Input!

I sent an email off to the Historical Society of Perry County and got a reply from Carl Tressler, their President. Hopefully he will be able to supply some data, especially maps, that will be of help in my planning stages.

As a side note, Tressler's Farm is where the original disputed crossing of the PCRR and N&SVRR took place by way of a diamond, and after the court action where the trestle was built. I don't know if there is a connection, but I did ask.

UPDATE: There is a connection, the owner of Tressler's Farm was a several-greats uncle. Still waiting to see if there will be any information that I can use, any little bit will be helpful.

Track Plan?

The figure 8 in yellow is the narrow gauge portion of the line, the blue around the outer edge is the standard gauge part. The double tracks in green represent the dual gauge trackage in New Bloomfield, the ore processing plant at the top is in New Bloomfield Junction.

This is a very rudimentary track plan on a 4x8 table, there is another that I am contemplating which will be an around-the-wall type built on modules. I am trying not to build a "spaghetti bowl" type setup, but there is a lot of railroad to represent for a short-line.

The around-the-room plan has the benefit of not being as cramped, so things can be laid out more or less linearly. Also, the number of tunnels can be reduced or eliminated all together as the prototype only had one attempted tunnel (which will end up being a cut in my plan).

The drawback is that it will take up more room, but it should be easily portable on the modules as long as the joints are well planned.

Staying Alive

I haven't posted for a while, mostly because there hasn't been much movement on the Path Valley Railroad. I'm at a standstill due to time, funds and space constraints.

One of the things I have been trying to do is come up with a suitable track plan. This relies on two factors, both having to do with real estate. The first factor is the type of layout, I haven't decided on an island (in which case it would be a 4x8) or an around-the-room (in which case it depends on if I get to keep my room or not). There are pros and cons with both approaches, but I'm leaning towards an around-the-room in a modular format.

I want to represent three different railroads, which presents problems of it's own. The first railroad to be represented would be the mighty Pennsylvania, with it's four track mainline, in Duncannon. This would actually be simpler than it sounds because I would only need a relatively short stretch. I'm thinking of a double-track dogbone with the sides close together to simulate the four tracks. That way I could have a passenger train orbiting in the center and a freight working the outsides to interchange with the Susquehanna River & Western in Duncannon. PRR locos would range from Consolidations and Northerns to F-7 diesels. My Pacific would handle the passenger trains.

PRR purists will shudder, because none of the steam engines are PRR prototypes and the F-7's aren't detailed with the proper antennas and such. Also, I'll be using steel cabooses because that's what I have. It's my railroad, I'll run it like I want.

The second railroad, therefore, would be the SR&W from Duncannon to the dual gauge yard in New Bloomfield. It would serve strictly as a connector, so it can be fairly simple - the two terminus points and some straight track between. I have some 4-4-0's and a Spectrum Consolidation that will call this road home.

Last, but certainly not least, will be the narrow gauge Newport and Sherman's Valley railroad. Here's where it gets interesting. In the real world the N&SV ran from Newport to New Germantown with a spur into New Bloomfield until 1921. At that time the road from New Bloomfield to Newport was taken up and the road then ran from New Bloomfield to New Germantown. It left New Germantown for the last time in 1933 and steadily retreated from there, tearing up it's rail behind it, until finally it's backwards march brought it to it's New Bloomfield terminus in 1934 and it was no more.

In my world, the line from New Bloomfield to Newport was saved and a railcar ran the route for passenger and LCL traffic. I'm not really interested in representing Newport so much, a line running off "in that direction" is good enough for me (in actuality that line will run up the backside of the Conococheague Mountain to the Conococheage Gap). So for the narrow gauge portion of the line it's very likely that only New Bloomfield and the mines at the Conococheague Gap will be modeled.

That is still a lot of railroad for a relatively small space, so until I get my real estate woes solved once and for all, most of this is still up in the air. In essence I will have two roundy-round type circuits, one double-tracked, joined by a point to point line. I have several ideas on how to make it all work, but so far they are all just ideas.

But the armchair modeling is fun, too.

Duncannon

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Duncannon was the eastern terminus of the Perry County Railroad and subsequently served as the end of the line for the Susquehanna River and Western as well.

It was in Duncannon where the connection to the Pennsylvania Railroad was made between Shermans Creek and the Little Junaita creek, near the Susquehanna River. The SR&VRR's station was on South High Street, where the New Bloomfield road curved to enter town and became South Market Street.

The SR&WRR exited town to the northeast, roughly along the same track as Highway 15 takes now. The site of the former station is now occupied by the north ramp of the Highway 15 overpass and the southbound exit ramp to New Bloomfield Road (State Road 274).

Nowadays the only tracks in Duncannon are owned by the Norfolk Southern Railroad. No trace of the Susquehanna River and Western Railroad remains.

Something Completely Different

I am a big fan of the show Bullrun, mostly because I just like cars.

One of the episodes was a bit interesting because it had two railroad-related checkpoints. The first was Stove Pipe Wells, which caught my interest because Tom Knapp models it in Nn3 as part of his Carson and Colorado Railroad, although I don't know if the actual Stove Pipe Wells had rail service or not.

The second was Durango, of which no explanation is necessary.

There wasn't anything train related in the episode, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

An Auspicious Discovery

"April 12, 1914 - New Germantown: Trace amounts of a rare metal, called unobtanium, have been discovered in rock samples collected near the site of an unfinished and abandoned railroad tunnel on the Conococheague Mountain.

Unobtanium is highly sought after due to it's extensive use in the manufacture of replacement machine parts.

The Conococheague Mountain tunnel was an attempt by the Newport & Sherman's Valley Railroad to expand southward to Hancock, Maryland from it's New Germantown terminus, using a charter granted to the Path Valley Railroad on October 23, 1893.

It appears that the rock specimens were collected by one Phillip T. Watts, who was working as a day laborer at the tunnel site during the last failed attempt to drill the bore. Mr. Watts is now attending Pennsylvania State University pursuing a geology degree, and the rock samples he collected were being analyzed as part of a course assignment.

Whether or not these samples indicate larger amounts of the ore is yet to be determined, but any deposits would have to be quite large indeed to justify the cost of transportation to and from the remote Conococheage Mountain site."

And thus begins our alternate history...

Susquehanna River and Western Locomotive 10

The standard gauge Perry County Railroad purchased all of it's engines used from the Pennsylvania Railroad. All of the locomotives purchased prior to the 1903 sale to David Gring were 4-4-0 type Americans.

Locomotives 1 and 2 were not included in the sale due to their light construction and advanced age. Locomotive 3 was scrapped in 1911, being worn to the point that it was no longer serviceable. Locomotive 4 threw a driving rod sometime prior to 1924, destroying most of her right side gear. That left locomotive number 5, herself being a lady of vintage.

Locomotive number 6, a light 2-4-0, was purchased from the Baltimore and Ohio to fill the void, but proved insufficient even for the short 11 mile line and was soon scrapped. The last locomotive to be purchased was an ex-PRR H3b Consolidation like the one pictured above. It was numbered 10 and served the road until abandonment.

The H3b is not available in N scale, but the Bachmann Spectrum Consolidation comes close. The biggest difference is the lack of a Belpaire firebox. For my purposes, this shortcoming can be overlooked.

Bachmann locomotives have a deservedly poor reputation in regards to standard N gauge steam offerings, but the Spectrum Consolidation is one of the best locomotives on the market in N scale. It runs quietly and at closer to prototype speeds than the train set varieties, the detail is superb, and the running qualities are second to none.

Here, then, is my version of SR&WRR Number 10 in it's unlettered and un-numbered form. It is the last of 3 Bachmann Consolidations purchased, and is the only Spectrum on the roster so far. The other two are standard (in other words, train set) locomotives and are quite different in appearance. In fact, the only thing the two locomotive types share is their wheel arrangement.

As you can see from the upper photograph, the Belpaire firebox is quite evident just in front of the cab on the prototype locomotive. Anyone who is familiar with PRR engines will recognize right away that the model is not an accurate copy of a Pennsylvania H3b. If I were so inclined, it may not be difficult to modify this locomotive's shell. There is ample room between the cab and the first dome to add the Belpaire, but honestly I'm not that concerned about it. However, for anyone wishing to make an accurate copy of the PRR H3 class, Bachmann's Spectrum Consolidation would be a fine starting point.

H3b photo courtesy of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.