Visiting the L&K Railroad
Coal Mountain, which features my coal mine, river and rural scenes. The other locations, Columbia, East Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Camden Yards and Moun- tainside, play more of a supporting role to the big three, Baltimore with its yard, Union Station, and Big Coal Mountain.
Motive power and rolling stock I like steam and diesel locomotives and that is why I choose the transition era, more or less. All of my locomotives are equipped with decoders and sound. My good friend, Brian Glock, also a member of the Chattahoochee Express, has weathered my steam locomotives to varying degrees for me. I have repre- sentative locomotives from most of the model manufactures, Athearn Genesis, Atlas, Bachmann Spectrum, Broadway Limited, and Walthers Proto 2000. Over the years I built up a large col- lection of rolling stock, mostly Athearn and MDC on the freight side. Boxcars are dominant, followed by reefers, open hoppers, and tank cars based on the needs of the industries I have on the layout. On the passenger side, I have cars from a number of manufacturers. Most of my passenger cars for the name trains have fully detailed interi- ors with lights and figures. For obser- vation cars, I have installed lighted marker lights and drumheads. Early on, most of my passenger cars came from IHC and they required significant detail work. However, today my job has been made easier with the passenger car releases from Walthers and Rapido which come with interiors and add on lighting.
Digital Command Control from Digi- trax is used to power the layout and run the trains. All my throttles have wireless capability. This is great be- cause it makes for tangle free situa- tions when I host an open house or an operating session. I have been holding operating sessions for the last six years and this really has increased my enjoy- ment of the railroad. Not only do I have fun running trains realistically, I enjoy watching my operators put the trains through their paces. All turnouts are operated electrically
with Tortoise slow motion switch ma- chines wired to toggle switches. This makes it easier for my operators, mini- mizes the need to reach into the layout and better secures the points on the
The transition era provides the author with a chance to indulge his eclectic tastes in locomotives and one can’t be bored with the variety on the L&K roster. In addition to steam power, workhorse diesels, like this EMD switcher (above right), and even a doodlebug (right) also ply the L&K’s rails.
46 FEBRUARY 2013 Big Coal Mtn. Baltimore Columbia
Drawing by Ken Lawrence
Water heater
Furnace East Pittsburgh
Union Station
Pittsburgh
Mountainside Camden Yard
George Bloodworth’s L&K R.R.
HO scale, 22′×28′
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100