Growing the Lehigh Susquehanna & Western ...

[P5se Camelback]

So … I intend to start construction with Weissport, and once its an established “work area, begin the construction of the Engine Facility, as that, being right in the center, is to be a showplace … a conversation starter for all the non-existent visitors to my home (that is a sick joke …) Plus I want to be able to see all of my “little darlings” poking out of the roundhouse, under the coaling tower, getting their ashes hauled (sorry, bad joke) and generally lounging in the sun, awaiting their next assignment! I can’t do that without the Terminal. I think building stuff like the tenements will be fun, too, (see Earl Smallshaw’s tenements for the general Idea, but his are New England and mine will be upstate PA, slightly different architecture,)

I had originally intended to use the tried and true “L”-girder method of construction. It’s rock solid! Two sections built like than have been wrapped in bubble wrap (to protect the handlaid track – see attached image #3) for twenty years and are still “as built!” But they are heavy as well as strong and I am not the Young Turk I once was! So my concept is that since there is very little elevation change in Weissport (the station/terminal tracks are to be slightly higher than the yard as the terrain slopes towards the river (justification) and mainly because it will visually separate the two functions. The town will physically slope up towards the wall.

The plans for the two roll-away sections (a concept that I thought was so original and so genius … and then all of a sudden, E-Paw is doing the same thing … great minds really [b]do[/b/] think alike!) It's all figured out, including positive locating (notice they are both trapezoidal and will wedge in place and then be held secure with latches. Power to the roll-aways will be through plugs.

The terminal will also essentially be essentially flat … but the street in the foreground will climb away from the river, going up from left to right as viewed from the front (the aisle) so maybe that could also be the “box-frame-quarter-ply-foam construction. I’m not sure of the availability of 2” foam … they don’t do things here like anywhere else. (I had to actually seek the help of the Southeastern Division Rep for the Homosote Company to find a place where I could get the damn stuff, and it’s about 46 or so miles away, down in Naples, almost to the entrance of Alligator Alley! They usually only carry a few sheets as a “bulletin board” product but the Rep assured me that if I wanted three or four sheets, he would insure that they had it for me.

[That’s better than trying to get sheet styrene … the best I could do for a single 4x8 sheet of 0.060” was to buy a hundred sheets … “I’m sorry … that’s our policy.” The parent company (in Tampa) was no more helpful! Back up in Philly, I could buy a single sheet of any thickness from 0.010” to 0.080” any day of the week from any one of half a dozen vendors, cross the river into Jersey and find another dozen vendors more than happy to deliver across the river if you would buy that single sheet from them. Down here the attitude is that your job is to buy whatever the hell they feel like selling. You want 0.060” styrene … they’ve only got ¼” Plexiglas, and they want you to buy that! Self-important Southern asses!]

The layout in the rest of the room I’m kinda up in the air about how to construct. There is elevation change and hidden track on a couple of levels ...I might just stay with the “L”-Girder, joists and risers, as that construction will accommodate damn near anything you want to do! And I am not sure about other ways to handle the two directions of “off-layout staging. You see, I’ve had twenty years to continue the development of the LS&W concept since I last did any physical work on any of it … and that follows about 12 or 13 years of research and concept development prior to that! The initial Charter of the Lehigh Susquehanna & Western Railroad rose from the grave of the still-borne Susquehanna Valley Railway in April of 1979, with the Herald being developed the same month. The first locomotive to be purchased was a Gem Reading I10sa Consolidation; I became enamored with the fat Wooten firebox and started combing brass cases for Camelbacks. When a new one was announced, I ordered one, and when it came in, I would buy two. (I was single, making very good money, didn’t date much and, hey, I was having a good time with my hobby. When I got married, my bride liked that I wasn’t hanging out “with the boys” but usually either working on the house or just down those basement steps, “doing his model railroad thing.”

And as they say, the rest is history. With 16 or 17 camelbacks now (I’ll have to get them out and count them,) plus maybe a half dozen conventional rear-cab locomotives, lots of hoppers and bunches of “Reading flavored” stuff, I’m in too deep to change now. That’s why I took offense at being told that I should give up on “old brass steamers,” but a couple DCC-ready plastic diesels and have some fun. That’s like telling the guy that his prized MG-TC that he rebuilt from the ground up is no way to have automotive fun …that he should buy a Honda Civic, throw a turbo on it and go drag racing! I say, “Go pound sand!”

The Lehigh Susquehanna & Western has been with me, as a part of my life, for so long now, the name sounds like a prototype road to me! And in many respects ... it is ... to me, at least.

So there you have it, then. In general that’s where I am, that’s where I plan to go, and if I can stay healthy enough, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. It’ll be fun, it'll keep my mind occupied, shouldn’t tax me physically, and should keep me out of trouble.

I’ll make a concerted effort to provide better photos (I realize that these are difficult to read.)

So with all of that having been explained, until I have some “Lumber in the Living Room” to post here, I’ll “sign” off for now …