Background

Early on I made the decision to hand lay all visible track, much to the bemusement of some of my modeling friends. I felt that hand laid track would be needed to allow for the geometry that I would need to make the plan work, and it also offered one other big advantage; cost. The cost of the supplies to lay all the switches I needed was far less than the cost of buying them pre-made. (Of course, pre-made switches are faster, but this is a hobby, right?)

The initial decision to hand lay the track was difficult, but I was spurred on by a conversation I had with closet O&W nut Tony Koester (of MR and RMC fame). When I expressed my concern about being able to handlay the track, Tony - in his usual upbeat manner and booming voice - announced:

"Bill, you can do this!"

Home I went to grab pliers and spikes. My wife was assaulted by various four letter words as I tried to get the hang of it ("Are you enjoying your hobby, dear?") but soon I was a track laying fool. I ran into Tony again at another meet a year or so later and with pride bought him up to date on my progress. I then invited myself to visit his Allegheny Midland layout, featuring all that nice handlaid track. To my surprise, he announced that he had just finished tearing it all up to build a new Nickel Plate layout. I was amazed. In a less than tactful reply I commented:

"But Tony, at this point in your life do you really want to relay all that track?"

"Heck no, I'm using flex track!" he replied.

Its amazing we still speak.....

Perhaps as a consolation gift, Tony gave me one of his AM hoppers at the 2005 New England Prototype meet. It remains the only non-prototype based car on the layout. He now has an O&W hopper in return.

Details

As seen on the Construction page, the "benchwork" on the layout is a light but rigid affair made of foam insulation board and a grid of 1x2 and 1x3 lumber. The roadbed itself is cut from thin luan plywood which is glued to the foam. The ties are glued directly on top of this. In some places I added the ballast before the rails were in place, in others afterwards. The track is ballasted using Woodland Scenics fine cinders and Highball Z scale cinders, with some actual cinders borrowed from CSO's East Hartford yard thrown in here and there for variety.

To the end of its days the O&W was laid with very light rail. Continuous rounds in bankruptcy courts prohibited any major track work improvement projects, and even at the end of the roads life (1957) the majority of the track was 90 pound/yard rail laid on coal slag and cinders. To represent this in HO I've used code 70 rail on all of my mainline tracks, and the sidings and yard are laid with code 55. I've used Micro Engineering weathered profile ties and rail. All turnouts are are manually thrown with a combination of Caboose Industries ground throws for east to reach locations and under table linkages made from radio control aircraft linkages for more distant locations. Tortoise switch machines have been added to a couple key turnouts in remote locations.