Virginia Southwestern - 2
Building the Virginia
Southwestern
Techniques used to build a large layout ...
M
y original layout, The
Louisville & Nashville RR
Thornhill Division, was
built loosely following L&N proto-
type practices. I paid only minimal
attention the operational aspects of
the prototype and model railroad operations. I want my mod-
els to be creditable and believable, so as my modeling interests
moved towards more specific model scenes and prototypical
operations, I became less satisfied with my existing layout.
I did not design my layout to be operations oriented. It had the
usual layout trappings: narrow aisles, a severe shortage of stag-
ing, and too much rolling stock. Add to these items a shortage
of on-line industries and I had an operational mess.
The possibility of a job change and relocating raised the idea of
dismantling the layout. When the job change did not occur, the
thoughts of tearing down and rebuilding the layout lingered. I
began thinking of the changes and improvements I could make
with clean start.
I got lost on a railfanning trip and literally stumbled upon Norton,
Virginia. I saw N&W power working the yard and L&N power tied
up near the yard office. I also saw that the Southern Railway was
also present. I ended up spending a great deal of time investigat-
ing the prototype operations, coal industries, and scenery in the
area between Appalachia, Virginia and St. Paul, Virginia. If I had
1: Walter Roberge and Morry Morris at work on initial
frame construction. While some tools required are
different, the socket wrench, many others are the normal
tools that you need to build a wood-framed layout.
1
This scene is on the middle deck at Mills Gap, on John
Wilke’s HO scale Virginia Southern layout.
Greg Komar photo
MRH-Sep 2013
