Phil
Irwin's
New Caledonia Central
July 13, 2003
Phil drove the first spike on the New
Caledonia Central 35 years ago and
has been adding to it ever since. The New Caledonia Central has the
distinction of having the only known tunnel through three feet of
historic stone wall. The railroad is HO scale, around the wall layout
running from Sperryard, through Potstown, and around Foulmouth curve to
the Amissburg siding. Phil describes the railroad as generic.
A visit to Phil Irwin's layout is a trip back in time for many
reasons. First, his layout is in the
basement of an old country house built in the early 1800's, now
operated as a bed-and-breakfast. Second, he has models
that show the development of real railroads from the 1830s to today's
most modern diesels and rolling stock. Third,
he has an accumulation (collection?) of HO models covering the
evolution of
commercial products over the last 50 years. And most importantly, he
has incorporated them into his model railroad
or has them on display.
Phil's line starts as a narrow
shelf diorama going down one outside wall. The line pierces the wall to
the next room where a corner space has been
used for the first reversing loop. The space is cluttered, not with
track, but scenery. It is packed with town streets
and industrial activity. The track dives
into the small storage room that doubles as the WC and exits swinging
onto another exterior stone wall. At this
point the line enters a curved stone tunnel (the original foundation
wall) and
exits to another room. This is the
longest tangent track; maybe 20 feet. The end of the room has another
space for a reversing loop. It has a small engine facility, some
storage
sidings, and lots of buildings.
The entire layout features many mini scenes. You can spend
hours finding them all. And don't forget
the lights. Lights everywhere!! Working
signals on the track. Lights in the buildings. Headlights on the
vehicles. And a day-to-night sequence of
room lighting. The effects are inspiring.
One last note. Phil's power and route control
system is an
eclectic collection of "classic" transformers, mechanical relays, and
magnetic reed switches activated by magnets on the locomotives. It
isn't DCC, but the trains run back and
forth through his automatic reversing loops with switches being aligned
on each
trip without the benefit of a dozen electronic circuit boards.