A Little Madness

Over the past few days I've been perusing the book "Altoona And The Pennsylvania Railroad, Between A Roar And A Whimper" by Betty Wagner Loeb. Probably not a good thing, especially when building a model railroad based on that area of the PRR. Too many ideas being inspired by the information in its pages.

Betty Wagner Loeb's Book on Altoona

Among the illustrations in the book is a map of the Pennsy's installation in Altoona as it looked in 1929. This, of course, reminded me that I have a map from 1946. I started comparing the two and...

Altoona Yards 1946

Needless to say, I started seeing things I wanted to include in the Allegheny Eastern. Things like the flyover at HOMER where the passenger mains run under the"hump" for the westbound classification yard. The yard throat for the westbound empties yard ran past HOMER tower too. HOMER itself was unique in that it looked more like a castle turret than a interlocking tower. I started wondering how I could incorporate this scene into the layout. One thing led to another and I drew up a plan of what the layout might look like...

Allegheny Eastern "Madness"

You can see that I would need to use three sides of the layout to even make a minor effort to reproduce many of the features seen on the 1946 version of Altoona. That's something like 45 feet altogether, rather ridiculous for an N scale layout, especially one of this size. It would include the westbound receiving, classification and departure yards. The same goes for the Eastbound. Although I don't think I would even attempt a working hump at HOMER, I did include the flyover.

I still couldn't fit the 52 stall roundhouse in East Altoona or the coal yards but I did make provision for the Juniata scales, the Hormel icing plant and some cattle pens. The Altoona Northern has been reduced to a staging track. Blair Furnace is gone altogether. The Logan Valley Traction has also been cut back as well as the city of Altoona. The Allegheny Eastern would be all yard on one side and the climb to the Allegheny summit on the other. I shudder to think how much track would be required, considering the current track plan uses about 700 feet. The yards would be big enough to handle a VERY large number of trains, probably more than the "short" mainline could deal with. My "dream" layout might become my worst nightmare.

Any industrial track would have to be crammed in around the yards. Doesn't look like that would be doable except in the upper left hand corner. No peddler freights on this layout.

Might be an awesome idea if I had a lot more space and a LOT more money. Thankfully, I don't have either. The All East will have to stay as it is, at least for now. If, however, I ever hit the lottery....

Regards,
Frank Musick
Chief Cook and Bottle Washer

Allegheny Eastern Railroad