Coal is King An I1sa 2-10-0 prepares to pull loaded hoppers from the Furnace Hill Coal Co. tipple. I scratch- built both the tipple and the office/supply build- ing. I goofed and cut the tipple window openings without having windows in hand. Each window had to be made from three window castings.
Locals An H10s 2-8-0 is ready to pull an empty Great Northern boxcar from Lebanon Lumber and Coal. The office building is from a Walthers kit, while the red straddle lumber carrier is a really nice white metal kit from McKenzie Iron & Steel.
of 550 feet (five miles in O scale). The three routes are scenically separated on most of the layout, so trains pass through a scene only once. Using the town of Leb- anon as an example, westbound trains first climb the helper grade in front of the town, they pass through town, and finally run be- hind the town buildings along the backdrop. The main lines con- verge at my model of Horseshoe Curve. Trains pass through the Curve (on different tracks) three times during their journey. This operational scheme provides rail- fans with heavy traffic just like PRR’s glory days, and my oper- ating crews enjoy meeting other traffic on the Curve. Visually, I wanted to take ad- vantage of O-scale’s size and have mountains and structures that tower over visitors in the aisles. The layout is built rather high (mostly 50 inches or more off the floor; see elevations on the track
58 RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
plan). The tops of many buildings are 75 inches or higher, and one of the mountains is more than eight feet tall. Visitors look up at most of the big layout features, which helps make them feel like part of the railroad as opposed to feeling like they are flying over it in a helicopter.
Operation
The work spent on layout de- sign really pays off when I host operating sessions. During these sessions, the purpose of the trains is to move freight and pas- sengers like the prototype did. Through trains traverse the main line from staging to staging, stop-
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