Growing the Lehigh Susquehanna & Western ...

[P5se Camelback]

Sharing Your Living Space With a Model Railroad …
… or …
… How Much are You into the Hobby of Model Railroading?

There has been so much discussion about track planning, much of it relating to this newish trend towards Industrial Switching Layouts (which in my not-so-humble opinion is a natural off-shoot of the apparent “non-directionality” of the small switching diesel.) Do not mistake my initial statement … there is not one thing wrong with ISL’s!! Were I a younger man and just beginning to get serious about the hobby, did not have several thousand dollars invested in decidedly “different” steam locomotives and a veritable plethora of rolling stock common to the first thirty years of the last century, I’d probably be deep into modeling the Reading Company along the Philadelphia waterfront … I’ve often thought about doing just that anyway … selling off everything but the A5a 0-4-0’s and the B8 0-6-0’s, getting a couple more of each, and doing an “On the Philly Waterfront” switching layout … or maybe selling absolutely everything, acquiring a couple of exquisite brass Reading Company diesels, dressing them in the ubiquitous faded Pullman Green, with that general patina of filth and grime that was Reading motive power along the river, and building the gritty urban scenes that are Philly’s waterfront along the Delaware. But too much time has passed since I started planning the Lehigh Susquehanna & Western and I’m in too deep now to make that kind of change.

I have from time to time discussed my own layout planning efforts with a couple members of this forum. At the suggestion of one of them, I will offer my efforts to date here.

First, the “initial’ initial plan was developed for a 28’-6” x 38’-4” basement in a cute little white Cape Cod style home in Lansdale, PA. That was long ago and far away. Two 2’-6” x 6’-0” sections still exist from that aborted start at a layout, wrapped in bubble wrap and plastic sheet, and have lived like that in storage units since 1989. With any luck, I’ll be able to incorporate the hand-laid track and turnouts laid in place as I got to them into this final attempt at building a layout.

I rented this house because of the very large, wide open space in what is the “Living Room” or “Great Room,” or whatever you would like to call it. Since I live by myself, have few, if any visitors other than family (who will tell me to my face that I’ve always been “different”,) and own only a couple of pieces of furniture (divorce can leave you with little) I decided that I could easily share my living space with a model railroad.

Having measured the room and drawn it up to scale, I first identified areas that, were I unable to stand there, it would not be a great loss. Those areas have been assigned as Right-of-Way for the Lehigh Susquehanna & Western Railroad. Unfortunately, these areas are not contiguous! So armed with both a 12” and an 18” roll of Canary Tracing paper (we used to use it to do visualization overlays in the architect’s office) I started tearing off hunks of paper and doing overlay after overlay, sketching track arrangement possibilities when I was sitting at the breakfast area table after a meal, as the spirit moved.

Then I found Big Blue, got involved in the 2010 Summer Structure Challenge, the breakfast area table became a serious workbench, I rediscovered my zeal for the hobby and I’m now I’m on the verge of making the trip to the Home Depot for the necessary materials to begin construction of what will in all like likelihood be my last layout, and the first one to look like much more than an ill-fated attempt at crude basement shelving construction since I was 17 years old … (again, that’s long ago and far away!)



The first image is the overall room floor plan, with the areas designated for railroad surrounded with “heavy-up” outlines. The open area in the right center is the area that I currently use as living area. The “wall” on the right is a bank of sliding glass doors … with a nice view of a canal constantly fished by all kinds of local waterfowl. The area below that is the breakfast area. Along the upper right side of the plan is Weissport, PA, an actual small upstate PA town on the upper Lehigh River. The town will carry the name but try to capture the flavor of the area without trying to replicate the town of Weissport itself.

The 30” to 36” x 13’-6” “shelf will have a mix of business and residential along the back with a two track end-of-branch terminal having track long enough to accommodate a four car passenger train (served primarily by LS&W, with a single daily connection from “beyond the basement” by both Reading and PRR.) A three to four track freight yard will occupy the foreground, running almost the whole length of the “shelf” but also accessing a couple of businesses/industries on the east end of the town. Freight interchange (again, utilizing “beyond the basement,”) will be with the three previously mentioned roads, plus the NYO&W coming down from Scranton (modeler’s license … that never really happened, but I have an NYO&W Camelback Mogul.)

In the middle of the room is a “rounded corner” rectangle that is the Weissport Engine Servicing Facility. The terminal itself has been the subject of most of my planning efforts, as the space is relatively compact, and it must provide certain identifiable functions during the servicing of steam locomotives. The fact that the terminal is in the center of the room, will be viewable from at least three of its sides and also will be one of the first things seen by someone entering my home, its physical arrangement is of the utmost importance.



The Weissport Engine Servicing Terminal will service all motive power into Weissport regardless of owner road... After cutting off its train, the locomotive will travel to the facility over a removable, roll-away section of layout to the terminal in the center of the room … what better place to showcase a roster of some 16 Camelbacks and assorted other Wooten and Belpaire fire boxed locomotives, a turntable, roundhouse, coaling tower, sand drying, ash removal and service to all of those functions except right smack dab in the center of the room! Just for a bit of depth to the scene and some human interest, the front edge of that section will have a street and a row of tenements which back up to the terminal … should be cool for photography, shooting the congested terminal in the middle of a residential neighborhood!

Leaving Weissport, trains cross another “roll-away” that will be scenicked as the Lehigh River with a bascule bridge (… no real need for it as the water isn’t all that navigable there but …) and pass through Lehighton Junction to arrive at Lehighton, another actual place, (actually across the river from Weissport) but again, no attempt will be made to replicate that town either. In the corner, upper left on the plan is the future site of the now-infamous GERN plant of the many corrugated mock-ups. There will be one or two more small industries, including a Portland Cement plant near Lehighton Junction, plus an indication of some of Lehighton’s residential area.

At Lehighton Junction trains either continue on the West Branch to Tamaqua, or take the North Branch passing between an existing stone factory (purchased by GERN) and the new GERN structures to the west of the branch tracks to travel north to Scranton (north staging behind Lehighton, above west staging.)



[Note: Names on this drawing were early ... they do not reflect current name selections.]

For trains continuing to travel west, a few changes have been made that are not indicated here (a couple new pieces of Canary have been generated) and trackage will climb to enter the Hocklebernie Tunnel, to emerge in the whistle stop village of, what else, Hocklebernie (an actual little village along the route I “surveyed” on a USGS map … and don’t you just love these small-town upstate Pennsylvania town names?!!) Passing through Hocklebernie, track again dives into a tunnel (# 9) to emerge in Nesquehoning. Here, a couple of switching opportunities will include a coal yard, a general store, possibly another one or two very small businesses and possibly a small beer distributor … (this is upstate Pennsylvania, after all.) Trains will continue on from Nesquehoning by again cutting under the mountains through Tunnel #8 towards the connection with the main section of the Scranton-Sunbury Division (western staging under Lehighton.)

All town names are authentic and will appear in the correct order and the general geography of the locale but reality ends there and freelanced prototyping takes over. I want the flavor of the area but not dedicated slavery to actual reality.