- Size: 9′ x 23′
- Scale: N
- Minimum Radius: 18″ (12″ non-mainline)
- Minimum Aisle Width: 30″
- Designed by Dan Bourque
The Pickens Railway is a neat little short line encompassing 28 miles of former Norfolk Southern track in western South Carolina. The line is known for its fleet of bright orange U18Bs. The namesake line from Pickens to Easley, SC has now been abandoned, but the section from Anderson to Belton, SC and beyond keeps busy serving several large and small industries along the line. This track plan captures most of the industries and two key interchanges for the Pickens Railway as it appears in the 2020s.
The Layout
This track plan is designed to fit into half of a two-car garage which is a generous space for N-scale. It’s designed to capture key scenes and industries with minimal compression and uses significant compression between scenes to fit in the ~25 miles of railroad represented. It’s designed to sit at armpit height with backdrops separating scenes and keeping a shelf-layout feel. The main elements of the Pickens left out of this plan are an Owens Corning plant just beyond the engine house at Gluck, a couple small industrial tracks past the Greenville & Western interchange on the other end, and some of the industrial tracks for First Tissue and Michelin Starr that are served by plant switchers. This means the vast majority of the Pickens’ operations are captured here.
The central scene is Anderson, SC where the Pickens swings around a long curve past an old abandoned mill to meet the NS interchange, then runs under downtown in a one-block tunnel before emerging to serve a couple industries on the other end of town. Here there is minimal compression which would allow the modeling of the downtown scene and tunnel with a high degree of accuracy. Past Anderson, a tight switch takes rails to a scrap yard. This line used to connect via switchback to an alternate line through town that has been abandoned, but many of the rails are still present. I’ve included a portion of this spur under the Pickens main where it appears on the prototype but conveniently combined it with the yard lead for the Greenville & Western. The line between Anderson and Belton is significantly compressed, but the trains mainly stayed in the woods through this section anyway. They emerge near Belton and pass the classic depot in town before paralleling the Greenville & Western tracks southeast. This plan includes half of the double-ended, four-track G&W yard–enough to simulate the interchange traffic.
On the other end of the track plan, the line from Anderson to Gluck includes the small two-track yard (bisected by a street), the trestle and bridge over the highway, and the small industries along the way. The line splits near the end with the mainline continuing to the engine facilities (end of the line on this plan) and a long branch to serve the largest industries on the line. The branch splits then heads into the trees which disguise it going through the backdrop. On the other side are the two main branches, the shorter going to the large First Tissue and Elextrolux plants, and the longer going to Michelin Starr. Michelin Starr had two multi-track yards on spurs coming off the branch, but the Pickens interchanged with the plant via the short double-ended, four-track yard at the end of the branch which is included here.
This track plan is designed as a point-to-point, but if desired the two interchanges can be looped under the peninsula and connected to provide a continuous running option. As-is, construction would be very simple with a single level and few hidden tracks. The design lends itself well to open grid or L-girder benchwork on tall legs. While this area isn’t in the mountains, it’s anything but flat! The line between Anderson and Gluck is a roller coaster of ups and downs with little level track, so that would be fun to incorporate into the design. The three “signature scenes” would be the two bridges and the tunnel under Anderson, all of which can be modeled with a high degree of accuracy. This layout lends itself well to walk-around throttles and manual switch controls. With no signals and simple operations, a simple intermediate DCC system would be plenty to run the layout.
Operations
I’m no expert on Pickens Railway operations, but looking at the numerous videos online gives a pretty good impression of how the railroad was operated. Everything starts and ends at the engine house in Gluck. The U18Bs are paired up and sometimes operate in tandem as sets of two. A set of two pairs would follow each other to the yard where they would pull any cars for the interchanges and work the NS interchange. Cars include covered hoppers, boxcars, tank cars, and scrap gons. From there, it looks like the trains would split with one heading to Anderson and Belton working the interchanges and a couple trailing point industries along the way. At the G&W yard, the Pickens crew would pull the interchange cars into the far track in the yard. The G&W crew (using a pair of locos including an old GP9) would come in from Belton side and pull the cars from the Pickens crew and run them past the yard ladder, freeing the Pickens crew to pull the cars heading back to Anderson. In real life, these cars are already sitting on the same track, but because the modeled yard it shorter, the crew would need to pick it up in an adjacent track. Once the Pickens is back on its own line and headed toward Anderson, the G&W crew could finish up by sorting the new cars in the yard. On its way back, the Pickens would work at least one trailing point industry and bring cars to the yard.
The other train would head from the NS interchange back toward Gluck with cars bound for the industries on that end of the railroad. A small run-around would help in working the facing point industries, but most cars would head up the branch, probably in multiple cuts. Cars for Michelin Starr would go up engine first to be swapped out for cars left by the plant switcher. Cars for Electrolux and First Tissue would need to be shoved up the branch and spotted in the proper tracks which might take a while due to the multiple spots. From there, the crew would head back to the yard and likely leave cars bound for the G&W in the yard while placing the rest at the NS interchange before heading home to the engine facilities.
While these operations sound simple, they would likely take a pair of operators a couple hours to complete. The line lends itself well to slow operations, and an Iowa Scaled Engineering “Proto Throttle” would really help slow down actions. Variety would come in the form of increasing or decreasing the busyness of the big plants and by serving the small industries every other session or less.
Things I Like About This Plan
- Very little compression for some key scenes
- Models almost an entire railroad in a reasonable space
- Variety of big and small industries
- Generous mainline radius
- Some neat scenes scenically
Things I Don’t Like About This Plan
- Significant compression between some points
- Misses a few industries on the ends of the line
- Doesn’t include the plant tracks for more switching