Hey guys. So I have finally named the layout, and construction will begin soon.

Here's a basic rundown on the layout. It is called the Seven Mountains Railroad & Logging Co. and is set in the Seven Mountains area of PA and interchanges with the Penn Central. The line get most of its traffic from hauling machinery and portable sawmills up and down the mountains and shipping finished lumber. There is a four track yard in Boalsburg, PA, where it bases operations out of. The time that I'm modeling is roughly two weeks after the merger forming Penn Central from the PRR and NYC.

The motive power consists of models of East Broad Top's M-4(a Plymouth JCD), M-6(a Plymouth JDT), and the M-5 cow/calf set(a Plymouth TMDT), as well as a couple of EMD GP30s and an EMD GP7. The only other engine on the line to be used in revenue freight service will be an ALCo. RS-11. Just for fun, a two-truck Shay will be thrown in there to be used to run scenic trains on inactive pieces of line so as not to interupt the logging operations.

The entire commuter fleet will be scratchbuilt. The majority of the skeleton log cars will be purchased either as RTR(which doesn't exist to me) equipment, or as kits that I'll need to build. The milled lumber will be transported down the mountain on centerbeam flatcars, where two boxcars of lumber wrapping paper will be added to the consist and taken to our wrapping enclosure. It'll be wrapped there and then shipped. Another few lines will depart the main bound for State College or Boalsburg for light industrial shipping.

Ballast will be a mixture of culm from the old EBT culm pile in Mt. Union, kitty litter, tea leaves from used tea bags, and some soil. The item in the highest quantity will definately be the kitty litter, with a little bit of culm, tea leaves, and soil laced in there with it.

The Plymouth diesels will be the backbone of our logging fleet, while the TMDT diesels will be used as yard switchers. An ALCo. RS-11, a couple of EMD GP30s and an EMD GP7 will make up our industrial switching fleet.

I can't wait to start building the layout, but the first thing I'm going to be doing is getting the actual operating equipment in good, working order and getting the first batch of materials together. This should be lots of fun.

For those who don't know: culm is the impurities removed from coal when it is "washed" and graded. EBT "washed" the Broad Top Mountain coal in a Chance Sand Settling Plant in Mt. Union. I do intend to operate a small scale coal operation on the line as well. There isn't a lot of coal in or around Seven Mountains, but I will have a small tipple up on the mountain that is fed by an open pit mine at the summit of the mountain. The open pit mine will not be modeled, but a chute on the tipple will remove the culm from the tipple to a large pit.

looks like you have a nice plan going for you!!
Along with skelton cars have you considered converted flat cars??? Maybe the PRR or NYC was having a fire sale and your road picked some up cheap and added log bunks??
As a note I do not think centerbeams were built until the early 70's but you can always have your road be the inventor of them
I have seen some operations that will put rough cut lumber on bulkhead flats and take them down the hill unsorted, sized or planned. At the bottom they will have a finish mill/plant that will sort, plann, grade, stack and wrap them there. Generally speaking centerbeams are a pain to load and a company would probably prefer to only have to load them once. On the other hand a bulkhead flat with rough stack lumber with some straps holding it down can be more easily unloaded and the risk of damaging one of those expensive new centerbeams would be reduced.

When you get a track plan together be sure to post it !!!

From what I understand, Penn Central was formed around that time. Thank you for that little tidbit of information. I will consider what you said about the use of a couple of bulkhead flats for moving the rough cut lumber down to a finishing mill.

I have made a few additions to the idea as well. The logs that get chopped down are put onto logging flatcars until they are moved over to one of four different "mobile sawmills" that do the rough cut portion of the cutting. To move the mobile sawmills, they are loaded onto a 50' flatcar and then taken out to the site with a crane.

Just curious... how did you come up with a time frame of "roughly two weeks after the merger forming Penn Central from the PRR and NYC."??

Just find it interesting is all....

Always happy to hear about any interchange with the Penn Central! Incidentally, the PC merger was February 1st, 1968. Will you be running any PRR or NYC locomotives at the Boalsburg Yard? It'll take a while for the paint shops to get that mating worms logo on the power.

Ralph

I will most likely have PRR or NYC power on the layout in Boalsburg. I'm going to find out who operated the line through State College, and then use that road.

I came up with the roughly two weeks after the Penn Central thing just because I felt like it, to be honest. It'll probably be really short after the merger because I have a lot of equipment that would still be in use about then (I have a huge group of PRR cabooses), so I figured that they would be appropriate.

Power from Penn Central in Boalsburg Yard is, hopefully, going to include a couple of PRR geeps, and a NYC SD unit.

Power from Seven Mountains Railroad & Logging Co. power is made up, mostly, of standard gauge versions of the EBT's M-4, M-5, and M-6.

Penn Central will actually be handling the switching of a few industries in State College, but the bulk of the State College industries will go to SMRR&LCo.