- Size: 25′ x 47 ′
- Scale: HO
- Minimum Mainline Radius: 36″
- Minimum Aisle Width: N/A
- Designed by Dan Bourque
The CSX runs through the heart of West Virginia coal country along the New River and Kanawha River plying the rails the C&O ran for a century before. Thurmond, WV, once a major yard and mine terminal, is now just a small junction between the CSX and the RJ Corman’s line to a flood loader near Pax, WV, but its classic depot still stands as a reminder of the C&O’s glory days. While most of the loaders are gone, the New River Gorge is still a great place to see trains of all sorts, to include plenty of coal trains, pulling heaving loads up the grade toward toward the summit on the WV/VA border near Alleghany, VA.
The Layout
This track plan represents a portion of the CSX’s New River Sub and Kanawha Sub along its main through West Virginia in the modern era. It’s designed to fit into a very generous basement space, but this design had to overcome two challenges. First, the Thurmond section of the layout is already complete, so the rest of the layout had to be designed around this section. Second, each of the three major spaces is shared: the Thurmond area is shared with a pool table requiring a 60″ “halo” around it, the New River Gorge area could only run along a narrow area in an already existing workshop, and the third portion is in a utility room already full of obstacles including a furnace, water heater and laundry area. At first, I found myself struggling to try to fit more in, make it double-deck, get orientations correct, but I eventually came around to the idea that my ideas about filling the space went against the owner’s ideas for this space. Once I figured out that this plan was not about capturing everything as accurately as possible but rather recreating a few key scenes and providing some variety around the central theme of running a busy mainline through central West Virginia, I found I really liked the openness of the plan and its operational possibilities despite being simpler than I would normally design.
The layout is essentially a super long dog bone divided into four major scenes: Thurmond, Pax, New River Gorge, and Charleston. Those familiar with this area will notice that I’ve left out a LOT of railroad between the New River Gorge (MJ Cabin, to be specific) and Charleston, but these scenes capture the essence of the area and offer some variety in operations while focusing on the main. The main portion of the layout is the existing Thurmond module and the adjacent RJ Corman section that ends at a flood loader near Pax, WV. These scenes also cut out a lot of railroad between them, but they capture the key parts of the RJC operation. At the other end of the layout is Charleston, home to an Amtrak station, a few good-sized industries, and a small yard at South Charleston. While compressed, this scene captures the station, several of the industries, a car shop, and the east side of the South Charleston Yard which is actually one end of the west staging yard–trains are partially visually staged. In between these two ends of the layout is the New River Gorge, or at least the area from Beury to MJ Cabin where the C&O (and now CSX) splits to run on opposite sides of the New River. I was restricted to a 12″ shelf for most of this run, but it’s sufficient to run a double-track main and represent some of the steep walls of the gorge and the bridge across the New River. Of note, some of this area is single-track main on the CSX, but I decided to model it as double-track to allow two trains to be run simultaneously in opposite directions without a dispatcher, and since most of this line is double-track anyway, it still follows the dominant prototype theme.
A staging level runs underneath the entire layout. Like the visible portion, the staging level includes a double-track mainline throughout. Each staging yard (S. Charleston to the west and Hinton to the east) is 7 tracks and double-ended, and each track is 18′ long or longer. Double cross-overs at the ends of the yards maximize the flexibility of the yards for operations. Benchwork could be simple using either L-girder or open box design with most of the layout suspended from the walls. Because the mainline run is so long, I recommend a DCC system with two boosters, one for the left two rooms and one for the right. Also, because operators would have to walk down hallways to follow their train, I recommend wireless throttles.
Operations
Operations on this layout consist primarily of running through trains between S. Charleston and Hinton. Because the layout is essentially a continuous running loop, a pair of operators could run a mix of trains endlessly including coal drags, empties returning to the mines, through freights, fast freights, and Amtrak trains. Because it’s a double-track main, a dispatcher would really be optional, though a set of cross-overs at Beury and MJ Cabin make a passing siding that could be used for meets.
RJC SD40T-2s pushing near Pax, WV, Mar 2010 -Everett Young
While there isn’t much local traffic on this layout, there are enough industries in Charleston to warrant a local or yard crew to work them, blocking cars for east- or west-bound to be picked up by the next through freight. The signature job, however, is the RJ Corman mine run from Thurmond to Pax. A train of empties could be staged on the passing track at Beury near Thurmond. Picking up their set of 3-4 RJC 6-axles in Thurmond, the RJ Corman crew would run to Beury, split their power between the front and rear of the train, and head back to Thurmond where they’d take the line to Pax. A great aerial photo from 2013 on Google Earth reveals how they worked the flood loader at Pax. Reappearing from a tunnel near Miller’s Camp (prototypical), the crew would take the siding around the flood loader. Once in the siding, the train would be split in two with the locomotives at the rear of the train shoving their half of the train under the flood loader and loading heading back toward Thurmond. Once the rear half of the train is clear, the front half would take their train up to the end of the tracks and back down under the flood loader. Once loading is complete (perhaps dropping loads into the cars as they run through), the reassembled train would head back to Thurmond, dropping its loads in the siding at Beury for a CSX crew to pick up.
What I Like About This Plan
- Continuous running connection for limitless operation
- Long trains
- Generous curves on the mainline
- Focuses on a few key scenes with lots of running room between them
- Preserves lots of space for other activities (pool, workshop, laundry)
- Great setup for just running trains through scenery with enough operation to keep it interesting
What I Don’t Like About This Plan
- Requires a lot of “walking hallways” to keep up with your train
- Very narrow shelf in workshop limits scenic possibilities
- Missing lots of railroad between MJ Cabin and Charleston
- Some awkward transitions through walls and backdrops
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