WM Track Plans
You may make printouts/copies of these plans for your personal use. If you would like to link to these plans or use them for any other purpose, please contact the site. All plans are HO scale unless stated otherwise. Enjoy!
- Size: 12′ x 16′
- Scale: HO
- Minimum Radius: 27″
- Minimum Aisle Width: 30″
- Designed by Dan Bourque
The Western Maryland’s Chaffee Branch was an insane piece of railroad with grades so steep it took the second largest shay locomotive ever built to operate the branch. The WM’s shay No 6 is both the biggest on the WM and the last built by Lima in 1945. Operationally it only lasted for 5 years as the steepest parts of the Chaffee Branch for which it was built ceased operation in 1950 when the mine at Vindex, MD closed. Thankfully, this … Read more →
- Size: 11′ x 14′
- Scale: HO
- Minimum Radius: 24″
- Minimum Aisle Width: 24″
- Designed by Dan Bourque
The challenge: design a prototype-based HO scale layout with mainline operations, branch line operations, helper operations, a yard, an engine facility, four loaders and a power plant. . . and fit it into an 11′ x 12′ bedroom with a closet. Sound impossible? Not if you want to model the Western Maryland’s Stony Fork Branch! The Stony Fork Branch was a twisting, 17-mile branch that connected the Mount Storm Power Plant with the WM mainline at Bayard, West Virginia in 1963. In … Read more →
- Size: 20′ x 20′
- Scale: N
- Minimum Radius: 18″
- Minimum Aisle Width: 30″
- Designed by Dan Bourque
The heart of the WM’s coal fields was Elkins, WV. The yard at Elkins was the sending and gathering point for mine runs and locals working the four lines west including the B&O connection to Belington, WV, the branch to Mill Creek, WV, the winding line to Webster Springs, WV and the branch to a connection with the C&O at Durbin, WV. These lines supplied the WM with loads of coal and lumber products. From Elkins, the loads needed … Read more →
- Size: 11′ x 20′
- Scale: HO
- Minimum Radius: 27″
- Minimum Aisle Width: 24″
- Designed by Dan Bourque
This layout is great for those who like both the Baltimore & Ohio and the Western Maryland pre-Chessie and like a slow pace and lots of switching. The Western Maryland’s coal operations in West Virginia were mostly centered around Elkins, but there was an interesting exception a bit further west. The WM served three small coal branches out of the tiny town of Chiefton, WV. The interesting thing is that the WM main runs nowhere near Chiefton. Instead, the … Read more →