Main Line A massive PRR Q2 4-4-6- 4 leads manifest freight EC-21 through the small town of East Valley. One of Pennsy’s 598 decapods waits in the helper pocket to provide a shove on the rear. East Valley station was built from DPM wall sections; the water tank was scratchbuilt.
tions and switch towers are Wal- thers built-up models I repainted in authentic PRR station colors I custom-mixed using formulas published by the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Histori- cal Society. The photos highlight several of the scratchbuilt struc- tures on the railroad. The Penn- sylvania House furniture factory is made of foamcore, Masonite, and Plastruct brick sheets, with doors and windows from Grandt Line and Korber Models. The Fur- nace Hill Coal Co. tipple was also scratchbuilt using foamcore, as was the adjacent office and sup- ply building. I sided the tipple with embossed aluminum foil to represent corrugated metal sid- ing; the supply building received Evergreen board and batten sid- ing over the foamcore shell. The J. Smith Coal Co. has a styrene office building and concrete coal bins made of MDF. Most of the yard structures were scratchbuilt from styrene.
The railroad has an operat-
ing PRR-style position light sig- nal system. There are 45 relays
Passenger Service Passenger train number 13 approaches Summit station with T1 4-4-4-4 No. 5511 in the lead. Structures in the town of Summit in the left rear are HO scale to provide forced perspective to the scene.
that combine to drive 26 signal heads using occupancy circuits I designed myself. With 3-rail trains, the center rail is AC hot,
nal system’s rail. My system also incorporates some toggle switch- es to override signal aspects. The Annville yardmaster has fascia-
one outside rail is AC common, and the other outside rail can be used for easy occupancy detec- tion. The wheels are not insulat- ed from each other on 3-rail cars and locomotives; thus, whenever any piece of rolling stock is in a block, the wheels and axle make an electrical connection between the “AC common” rail and the sig-
mounted toggles to control the east and west approach signals entering the yard. Towns on the main line have toggles that con- trol approach signals to the town. When a local train obtains per- mission from the dispatcher to work, they set the approach sig- nals at each end of the town to “stop” using fascia-mounted tog-
62 RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
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