Open Houses at MARPM22

The owners of some of the finest model railroads in the region will open their homes for MARPM attendees during MARPM22. Addresses and directions will be provided in advance to attendees.

Thursday October 13, 2022 6PM to 9PM

David Hughes

Western Maryland (and others)

Glyndon, MD

Dave Hughes models the Western Maryland in HO scale in late spring/summer, set from 1965 to 1973. His point-to-point, two-deck layout runs from Port Covington (Baltimore) on the east end to Hagerstown on the west. There is also a continuous run provision. Scenery is 95% complete. Prototype trackage modeled includes the Tide, East, and Hanover Subdivisions. If you like eclectic diesel locomotive consists and the glory of the WM’s proud twilight, you’ll love Dave’s layout. Access is gained via swing bridges – there are no duckunders.

Jack Keene

Delaware & Hudson Susquehanna Division

Severna Park, MD

The Delaware & Hudson Railway - Susquehanna Division is a three level around-the-walls depiction of the D&H between the Albany, NY area and Nineveh Jct., NY, where the railroad splits with lines to both Binghamton, NY and Wilkes Barre, PA, in the 1974-75 time period.

The railroad is modeled in 2 rail O Scale and has a planned mainline of approximately 500 feet. The track plan is point to loop. Presently the upper deck, representing the staging loops for Binghamton and Wilkes Barre north to the classification yard at Oneonta, is substantially complete. When finished, the railroad will host seven through freights in each direction plus extras, locals, and some pusher service.

Jane & Pete Clarke

East Broad Top

HOn3

Damascus, MD

The EBT is represented from its interchange with the PRR at Mount Union to Mine 5 in Robertsdale. It’s (an imaginary) 1926, and the ownership group has decided that it’s time to sell it. In an attempt to make it more appealing to prospective purchasers, they have rebuilt the iron furnaces that had been abandoned in 1908. To supply the needed iron ore and limestone, the railroad has re-opened the iron mines and limestone quarry along the Shade Gap branch. All this makes the EBT a very busy railroad. Coal, limestone, iron ore, pig iron, gannister rock, and lumber are the bulk of the freight, but there’s plenty of miscellaneous freight. The mail train still hauls passengers and carries the mail to all the small towns along the line.

Ops sessions are regular events. TT/TO is used with car cards and train instructions. Control is by Digitrax and most locomotives have TCS sound decoders. Scenery is complete, but there are still buildings that need to be more accurately modeled. The layout was featured in Great Model Railroads 2016.

Note: Pete is the membership guy for Friends of the East Broad Top (FEBT). Jane is editor of the FEBT magazine Timber Transfer. Together they organize and run the FEBT museum in Robertsdale. So, feel free to talk EBT!

Jeff Mutter

Erie Lackawanna Scranton Division

Severna Park MD

This layout is based on the EL lines in central Pennsylvania (1975) with modeled mainline locations from East Stroudsburg west to Scranton, where there is a connection to Taylor Yard. There is also a branchline extending from Taylor to Rupert. Train movements on the mainline are per dispatcher-controlled signaling, while the branch is TT&TO territory. HO, double deck walk-around plan, NCE Radio throttles, with Proto throttles assigned to most trains and yards. More information is on the web
at: http://elscrantondivision.railfan.net.

Lance Mindheim

CSX

Silver Spring, MD

The CSX Downtown Spur is a twenty-by-twenty foot, HO scale switching layout based on its namesake in Miami, Florida as it was in 2007. The prototype is a 3.5 mile, stub ended branch splitting off of the CSX main near the airport and running eastward into the city. The line serves a number of food industries, scrap metal dealers, and warehouses. Lance also has two smaller layouts, one based on the Los Angeles Junction, and the other an N scale Brooklyn Harbor theme.

Thursday October 13, 2022 6PM to 9PM and Sunday October 16, 2022 10AM to 1 PM

Ken Poznaniak

Chesapeake, Susquehanna, and Western Railroad

Aberdeen, MD

The Chesapeake, Susquehanna and Western is a subsidiary of the NYS&W and is modern era double deck, HO, Digitrax controlled, JMRI dispatched, fully signaled railroad. Two helices allow for point to point or continuous running. There is some street running. Featured railroads include the Susie-Q, CSX, NS, Amtrak, MARC (Maryland commuter), with some older Conrail and western roads. The layout is completely scenicked, although some areas need to be upgraded. Heavy industry is everywhere and includes an automatic coal loader, a coal dumper, a large steel mill complex, lumber, gas, grain and cement industries, and a container port. Ken loves bridges and you’ll find many. Trains include, unit coal, oil, trash, and auto rack, as well as double stack, TOFC and COFC, a CSX ribbon rail train, Schnabel car, and several general merchandise, including John Deere loads, passenger, locals, office trains, and steam excursions.

Sunday October 16, 2022 10AM to 1 PM

Fred Eisen

Western Maryland (and more)

Timonium, MD

The model railroad is set in the early 1970’s around the time of the consolidation of the B&O, C&O, and WM into the Chessie System. Fred Eisen loves the Chessie System paint scheme and the ability to have locomotives from all three railroads on the layout, but his heart is with the WM.

The layout is double deck connected with a helix approximately 21’x19’ with 10’ long by 1’ wide staging yards in an adjacent aisleway. There are four railroads represented on the layout, the WM, Ma & Pa, Penn Central and Reading. There are two interchanges, one with the Penn Central in Hanover, PA and one with the Reading Railroad in Gettysburg, PA. There is a WM branchline that runs from Porters Sideling to York PA. At last count there were 40 industries served by 20 scheduled trains. JMRI is used to generate switch lists.

Scott Wooddell

Deer Creek & Susquehanna

Rising Sun, MD

During its planned transition to standard gauge, the Maryland Central Railway (later becoming the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad) proposed to build a line that would connect the railroad in Bel Air to the Susquehanna River at Stafford. This 16-mile long line would follow the gentle descent of Deer Creek to serve dairy farms and other local industries throughout central and eastern Harford County. Plans were to also have the DC&S interchange with other larger railroads, such as the Baltimore & Ohio and Pennsylvania. There was even talk of connecting with the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central, which terminated in Port Deposit. By spring of 1889, seven miles of grading had been completed from both Bel Air and Stafford. But this was as much of the railroad that was ever completed.

This model railroad depicts the Deer Creek & Susquehanna Railroad as it might have appeared if it had been completed, survived, and thrived into the middle of the 20th century. Several towns are depicted along the rail line, including the terminus at Stafford, Darlington, Glenville, Thomas Run, Hickory and the interchange at Bel Air. Industries served include a furniture factory, a small slate and marble finishing plant, a cannery, a dairy co-op, several mills, as well as other local businesses.

Don Marvel

Wilson Creek Division

Severna Park, MD

The HO Scale proto-freelanced Wilson Creek Division represents late 50’s railroading in the hills of eastern West Virginia. The B&O line is modeled around the town of Norton WV, with staging toward Grafton and Charleston, WV. West of Norton the line to Richwood, WV branches off to the town of Cowen, with Richwood staging at the end of the branch.

The Western Maryland and C&O connect at Norton, with their staging represented at Elkins and Durbin, WV. Operation features substantial industrial trackage and live interchange at Norton, as well as coal and industrial traffic along the branch, including a coal preparation plant and paper mill at Cowen and a connection with the NYC.

Scenery is 80% complete. The railroad is basically single deck, around the walls of a 15 x 22-foot room with a central peninsula and grade up the branch. Car forwarding is by car cards and waybills with NCE wireless radio-controlled throttles.

Marty McGuirk

Richford Branch of the Central Vermont Railway

Gainesville, VA

The Richford Branch is an HO scale depiction of the branchline that once ran across the far north of Vermont between St. Albans and an interchange with the Canadian Pacific in Richford. Along the way, the line meandered through several New England towns and served a paper mill and a large plywood manufacturing plant. The layout depicts a single level, single track, unsignaled line – in other words, truly branchline railroading. The railroad measures approximately 15x32 feet.

All track and wiring are completed with about 50% of the layout scenicked. Structures are mostly scratchbuilt depictions of prototype buildings.

Mat Thompson

Oregon Coast Railroad

Gainesville, VA

The HO scale Oregon Coast Railroad, set in 1957, is a switching layout running from North Portland to Vancouver, Washington. Modeled activities include an ocean port with a tramp steamer and car float, a large yard and engine facility, a meatpacking plant, a papermill, and a lumber mill.

The layout fills a 36’ by 32’ room in a folded dog bone configuration plus a 50’ x 2’ figure “C” extension in a second room. Scenery is complete with several water features and hundreds of trees. The control system is Radio Digitrax. Engines are diesels and all are sound equipped. The layout was featured in Great Model Railroads 2014.

Todd Hermann

Lehigh & New England

Falls Church, VA

The layout depicts the Lehigh & New England Railroad's Catasauqua Branch and its interchange connections with the Reading, Lehigh Valley, CNJ, and Ironton railroads circa the summer of 1956. Thanks to its proximity to the traffic-rich cement-producing region north of Allentown and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, this branch was one of the busiest interchange gateways on the L&NE. Those interchange operations along with local industry switching in "downtown" Catasauqua are the focus of the layout.

The layout is HO scale with the primary emphasis placed on depicting prototype scenes from the last two miles of the branch's west end as faithfully as possible. It occupies an approximately 23'x 23' area; scenery is about 50% complete. Access is via the basement stairs only.

Paul Dolkos

Baltimore Harbor District

Alexandria, VA

The Baltimore Harbor District depicts a series of Baltimore city scenes, circa 1955, including: an urban industrial neighborhood, tracks in the street, outlying chemical plants served by car float, and a pier yard area. Operations consists of local switch jobs and transfer runs.

The 17x28, layout occupies two rooms. A track plan and information about the railroad is in Model Railroad Planning 2010 and Model Railroader issues of December 2015, January 2016, and October 2017.

Andrew Dodge

Proto 48 Maine Central & HO scale North Carolina Logging

Olney, MD

Andrew has two layouts, The bigger is a Proto 48 (O scale) rendition of the Central Maine he is building by redoing his Colorado Midland. Highlights include scratchbuilt locomotives and cars, a scratch-built ferry boat and a kit- built tugboat.

He also has a North Carolina-based HO logging layout using his father's equipment from 1950-1970. This layout will be featured in an upcoming Model Railroader article.

Bernard Kempinski

United States Military Railroad

Alexandria, VA

The Aquia Line is a 1/48th (O) Scale standard gauge model railroad that depicts the United States Military Railroad in Virginia in March 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 500 square feet with about 130 feet of mainline. All of the track is hand-laid with stub turnouts and code 100 rail. Easy DCC powers the TT&TO-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.

This layout will be open 10AM-2PM.