Designing the Blacklog Valley

Like many model railroaders, my interest in the hobby began as a boy, when I received my first Lionel train set for Christmas.  My father had worked secretly in the basement for weeks, building a layout consisting of two 4 x 8 sheets of plywood laid end to end.  To my young eyes, it was perfect, with its painted grass and streets, Plasticville houses, and a figure eight track plan that wound across the miniature landscape. 

I can still remember that wonderful model railroad of my childhood.  So of course, when I built my first layout some 25 years later, I used the same technique: sheets of ½ inch plywood resting between pairs of sawbucks.  To my dismay, I soon discovered that unsupported plywood tends to sag, especially in a damp basement!  Moreover, my first efforts at designing a track plan were less than satisfactory.  I spent more time picking out a name for the railroad than figuring out what it was supposed to do.  Watching a train go round and round in a circle is fun for a while, but eventually it gets boring. 

My current model railroad is the fourth reincarnation of my initial effort.  After some 35 years in the hobby, I have learned a lot about building solid, stable benchwork that provides a suitable support for the track, switches, yards, sidings, and spurs that make up a scenic and interesting model railroad.  I have also discovered the importance of developing a rationale for your model railroad before you begin to build.  In my early efforts to construct a layout, I built the benchwork first, then tried to design a track plan that would fit the available space.  This approach inevitably led to tight curves, inaccessible track, and a “bowl of spaghetti” railroad to nowhere!

Real railroads don’t travel in circles; they are built to carry coal, oil, livestock, merchandise, commodities or passengers from point “A” to point “B”.  Even if your model railroad follows a loop or figure eight track plan, there should be some basic rationale to justify its operation.  That means that before you nail one piece of lumber to another, you need to sit down and decide on a track plan for your model railroad empire.  Only then you can design the benchwork to support your layout. 

In my case, a single thread has connected all five of the layouts I have constructed over the years.  My very first model railroad, built of plywood on sawbucks, was named for a nearby topographical feature in the mountains of central Pennsylvania where I lived.  Blacklog Valley runs in a southwesterly direction from Port Royal, on the former Pennsylvania Railroad, to Hancock, Maryland, and the Western Maryland Railroad.  My first model railroad was named the Blacklog Valley, a bridge line connecting the two class I common carriers.  Every layout I have built since then has included the freelanced Blacklog Valley. 

But while living in central Pennsylvania, I discovered and fell in love with the narrow gauge East Broad Top Railroad, which ran from Robertsdale in southern Huntingdon County, to Mount Union, where it connected with the PRR.  The EBT hauled coal north from the Broad Top coal fields some 30 miles to Mount Union, where the coal was sorted, cleaned, and transferred to standard gauge hoppers.  The EBT also provided ganister rock to several area brickyards, as well as a small amount of freight and passenger service.

I wanted my railroad to include both the free-lanced Blacklog Valley and at least portions of the EBT.  This turned out to be a marriage made in heaven, since the EBT once had a spur that actually served the village of Blacklog, situated in the scenic Blacklog Valley several miles east of the main office and shop complex at Rockhill, Pennsylvania.  Here was the rationale for the layout!  The narrow gauge EBT would haul coal, stone and passengers from Robertsdale through Rockhill to Blacklog, where it would be transferred to the standard gauge Blacklog Valley Railroad. 

With a rationale and purpose for the railroad decided on, I could then move to the design of a track plan that would link together the three main “scenes”of the layout: The small mining village of Robertsdale; the EBT station and shop complex at Orbisonia; and the busy industrial interchange between the Blacklog Valley and the EBT at Blacklog.   In my next post, I will look at some of the issues involved in designing and building a model railroad.