Layout Tours 17 & 18 September

As part of the Mainline Hobby Supply 32nd annual Open House and Layout Tours, the following South Mountain Division  (SMD) members will open their layouts. Registration and layout tour guides must be obtained from Mainline Hobby Supply inc Blue Ridge Summit, PA on the weekend of the tours.

Dave Moltrup’s Beaver Falls & Shenango Railroad

This HO-scale Railroad is a freelanced steel mill set in the late 1960’s. Size is 19′ x 24′. Operation is by NCE, DCC system.

Jay Beckham’s Pennsylvania Railroad O-Scale Layout

Jay Beckham’s Model Railroad Layout. O Scale model of the Pennsylvania Railroad Northern Central branch from Penn Station Baltimore, MD to Harrisburg, PA. Trains will be running. Light refreshments will be served. This model railroad occupies our 1800 sq. ft. basement. Scenery is about 70% complete. Other photos at https://jaysoscalelayout.blogspot.com/ and on Jaysoscalelayout group on Facebook.

Don Florwick’s Pittsburgh & South Pennsylvania Railroad

This is a proto-freelanced HO layout based on the never finished route of the South Pennsylvania RR envisioned by the New York Central in the late 1800s. On Don’s 1955 version the NYC competes with the PRR across southern Pennsylvania connecting at Harrisburg PA with the Reading and at Pittsburgh with the NYC subsidiary P&LE. First generation lightning-stripe painted NYC diesels have just replaced steam to power passenger and freight traffic on this busy single-track TT&TO operated mainline.

Steve King’s Virginia Midland

The Virginia Midland is a fully operational N-scale railroad located in the Virginia and West Virginia area and set during the 1969 period.  The layout is about 10 scale miles long and operates between two staging areas representing Marion, Virginia and Welch, West Virginia.  One passenger train, four freight trains, plenty of coal trains, and several daily mine runs keep the layout busy.

Bob Johnson’s West Virginia Midland

The West Virginia Midland is a HO scale freelance short line (based on a combination of several prototypes) which runs between the B&O at Holly Junction, WV and the Western Maryland at Laurel Bank, WV. Both the B&O and the WM have industry specific haulage rights on the Midland. The time period is summer 1954.

Major traffic producers on the Midland include a limestone quarry, coal mine (with a second simulated in staging) coke ovens, lumber mill (pending construction) with associated logging traffic and an industrial area around the Webster Springs / Cherry Falls area.

Scenery is approximately 90% completed

With the exception of two gas mechanical industrial switchers the WVM is 100% steam with a large number of geared locomotives (B&O and WM interchange power is diesel)

Operation is by TT&TO

The layout has an E-shaped 12 ft. by 16 ft. main area with a 50 ft. “around the wall” shelf extension.

The layout is designed so that each major industry is a “stand alone” scene that is large enough to be a viable source of revenue for the railroad. The intervening areas are modeled as open country to preserve the feeling of a rural short line railroad.The design of the railroad puts a heavy emphasis on local trains with extensive switching requirements.

Bob Morningstar’s Western Maryland Railway – Hagerstown Subdivision

This is my recreation of my childhood and teenage years of railfanning in and around the Hagerstown area. The layout represent the Western Maryland Railway, circa 1978-1983, more or less. It covers the Hagerstown terminal area, NC tower, and points west to Hancock.The layout encompasses a dedicated layout room of 14’ x 16’.   Cement operations in and around Hagerstown play a large role in the operations. There is a large cement plant in Pinesburg, MD that requires daily servicing. In addition, there is a cement hopper clean out facility in Hagerstown that supports cement operations.  Numerous industries are serviced by locals that originate out of Hagerstown. The B&O Weverton branch (severed by Hurricane Agnes in 1972) is now serviced out of Hagerstown. There are numerous industries to be serviced east of Hagerstown via the Security Branch of the B&O.

Transfer runs to and from the Conrail and N&W connection at Vardo Yard are important sources of interchange traffic.

From the Desk of the Superintendent

In keeping with the way our world has been for the past couple of years, the 2022-2023 SMD meeting year is getting off to a bad start but hopefully that will change going forward.

First I want to thank Alex for his work as Superintendent over the past several years, including a no notice return to the position last year.

My hope was to have all of the initial planning for the year completed and a Wheel Report out to you by the 22nd of August. Considering today’s date that obviously is not going to happen so interim arrangements are being made. The delay is totally my fault and unfortunately was driven by a medical issue on my part. Hopefully that is resolved and the current goal is to have a Wheel Report out to you sometime in late September. Remember, our new Wheel Report editor (Alex Polimeni) is always interested in any content you can provide.

2022-2023 Plans

The September meeting will be conducted via ZOOM on September 11th and will be hosted by Alex (I will be in Arizona at that time). Details and log-on information will be provided at a later date.

Starting with the October meeting I want to return to face to face meetings held at member’s homes and / or other appropriate venues.  The October meeting will be held at my house (October 9th) where you will have to opportunity to see the West Virginia Midland Railroad.  Not much has been accomplished on the railroad over the past several years but the entire basement has been re-modeled (around the layout).  

I would also like to see more live clinics given by members and / or guests at the meetings.  At this time I am asking for volunteers to host meetings in November through March and in May.  Though not confirmed at this point, we hope to be producing the Mini-Con in April of 2023 at Blue Ridge Summit.  In addition I am looking for volunteers to give the clinics at both the meetings and the Mini-Con.  If you want to host and do a clinic at the same time go for it!!

If you would like to host a meeting or present a clinic please let me know as soon as possible <southmountaindiv@gmail.com>. FYI – we could use a clinic in October. Also, if you know any people who are railroad enthusiasts, but not members of the SMD, feel free to invite them to a meeting.

Bob Johnson, SMD Superintendent

PS: Don’t forget that Main Line Hobby Supply will be holding their annual open house on September 17th and 18th. Stop by, drop a few dollars, and pick up the guide book for the annual layout open house tour. Brian and Bonnie have promised a banner year for the tours in term of the number of layouts open including some that have never been on the tour before.

Carolina Special, 2022 MER Convention Update

Be sure to register soon as the registration cost goes up on September 1st!  Here are highlights of the latest Convention information.

The website has been updated several times since the last email I sent about this fun event. The 2022 MER convention website is http://www.carolinasouthern.org/MER2022.htmlwhere all the information you need can be found.

The Banquet will be a great meal with an exciting guest speaker, Shane Wilson, President of Scale Trains. Be sure to sign up.

There are Layout Operating Sessions and information on these can be found at:  http://www.carolinasouthern.org/MER2022tours.html

A full clinic schedule, with a broad range of exciting topics, with 4 Make-and-Take clinics of which three of these clinics are conducted in 2 sessions and information can be found at: http://www.carolinasouthern.org/MER2022clinics.html

We have three special tours before and during the convention.

Tour #201 is a pre-convention backstage tour being held at the North Carolina Transportation Museum at 1 Samuel Spencer Drive, Spencer NC.  Don’t worry about checking into the convention hotel until after the museum tour.  The private tour takes place on Thursday, October 20, 2022 starting at 12:30 pm.  Try to be in place at noon.  Information can be found at: http://www.carolinasouthern.org/2022%20Convention/NCTM%20Tour%20Notice-V3.pdf

And a map of the Museum grounds can be found at: http://www.carolinasouthern.org/2022%20Convention/NCTM%20Tour%20Map-r.jpg

After the tour you can visit The Little Choo Choo Shop, the largest model railroad hobby shop in NC across the street from the museum.

Tour #202: The second special tour is the UNIFOUR SPECIAL which includes the Southeast Narrow Gauge and Shortline Museum in Newton, NC and six very nice layouts in the Hickory, NC Metro Area. This is a Friday all-day mini-bus tour and will leave the convention hotel on Friday morning and return about dinnertime. Information on this tour can be found at: http://www.carolinasouthern.org/MER2022unifour.html

Tour #203:  The third special tour is of Lionel Corporation Headquarters. This will be a self-drive tour on Friday, October 21, 2022 starting at 9:30 am at 6301 Performance Drive, Concord, NC.  The Lionel Headquarters is approximately 5 miles from the convention hotel. 

 A Carolina Special Look South in 2022 convention shirt is now available to purchase during early registration.

One Day Registration is now an option.

We will have hand sanitizer in the clinic rooms and masks are welcome if someone feels safer wearing one.

For our friends in the Southeastern Region, a home layout in Greenville SC will be open on Sunday Oct 23 for our SER visitors returning home!