Model Railroads Near and About the Nation's Capital
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Model Railroads Near Washington, DC|
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 The late Marshall Abrams was the proprietor of
the fallen model railroad Abrams
Railroad Empire (ARE) which modeled the
"Anachronistic Era." It's was a 20 foot by 22 foot
walk-around HO layout that focused on operations using Car
Cards and DCC in 5 operating yards and 7 towns. Track
Warrants were used to protect key single line blocks. The
switching was power routed, controlled by strategically
placed CTC panels for yards and mainline. Scenery features
included a urban backdrop and a cut-away tunnel. The ARE
provided the crews with a a fun night of comraderie and
challenges during the operating sessions and often made
you wish you had more time to run trains ! |
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The
Baltimore
&
Ohio's Monongah Division is an HO model railroad,
set in West Virginia, circa the mid-1950s. The
B&O’s lines south of Grafton, West Virginia, ran on
light rail and tight curves. On the Monongah
Division we run regular operating sessions using Digitrax
DCC. All operations are by waybill and sequential
timetable. In addition to the requisite coal
traffic, there are local freights, traffic between
Charleston and Grafton, an interchange with the Western
Maryland, and rudimentary passenger service.
I model the area near Buckhannon, with Grafton and
Charleston as staging tracks at the end of the
layout. The layout attempts to capture the backwoods
feel of these lines, without getting picky about the
actual trackwork or geography of any locale. Between
yard duties, the local freights, and the through trains, I
can keep about three crews running.
Proprietor: Dean Ripple |
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 Lance
Mindheim models Miami's East
Rail
District. The site is divided into two
sections. The first section is a collection of
"photo paintings" edited from shots taken on his trip to
Miami in February of 2006. The second section
features images from the HO scale model railroad. |
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The
Horseshoe
Curve
in N Scale layout includes the PRR mainline from
"Works" in downtown Altoona, past ALTO and SLOPE Towers,
to the "Brickyard", and up the hill to the curve itself.
The line continues past MG tower and the four-track
interlocking, around McGinley's curve to the three tunnels
at the top of the hill. The eastbound and westbound main
lines seperate to create room for the helper turnback loop
in Gallitzin. The lines re-join in Cresson and continue
downhill towards Johnstown and the west. Proprietor:
John
Drye |
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 The Hudson Point and
Hawthorne Railroad is designed for "Point to Point"
Operation with optional "continuous running." Hudson Point
Yard represents the Eastern terminus of the railroad. The
only access by rail to the City of Hawthorne is via floats
and barges at the waterfronts. All of the track within the
City of Hawthorne is a separately operated railroad. The
city railroad is largely a switching operation. Real
estate on the city side is at a premium so the yard is
small. It takes very sharp railroaders to keep traffic
flowing in the city! Proprietor: Ken Spranza. |
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| Visit the KayDee LugBahn. The KDLB is a European Lego train layout. |
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 Alan
Anderson's
HO-scale Kristenville & Michelleville
Railroad started in early 1977. Designed as a
freelanced 1920's era, steam powered railroad, it serves
the limestone quarries and Al's Brewery, each located on
the outskirts of Kristenville. The Board of
Directors recognized the potential for some logging
business and extended the line into the
mountains. The Kristenville Yard was expanded to its
present capabilities. Alantown boomed with the expanded
yard, the thriving K-M Sawmill Co., and the K-M Lumbering
Co. The small Michelleville Railroad near Passwater
Interchange was in financial trouble and was bought for
incorporation into the KMRR. |
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 The Long
Island
Rail Road Lower Montauk Branch provides maps of the
Long Island City Area 1953 and 1860, articles by Nick
Kalis, modeling hints, layout description, prototype and
layout photos, and a series of glimpses into industries or
warehouses that made for interesting freight operations on
the Long Island. Information presented includes a brief
history of the firm, how it was served by the LIRR, and
what commodities were received or shipped from this
facility. Proprietor: Nick Kalis.Nick recounts, The layout existed from 2002 -2007. Completed by 2007 it appeared on the front cover of RMC September 2007 where a story by Ben Hom appeared. The layout with all its structures is currently owned by Ben Hom and another Potomac Division member. |
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 A lot of planning
has gone into the Nickel
City Line, an HO Scale model railroad set
in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. The railroad
is a free-lanced short line railroad which operates 102
miles of single track mainline between Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania and Ridgway Pennsylvania. The railroad is
operations oriented. Operators run trains on a fast clock and adhere
to specific rules and instructions given by a Dispatcher.
NMRA Members who operate on the Nickel City Line can earn
hours towards their Chief DispatcherAP Certificate.
Proprietor: Bob Rodriguez. |
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 Jim
Brewer is in the process of building an HO scale model
railroad in his 3300
square foot basement depicting the Norfolk and Western
Railroad (now part of Norfolk Southern Railroad) along the
Shenandoah River between Hagerstown, Maryland, and
Roanoke, Virginia. The period is 1956; the transition
period of steam and diesel. Modeled is 80 miles of the
N&W Shenandoah Valley between Front Royal and
Waynesboro, Virginia, with Hagerstown and Roanoke
represented by eleven common staging tracks, each almost
40 feet long. Interchange is with the Southern Railroad in
Front Royal, the Chesapeake Western Railroad in Elkton and
the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in Waynesboro.See a recent layout tour. |
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 The HO
scale Oregon Coast Railroad follows the Columbia River from
Portland to
Astoria and then south along the Pacific Coast to
Tillamook. Modeled activities
include
an ocean port with a tramp steamer and car float, a large
yard
and engine facility, a large meat-packing plant, a
riverside fishing town
and a large lumber mill. The layout fills 36' by 32' room
in a folded dog
bone configuration plus a 40' x 2' extension in a second
room. The single
track
mainline is approximately 140 feet. Total track is over
700 feet
with over 100 Tortoise powered turnouts. Scenery is 95%
complete with several
water
features and hundreds of trees. The layout was featured in
Great
Model Railroads 2014. Proprietor: Mat Thompson |
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 Howard
Zane’s
HO Piedmont
Division
of the Western Maryland Railroad showcases Fifties
era Appalachian railroading using equipment from the
Clinchfield, Western Maryland, Chesapeake & Ohio and
Norfolk & Western. Since 1992 Howard has increased the
layout area to 2850 square feet. Howard considers the
Piermont to be a painting created with plaster, paper,
foam, rocks and dirt where he can bring to life the fabled
coal hauling roads of the east. The railroad features
spectacular bridges, deep scenes and breathtaking vistas.
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 The
late Mike White was building the Solomons
and
Patuxent Railroad (the S&P) which was an HO
scale fictional short line operating between the villages
of Solomons and Owings in Calvert County, Maryland.
The right-of-way followed the real-world graded path of
the never-completed Baltimore and Drum Point Railroad for
most of its 30 or so miles through the county. It was a
country railroad serving rural people, businesses, and
industries in the Great Depression month of October 1936.
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 Marty
McGuirk's
Southern
New England Railway (SNE), is
roughly
16 x 40 with a 9-foot long, 10-foot wide, "choke" point in
the middle. Current plans are for the railroad to start at
Tidewater - a port based on New London, Connecticut,
before running through several small New England mill
towns and ending at a small farming community. Several
other New England railroads will cross the SNE on its way
through the countryside, primarily the New Haven and
Boston & Maine. |
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 Dave
Renard, MMR, built the Sylvania
Central
Railroad to depict the Central Division of an
eastern bridge road hauling mixed freight and passenger
traffic during the mid-1960s. With mostly an urban
setting featuring scratch-built and kit bashed
structures,trains run from a coal mining area to a
tidewater terminal with a rotary coal dumper. Three
hidden staging areas route trains over this central
division of a presumed larger line. Local way
freights out of Sylvania Yard share the mainline and
branches with through freight and passenger trains.
The 40-yr. old layout operates now with DCC and some
sound equipped locos. Several hundred figures and
small details along the right-of-way depict irony, satire,
and humor to the most observant. Subtle scenic
features incorporate materials collected from travels
around the world. |
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 Bernard
Kempinski's 1/48th - (O) Scale standard gauge model
railroad depicts the US Military Railroad (USMRR)
Aquia-Fredericksburg line in 1863. Set during the Civil
War the railroad includes a harbor with car ferry,
military bridges, camps, fortifications, as well as the
usual railroad facilities. The layout is
approximately 375 square feet with about 110 feet
mainline. All the track is hand laid track with stub
turnouts and code 100 rail. Easy DCC powers the time table
and train order operated layout. The modest stable of
brass locomotives hauls a fleet of scratch built cars. The
freight cars have wooden beam trucks with working brakes,
and link and pin couplers.
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 New York Central Western Illinois
Division (WID), is an HO Scale Model Railroad set in
1954. Operates from Kansas City, Omaha, and Des
Moines on the west, through Moberly (MO) and Hannibal
(MO), to Danville (IL) and Indianapolis (IN) on the east.
Modeled activities include a large yard and engine
facility with an 18-stall roundhouse with programmable
indexing servicing both steam and diesel. Industries
include a meatpacking plant, pulp mill, coal tipple, city
scenery and a port with car float. Proprietor: Pete
LaGuardia. |
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Brian Sheron's Long Island Rail Road
(LIRR) is an HO scale layout that models selected
areas of three branches of the LIRR; namely the Port
Jefferson Branch, the Atlantic Branch, and the City
Terminal Zone. The web site gives a general description of
each branch, and provides a wealth of photos of the areas
modeled. The web site also has links to related web sites
about the LIRR as well as links to a number of clinics
Brian has presented at previous NMRA regional and
divisional conventions that are related to his layout. |
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 The
Eureka and South Pass Railroad is a fictional HO
scale railroad located in Nevada in the late 1890s. It is
built around two mines and a logging operation with
sawmill. The town of Eureka features a small train yard
with a gallows turntable and a repair-in-place building.
South Pass is a village above Eureka and home of the
Lincoln Lumber Company. The small DCC layout runs along
three sides of a 2nd floor bedroom. Proprietor: Alex
Belida |
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