Scene Refinements and Reeling in Expectations

Posted Jan 17, 2021
Updated Oct 15, 2021

About a year ago, I narrowed the focus of my model railroad plan to the segment of the P&LE main line between McKeesport and McKees Rocks, where I would model the through service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s named trains, which used the P&LE line, with a possible cameo appearance by the Pennsylvania Railroad line that parallels part of the P&LE in Pittsburgh. Over the past year, I’ve continued learning more historical information about these railroads, which has helped me begin to plan which trains and industries I’ll model, and which locomotive and car models I can purchase that would be suitable for the layout. I also began to practice some basic track planning skills in Adobe Illustrator, to help me visualize how much space is needed for things like loops, yards and stations, which has has prompted me to prepare for the possibility of eliminating scenes from the plan if the space requirements are too high.

Elimination of McKees Rocks & Esplen

I cut the westernmost scene, McKees Rocks, because it’s the site of the locomotive service facility, fabrication shops and a classification yard, which would take up a huge amount of flat, open space, and I’m much …

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Identifying River Scenes

Posted Sep 18, 2020

While refining the front and back boundaries of the layout scenes using the above diagram, I gave some thought to which scenes will depict the Monongahela River and which ones won’t.

In Homestead, Rankin and McKeesport, the tracks move away from the river as they go around the steel mills. This means that within the boundaries of my scenes, the river would be far enough away that it won’t be modeled in those scenes.

From West End to Hays, just the southern shore of the river will be modeled, along the front edge of the layout. At Hays, it will exit the scene on the front of the layout, and won’t be seen again (south of there) until the bridge between Homestead and Rankin. The river will enter the scene at a slight angle from the front of the layout, pass under the bridge, and disappear into the background. The river crossing is the smaller of two scenes that could potentially feature ship, boat or barge models.

In Rankin, the river will be blocked from view by Carrie Furnace, and the tracks get close to the river again between there and Braddock, before pasing behind Edgar Thomson Works.

Somewhere in …

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Refining Layout Boundaries

Posted Sep 06, 2020
Updated Sep 18, 2020

Back in February, I had focused on a 15-mile segment of P&LE mainline to model, and I was trying to find a way to orient the scenes so that all of them could be viewed from the river shore, which was problematic, because the main line moves from the east side of the river to the west side about half way through. After much consideration, I’m now planning to model the scenes south of that point with the river in the background, and from that point north, the southern shore will be the foreground of each scene. In Mckeesport, the river in the background will be entirely blocked from view by National Tube Works, and it might be partly blocked in Rankin by Carrie Furnace.

While working out these details, I used Google Maps, Google Earth Pro, paper, pencil, and Adobe Illustrator to help visualize what things would look like on the layout. Using the shape of the prototype’s route, which is basically the shape of the river, I created a simplified path that exaggerates the major bends in the river in order to fold the route back on itself. I also represented portions of adjacent streetcar and PRR …

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Tube Works Map

Posted Feb 28, 2020
Updated Apr 07, 2022

I had a great stroke of luck this week while searching through P&LE company records on Historic Pittsburgh. After finding a map of all industries on the line and a technical drawing of the station building and platforms, I came across this undated map of the U.S. Steel National Tube Works plant in McKeesport. It was a huge place, and would have to be selectively compressed a lot for a medium-size model railroad, whether modeled in three dimensions or just as a backdrop.

Update from April 2022: Even without knowing what size constraints I’ll be working with when building this layout, I don’t think there could possibly be enough space to include the National Tube Works in any way other than something depicted on a backdrop, maybe with some building flats, smoke stacks and a siding and/or spur for freight operations. As with the rest of the layout, the focus of the McKeesport scene is the B&O passenger trains, which are in the foreground from the layout viewer’s perspective, with the P&LE main and tube works a few blocks back, but still dominating the sky. I’ve recently read about the “Bessemer blow” that would light up the night sky …

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P&LE Terminal Drawing

Posted Feb 28, 2020

Another good find on the Historic Pittsburgh site is this technical drawing of the Pittsburgh terminal, showing the layout of the station building and platforms. I was glad to find this, because even though I’ve already collected several historic photos of the terminal, I wasn’t yet sure how many tracks there were in the station. Apparently there were a total of 13, which is more than I expected. This plan is undated, but it’s probably still good enough to use as a planning reference. I’d like to some day model this building, and this floor plan should be helpful in that regard as well.

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P&LE Industries Map

Posted Feb 28, 2020

Another great find on the Historic Pittsburgh site is this map titled Industries in the Pittsburgh District, published by the P&LE, showing the names and locations of industries along the line. It’s from late 1929, but I think it’s still probably a good reference for my purposes. At the very least, it tells me what on-line industries I can model, and researching the company names may also lead me to additional pertinent information.

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15-Mile Segment Selected

Posted Feb 04, 2020
Updated Apr 09, 2022

Back in October 2019, I decided that the prototype railroad depicted in my next layout will be the B&O from 1938-1948 in southwestern PA somewhere between Meyersdale and New Castle, likely including Pittsburgh. After four months of research and consideration, I’ve narrowed my focus to the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie line from McKeesport to McKees Rocks, a segment that partially spans two divisions over a distance of about 15 miles.

I decided pretty quickly to make my southernmost potential station Connellsville, instead of smaller Meyersdale, since it was a pretty significant station, junction and yard, making a logical end point for operations. Although I don’t know how much space will be available for the layout, the approximately 100 miles between these two points seemed like a lot, so I thought the best planning approach would be to research and document the points of interest that existed along that stretch, and use that information to help me select a shorter segment to model.

My research and documentation started by following the present-day CSX main line from New Castle to Connellsville via Google Maps satellite view, which revealed many former railroad facilities, such as turntables, tunnels, bridges and stations, plus evidence …

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Beginning my 2019/2020 Winter Modeling Season

Posted Jan 19, 2020

For a month or more, I’ve felt frustrated that other priorities (holidays, a house guest, master bath remodel and tattoo graphics for Chris), plus a lack of early-season snow in the mountains* have prevented me from getting back to work on my models this season. But, as I looked through posts on this blog from last year, plus progress photos on my phone, I realized that last year’s winter modeling season didn’t really get fully underway until the day of the Great Train Show in Puyallup in mid-January. So now I don’t feel so bad, and I supposed this just goes to show how excited I was to get back into the work.

I did manage to spend about 8 hours working on the chapel car, and a few more hours working on a 1950s wood kit (boxcar) given to me by a new friend, Karl, who I met last February at the UNW train show in Monroe. Karl drives trains for Amtrak and recognized me from my daily routine of walking from my office to the Spokane Street crossing on the BNSF main line to see the 2:20 Amtrak Cascades departure from King Street Station go past. In addition …

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