Charles Kadyk's Pennsylvania and New England
About the Model Railroad
| The Pennsylvania and New England Railroad is an HO scale shelf type layout that runs around my finished basement. I model the era in the mid 1950's in Central PA. The RR runs on 2 levels in point to point fashion although I do have the option for continuous run for open houses. The railroad begins on the lower level staging for Maybrook, Springfield, and Boston. It runs to Pen Argyl then into a helix up to the main level where the towns are named after members of the family. The RR runs around the basement walls then into the helix again and up to Blue Mountain staging which represents Harrisburg, Reading, and Philadelphia. |
| The RR runs from Rockville, PA, to Boston, MA, on a route that parallels Blue Mountain in PA and up through NJ and up to Maybrook NY where it then proceeds across the Poughkeepsie Bridge and then up to MA and across to Boston. It is based on an incarnation of one of Lehigh and New England Railroad's predessors that in reality never turned a wheel although, there was some construction. |
| I run a mix of PRR, B&M, and MEC motive power along with power in my own scheme for the PNE. I have a mixture of steam and first generation diesel power. |
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In terms of operations, yards are located at Kertville
(roughly Hamburg area) and Pen Argyl. There is also a stub end
passenger station at Charlestown (also in the Hamburg area). I run a
mixture of through freights, express trains, freight locals, and
passenger locals. My schedule is extensive enough that at present I
have 2 "shifts" worth of trains to run in alternating sessions. I
have positions for Dispatcher, Charlestown passenger terminal
supervisor, Kertville yardmaster, Pen Argyl Yardmaster (who also
doubles as a road crew and local crew depending on the session), a
local crew (who works 2 to 3 locals a session depending on traffic
density) as well as the standard road crews. I can usually
accommodate 8 to 10 people comfortably.
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I use a card system similar
to one that is used on Ken McCorry's PRR Buffalo line and several
other layouts in the Chester county area. At present the RR is all
dark territory but I am in the process of installing detection and
signaling using products from RRcirckits and JMRI for programming
and dispatching.
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| I would like to thank all the members of this website as well as Doug Kley, Paul Backenstose and Bill Blackburn for their suggestions and assistance with "working out the bugs" as well as Bob Bucklew who I have relied on heavily for his invaluable assistance with learning JMRI and the signal systems. Also special thanks to my regular operating crew who make the railroad come alive. |
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Please come over and join the fun!
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Specifications |
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Era: Mid 1950's
Scale: HO Layout Style: Linear walk around with no area of layout more than 2 feet deep. Size: 26 by 26 feet Benchwork: Open grid with risers Roadbed: Half inch plywood and Homasote Track: Code 100 Turnouts: Atlas or Peco Minimum Radius: 26 inches Control: NCE with JMRI |