to Scranton.
Around the bend are the Tobyhanna station and tower, another of those wonderful concrete towers. Tobyhanna also had a couple of sidings which, in 1975, saw some traffic. The "Station Track" was used for loading pulpwood into gondolas, and the west leg of the wye -- used during steam days to turn the helpers -- was used to unload utility poles from bulkhead flatcars.
East of Tobyhanna is Mount Pocono station, physically located above Scranton Yard. Although there is an industry at Mt. Pocono (Cramer Lumber), this industry will only be worked once during an operating session, so there shouldn't be much interference with yard operations.
Overlapping a bit with the Mount Pocono station area will be the Chrysler Auto Facility, located just east of the station. The facility lead will actually end about the center of the above photo, and the crossover from the westbound main to the lead will be at the location shown above. The prototype lead was built on the roadbed from the third track when this area was triple- and four-track territory.
The photo below shows the major features of the Auto Facility:
And a hint of what the finished model will look like:
East Stroudsburg
Between Mount Pocono and East Stroudsburg is about 20 miles on the prototype, but in my version of the Scranton Division they're next to one another. Local industry is fairly sparse on this portion of the Division, so I elected to include East Stroudsburg to enhance the operation opportunities of the layout. So, rounding the bend from the Auto Facility, one comes straight into East Stroudsburg:
As you can see, there's still a lot of fleshing-out to do in East Stroudsburg. There were four tracks through here, plus industrial sidings on either side of the mains, so the 12"-wide shelf will likely need to be extended about 3", and I still need to research the local industries to be modelled.
The modelled portion of the railroad ends at East Stroudburg. Tracks extend east across the aisle to the East End Staging Yard (also known as Croxton), crossing the main line at "Slateford Junction". Croxton Staging is an 11-track staging yard located above Hyde Yard on the branch, and behind the backdrop between Tobyhanna and Mount Pocono. It is a double-ended yard which feeds the Mole on the easternmost end. If there is no Mole during an operating session, trains will terminate in the yard. If there is a Mole, trains will run through the yard to the Mole, who will restage the train and then park it in the yard.
Still to come...Bloomsburg Branch pictures!
That's all for now.
Feedback and comments are welcome!
Send your thoughts to
jwmutter@yahoo.com
Thanks!