The Baltimore Society of Model Engineers

November 1, 2009

On Sunday, November 1st, the Baltimore Society of Model Engineers (BSME) graciously opened the doors of their model railroad club to both the Potomac and Chesapeake Divisions. The club is the oldest in the U.S., having organized in 1932, and has displayed its layouts in the Baltimore area since 1938. In 1952 it moved to its current location at 225 N Saratoga Street in the heart of downtown Baltimore.

The club actually has two layouts, so the visitor gets to see two layouts during a visit!  On one side of the room is an approximately 13’ x 65’ HO scale layout that is called the fictional“ Chesapeake and Western Railroad”, which connects Baltimore with the midwest. Here you can see double headed Pennsy L1’s pulling a coal drag along with a diesel-hauled passenger train pulling into Baltimore’s Pennsylvania Railroad Station.

 There is also an interurban trolley system under construction.

The layout still has some brass track (which is all that was available back in the 1950s) in remarkably good shape. However, other sections now have nickel silver track and turnouts. The electrical system is still DC, although the club is starting to convert the HO side to DCC. 

Dispatchers operate from elevated control panels so they can see the entire layout.

On the other side of the room is an equally large (13’ x 65”) O-scale layout. The railroad modeled is also a fictional one, the “Allegheny Northern”, and it runs through the rural mid-Atlantic Piedmont region, east of the Alleghenies. The time is 1952, but in their write-up ,the club confesses that more modern diesels and freight cars might also be seen!

As with its smaller sister layout, the Allegheny Northern also has an interurban trolley system, complete with overhead catenary.  All of the O scale track was hand-laid, and the visitor can’t miss the roundhouse and turntable located not quite in the middle of the layout.

And for the younger guests, you can even see Thomas the tank engine pulling some hoppers loaded with coal.

The club holds an open house every Sunday in January, and every second Sunday of the month during the rest of the year, with the exception of May. To learn more about this club, check out their web site at www.modelengineers.com

Brian W. Sheron
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Jalbum 8.2