AM Tours

10am - 1pm

Cindy Dodd’s Soo the Milwaukee road

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We have a turn table, woods with camp ground, rock quarry, logging facilities.

City: Grayson
Scale/Gauge: HO
Cindy Dodd

Tim Jarboe’s Hoosier Southern RR

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This is a freelance layout based on a short line of the Southern RR that used to service my home town of Tell City in southern Indiana. It is set in the early transition era with industry and businesses being modeled on actual memories from my childhood and stories from my parents. It contains a main level and a lower level that is designed as a switching layout to service industries from that time period.

City: Athens
Scale/Gauge: HO
Tim Jarboe

Don Oltmann’s Conrail – South Jersey

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History: The rail lines in South Jersey were built out in the mid 19th century, in large part to connect metropolitan Philadelphia with the shore towns from Atlantic City through Cape May. The completion of the Delaware River Bridge in 1928 eroded much of the passenger traffic causing the creation of the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines in 1933 and a consolidation of duplicate routes. The creation of Conrail in 1976 allowed a further consolidation. Set in the 1990s, my model railroad follows an alternate history with different lines being kept and discarded. Route description: The railroad starts at Pavonia yard in Camden and follows the old West Jersey and Seashore through Gloucester City, Woodbury, Vineland and Millville. The passenger route to Atlantic City diverges at Newfield and follows a WJ&S line abandoned in 1941. There is one branch from Woodbury to Paulsboro with interchanges to two shortlines, the Winchester and Western at Millville and SLRS at Paulsboro. Traffic and Industry: South Jersey is primarily a consuming region with goods and raw materials being delivered. The region does have sand mine, agriculture and petroleum refining the support outbound loads. Specific traffic and commodities were generally derived from a sample of actual traffic handled by Conrail. Industries modeled include a bakery, paper warehouse, beverage distributor, building supply, glass factory, power plant, food distributor, auto ramp, intermodal ramp, transload facility, refinery, and a model manufacturer. Operating the Layout: The layout is equipped with NCE DCC. Control of train movement is planned to be “verbal track warrants”. Car movement is controlled by a home-grown waybilling system using table based block and train assignment tables. Description of operations - Freight: Freight traffic arrives on a trio of road trains from “points west”. There are a pair of Conrail merchandise freights, one from Conway PA (Pittsburgh) and one from Allentown PA as well as a combined multilevel and intermodal train from Harrisburg PA. There is also a unit coal train serving the electric generating station in Vineland. The inbound traffic is classified at Pavonia and dispatched to serving yards at Millville and Paulsboro for local delivery. Passenger: All service is between Philadelphia and Atlantic City operates in push-pull mode. Amtrak operates non-stop trains into and out of Atlantic City. One train carries a through sleeper and diner from Chicago. New Jersey Transit operate commuter service between Atlantic City and Philadelphia. Equipment: The locomotive fleet follows standard Conrail practice and models from the era. High HP four and six axles on the road trains, Low HP four axles on the yard and local jobs. Cabooses are still used (because I like them and the operating complexity that comes with!). Freight car type and road are (more or less) appropriate for the commodities and era.

City: Lawrenceville
Scale/Gauge: HO
Donald Oltmann

PM Tours

1pm - 5pm

Crew Heimer’s Sand Patch Lines

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Under construction - no significant scenery yet. Steam to Diesel transition. Passenger trains (primarily diesel) add steam helpers at Cumberland station stop; freight trains add helpers at Hyndman. Sidings for 25 car freight trains. Two levels of folded dogbones. Ten track staging yard. Come see the behind the scenes look at a railroad before it is covered in scenery. Six foot roll out section with multiple main lines for access to furnace and hot water heater. Multiple hidden lines attached to wall brackets. Bowl-shaped grades in yard to aid in cars rolling after being cut-off during switching. Main line turnouts #8 for crossovers, #6/7 other mainline double ended tracks, #4,#2.5 for industry spur stub tracks.

City: Atlanta
Scale/Gauge: HO
Crew Heimer

Thomas Lloyd’s Norfolk and Western Railway – Pocahontas Division 1958

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The layout focuses on coal operations, time freights, and passenger trains of the Norfolk and Western Railway through the coalfields of West Virginia during 1958. The N&W rostered steam locomotives until May 1960, so you can witness the final years of their use in regular service alongside the new diesels that eventually replaced them. 1958 is also the year that Management leased first-generation diesels from neighboring railroads (including the PRR, ACL, and RF&P) to help expedite dieselization, offering the railfan a chance to witness some interesting patch jobs and diesel consists among the N&W's own new diesels. The layout is designed for prototype operations to keep 12 people busy for 3.5 hours. A fast clock is used so that time freight and passenger trains are scheduled to depart based on the actual 1958 Time Table.

City: Norcross
Scale/Gauge: HO
Thomas Lloyd

John Wilson’s Saint Louis Gateway

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The St. Louis Gateway is an N-scale layout representing operations on the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis (TRRA) around SH Interlocking and Madison Yard during the late 1980s. The operations simulate traffic patterns through a major interlocking tower, SH Interlocking in Madison lL. During an operating session, the SH Tower operator will control the movement of about 50 trains from 5 different mainlines. About half of these movements are switching transfers from many different railroads in the St. Louis area (5 staging yards.)

City: Lilburn
Scale/Gauge: N
John Wilson

Mark Reed’s Little River Railroad and Lumber Company

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This proto-freelanced layout captures a small segment of the Little River Railroad, depicting a 26-mile stretch of branchline and logging operations located in what is known today as the Great Smoky Mountains. The railroad is served by the Southern Railway, Knoxville and Augusta Division. Operations takes place in the mid- to late-1930s. The LRR&LC is inspired by the raffle layout of the same name won at the 2004 Piedmont Division's Train Show; the raffled section has been incorporated as the peninsula on the middle level. As a multi-level design, the lower and middle levels are joined using a double deck peninsula (with reversing loops on each level) at one end with walk around shelves to a helix at the other end. Continuous running of trains is possible between the lower and middle levels. On the upper section of the peninsula, a series of switchbacks connect the middle level of the peninsula to an around-the-wall shelf on the upper level. Three towns will be modeled in detail. On the lower level, the main industry in the town of Walland will include the Schlosser Tannery and the sawmill complex will dominate Townsend. Specifically, the Townsend Sawmill Complex will feature a fully detailed sawmill, power plant, planing shed, transfer shed with a tramway leading to the drying yard, sawdust burner, coaling station, water tower, and machine shop. Logging operations and the town of Elkmont will be modeled on the upper level. Finally, there will be seven bridges traversing the Little River that run throughout the landscape on all three levels. In addition to the logging operations, the Little River Railroad Company will transport loggers and their families to and from work sites and local towns. Finally, excursion trains will operate between Walland and Elkmont, bringing summer vacationers from Maryville and Knoxville to the cabins and cottages (known as Millionnaires Row) just north of Elkmont.

City: Peachtree Corners
Scale/Gauge: HO
Mark Reed