Altoona Expands

Altoona & Logan Valley

Since I had used up all the code 55 track available I was unable to continue with the branches and yard. I broke down and purchased some code 80 flex track and began to lay out the Altoona & Logan Valley tracks. I felt I might get away with using the oversize rail. Since the track will be buried in the street, the only visible portion of the code 80 would be the rail head. I removed the Tomix track I was experimenting with and created an elongated loop from 17th Street in Altoona to a point just shy of Juniata. I tucked a return loop into the reverse curve at Millers. This return loop made it very clear that there still wasn't enough room for the Altoona section of the layout, despite the extra foot or so added over the bookcase.

So I started to wonder if the mainline between Wikes and McCanns could be shifted over to allow more room in Altoona. Realigning the mainline yet again is not as big an issue as it sounds. Elevating the mainline between ALTO and Horseshoe Curve is one of the next phases in the project. Moving the tracks a bit to the "north" can be done during the elevation.

Updated Track Plan

Apparently, change begets change. I had been looking over the Gallitzin area on topographic maps and realized I wasn't satisfied with my version. I started doodling on a copy of the trackplan. After relocating the trackage thru The Curve, I reworked Bennington and Gallitzin to look a bit more like the real thing. Moving the New Portage tunnel closer together with the twin bores opened a lot of space in that corner. I revised the New Portage branch to take advantage of this. I used some artist license on the westbound connection. Instead of running it from the east portal like it should, it branches off at Gallitzin on the wrong side of Tunnel Hill. Taking that liberty allows me to hold a longer train on the "Hollidaysburg" loop.

I also decided to keep the connection to the Kittaning Run Railroad at Bakers Run at the east side of Horseshoe. Since the KRRR was a common carrier before it's abandonment it seemed to fit into the interchange scheme of the other branches. Once again a touch of artistic license is in use. According to the minutes of Congressional hearings in 1915 both the Glenwhite and Kittanning Run lines were expensive to operate. Neither one of them would have survived to the time period modeled on the Allegheny Eastern. Fortunately, model railroading is not affected by the foibles of finance and the two lines struggle on to the early 1950s.

Scenery Sketch

I've also been sketching up some idea of what the scenery might look like. At one point I stopped and thought, "What was I thinking?". You can see from the sketch at left that the scenery at Gallitzin covers a lot of real estate in N scale. What's more the Altoona section of the layout is about twenty feet long. If you take the time to count the streets running "north" of the tracks that's about 20 city blocks! True, most of the buildings will be flats or backdrop painting, but that's still a lot of urban scenery. Fortunately Altoona is only two or three blocks wide at the 17th Street end. My original idea was to create a backdrop showing the Juniata shop complex. The addition of the Altoona & Logan Valley trackage pushed that out the plan. The complex will not appear where it's supposed to. It's been relocated to the aisle side of the yard, which means I don't even have to paint it on a backdrop.

Serendipity stepped in at Antis/Gallitzin. The overpass there is the perfect parting line for the two areas. Due to there locations at the extreme ends of the layout main lines Gallitzin Road (Gallitzin) and Lower Riggles Gap Road (Antis) could be combined without some crazy scenery trick. My maps and track charts show that  the mainline crosses the Little Juniata River between Antis and Bellwood so I'm adding that feature into the scenery at this point. It won't be the scene divider that the helix would have been, but it will work.

Like always, I won't get a true picture of how this all can work until I actually start mocking up some scenery. That won't start until after the grades are created.