FOR OVER 30 YEARS, JOHN MILLER HAS DEVELOPED THE
K&LE concept, and this layout is the third to carry the name.
While he was building his second layout, which featured a main
line running from Charleston, WV northward along the Elk River,
John realized that he really wanted to model the Midwest and a
major metropolitan area.
With this layout, he focused on modeling the Greater Cincinnati
area with the main line running east to his childhood home of
Hillsboro, OH.
At one time, Cincinnati had eight railroads providing service to
the area, including the Baltimore & Ohio, Chesapeake & Ohio,
Louisville & Nashville, Norfolk &Western, Pennsylvania, New York
Central, Southern, and the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton. Modeling
this area gives John the opportunity to include equipment and
transfer runs from all of these railroads.
History
While searching for a road name for his railroad, John came
across a letter to his employer, a local phone company, from
the Kanawha & West Virginia Railroad dated 1914. He liked
the name, but it seemed to limit the railroad to a fairly small
geographic area. So John changed the name to the Kanawha &
Lake Erie in order to expand its reach. (Kanawha is pronounced
Ka-NAW, not Ka-na-wha).
The actual Kanawha &West Virginia became the Hi-Top
Branch of the NYC. The free-lanced K&LE includes the origi-
nal line of Hi-Top Branch, along with a line from Charleston
on to Morgantown, both in West Virginia, with connections to
Model Railroad Hobbyist | January 2015 | #59
KANAWHA & LAKE ERIE |
4
3. Train 401, behind SD40-2 3105, comes into Milford off the
bridge over the Little Miami River.
Pittsburgh PA and on to Lake Erie. According to John, the K&LE
entered the New York Central System about 1960, and rolling
stock was painted in the NYC scheme with K&LE reporting
marks.
When the New York Central and the Pennsylvania combined
to form Penn Central in 1968, the K&LE left the affiliation and
found a big-brother partner in the Norfolk & Western. The
N&W saw an opportunity to integrate K&LE traffic with the
recently acquired Nickel Plate Road and Pittsburgh & West
Virginia connections.
The influence of the N&W is evident in the paint schemes
