Since I'm new here I thought I should introduce the layout I've been working on for several years. The Allegheny Eastern is the first "real" layout I've constructed since I was nine years old. Most of the attempts since were Christmas layouts or dioramas. I did start a couple of small operating layouts featuring short mining branches, but lost interest. I wasn't that they didn't operate well or provide some entertainment. It was more that they weren't railroads the way I remembered them. Growing up along the four track mainline of the Pennsylvania leaves quite an impression. It's not that I'm snobbish or anything. It's just that after you've spent some time watching GG1's and E44's highballing along the what they now call the "Northeast Corridor" anything less just doesn't seem the same. Electric railroading so dominated the Philadelphia area that I really didn't get close to any other kind of road engine until I was an adult with children. The only other locomotives I saw to that point were working for the Strasburg. There was an occasional glimpse of Reading hood units from the EL train, but Heavy electrics were a way of life.
You would think that I would lean toward reproducing the railroad of my youth with my first real layout. Not so. I think I burned out on all those GG1's flashing by hauling endless trains. Instead I focused on the part of the Pennsylvania I did not visit till long after Conrail. I had read about the Pennsy Middle Division and Altoona in the model magazines and wanted to see it but never got the chance until Altoona was a mere shadow of its former self. To see the place after most of it had been razed or torn up was heartbreaking to a train fan. I think that's a major reason the Allegheny Eastern is modeled after the Altoona-Gallitzin section of the mainline. I'm recreating something I missed.
I think I started on the project in 2009, about 50 odd years after I saw my first Model Railroader magazine. I came to the realization one day that our new home had a two car garage that would be a great place for a train layout. I had recently been hospitalized for a quadruple bypass and found myself with some time on my hands. I had been building virtual rail models for several years, but after the surgery it was hard to spend long hours sitting in front of computers. I need something a bit more "active". I started building some models in S scale but soon realized that these would be too big to create the layout that was beginning to take shape in my imagination.
Most of the work to date has been the evolution of the track plan. I say "evolution" because I did not work from detailed plans drawn up ahead of time. Instead I worked with the actual benchwork and track, somewhat in the way you might work with sectional track on a cardtable (do they still make those?). I kept trying different things, building and rebuilding what I didn't want. Not the best way to approach the subject, but one that worked for me.
This was the original concept...A two level Z scale layout with Horseshoe Curve modeled as close as possible to scale size.
I used a track planning software called 3D trains to create a digital mockup. It looked like it might work. I could model The Curve full size in Z scale (about 5 feet across). Alas it was not to be...I found out that A) Z scale is quite expensive, and B) about the only Pennsy units available were F7's. Scratchbuilding or kitbashing equipment seemed unreasonable to me. I am much older and the eyes can't see well enough to work on such tiny models. HO scale was out of the question. It was only a bit smaller than S and there was not enough space to do what I wanted to do. I compromised on N scale when I realized that I could model Horseshoe Curve "half size" in a five foot space. I adopted the 3D plan to 1:160 and it was off to the races. I started to build the layout of my dreams.
Not quite...After several build, rebuilds, modifications, false starts and God knows what else (including a tri-level version). The Allegheny Eastern reached this configuration by April of 2010...
It had most of the features I wanted. A token representation of Altoona (there really is no way to accurately model Altoona, even in Z scale you need a city block), Horseshoe Curve, and the helper loop at Gallitzin. I was even able to split the freight and passenger mains through Altoona yard. At the time I was contemplating a helix to bring trains back down to Altoona from the dizzying heights (6 inches) at Gallitzin. This took up a ton of space and meant that the hoped for East Altoona service facilities would require an extension. I ran trains for a while and continued to mull over design ideas in my head.
Up until this point the layout used half the garage. There was still some space to use as a garage like storing mowers, fix the car, park the motorcycle etc. I had built the bench work high enough so that most of the storage containers we used to have on shelving were now under the layout. This storage "design parameter" was written in stone and could not be revoked. The resulting tabletop construction created a number of challenges I had yet to solve. That helix required raised roadbed and there was no open frame to facilitate this. Without the helix the westbound run between Gallitzin and Altoona was too short for what I had in mind.
I spent the next month revising the layout by adding an extension into the unused portion of the garage. I have my priorities. The motorcycle would just have to stay outside!
I swung Gallitzin 180 degrees onto new 5' x 8' bench work. At the same time I built a bookcase on the other side of the layout so I could widen the Altoona yard by another foot. I still had plans to install a helix but that would still entail elevating all of the track except Altoona to reach a 6" elevation. In the meantime trains had a longer level run westbound between Gallitzin and Altoona. I still hadn't come up with a good solution for Altoona yard or the East Altoona engine facilities.
It took a while and a bit of searching (interrupted by period of doldrums) but I came up with some solutions. By November of 2011 the layout plan had morphed again.
Unlike all previous drafts, I actually worked this out on paper before building (more like rebuilding). I had fouund space for East Altoona and some semblance of a yard. I had also figured out the grades on the layout. To drop the 6 inches from the west end of Gallitzin to the east end of Altoona on a 1.5 % (or less) grade would require a two loop helix using 30 inch minimum radius curves. This was fantastic! The helix would double the mainline run from 2 scale miles to 4! It would also use up a lot space on the layout. The helix could also be used as a kind of staging area. Four tracks and 60 some feet can hold more than a few N scale trains.
If there was any huge problem with the new revision it was that operations would be all mainline running. The only possibility for switching would be in the yard area. Even with the possibility of staging trains, I would essentially be watching trains "loop the loop". I was also unhappy with the curves on the layout. They didn't "feel" right. I started to sketch up some alternative ideas.
To make a long story hardly any shorter the current layout looks like this (almost)...
I realigned all the track for more graceful curves and easements. It "flows" better, if that's the right way of putting it. The tracks was also elevated using a method I tripped over by accident. I eliminated the helix altogether and in its place created what I'm calling Blair Furnace. In this area I interconnected several branchlines and a traction system. There are plans for a few "real" industries but most of the operations on these interconnections use John Armstrongs "loads in / empties out" scenario. Usually used for coal trains I discovered it can be applied to just about any type of freight car.
There is also a branch that represents the New Portage "cutoff" just east of Tunnel Hill. Although not shown on the plan, this branch is actually a loop connected to the team track siding at the west end of Gallitzin. The real New Portage branch connected to Duncannon and Hollidaysburg as part of a low grade route from Altoona. Its connections at Tunnel Hill were all on the east slope. I had to use some poetic license and moved the eastbound connection to the west slope. The team track and the other sidings in Gallitzin were actually used for coke ovens back in the day, so I didn't have to stretch reality more that a tad to model them.
One of the other branches modeled is the Glen White Coal and Lumber connection at Burgoon Run. This track appears in quite a few photos of Horseshoe Curve. The siding ran to some coke ovens fed by the Glen White's narrow gauge mining railroad. There were actually more sidings on either side of Kittinning point for much the same reason, but I could not reasonably incorporate more than the one. The real Glen White owned one narrow gauge Shay locomotive. On the Allegheny Eastern it's a standard gauge Atlas model.
I also modeled the long defunct Altoona Northern, known to locals as the Wopsy for the resort it was built to serve. The company went through several reorganizations and name changes and eventually became the Altoona Northern. It connected to the Pennsy at Juniata. The road was narrow gauge but was rebuilt to standard gauge in an attempt to make it a bridge line between the PRR at Altoona and the New York Central at Patton PA. It never happened. On the layout the Altoona Northern may or may not have a connection to the NYC. When the track was re-gauged the motive power was Pennsy F class Moguls. They couldn't negotiate the curves and grades and were replaced by Heislers. N scale Heislers being hard to came by, on the layout it currently has one Fairbanks Morse 12-44 switcher.
The last part of the Blair Furnace interconnection is the Altoona and Logan Valley. This traction system ran all over the Altoona-Juniata area and was the main transportation for PRR employees here for decades. At one time it ran as far as Hollidaysburg and Tyrone. I only model the Altoona area of the line.
The Blair Furnace and Altoona yard areas are still under development. Once again I'm laying track to see what works and updating the track plan to match. It's a "bass ackwards" way of doing things, but it works for me.
Thanks for your time,
Frank Musick
