The Shamokin Division of the Reading Railroad is a HO scale layout situated in my 30’ by 40’ basement. The period modeled is the steam to diesel transition era from 1952-1957. This enables me to run all of the remaining big steam locomotives as well as all of the first generation diesels.
The 300 foot double track mainline replicates the Reading’s anthracite coal region operations between Tamaqua and Shamokin Pennsylvania. The point to point layout features visible east end Reading Philadelphia staging and west end Newberry Junction staging. The trackplan also includes a two track hidden staging area that represents the connection with the Jersey Central at Haucks Pennsylvania.
The Reading also regularly interchanges freight cars with the Lehigh and New England at Tamaqua. Also with the Pennsylvania at Shamokin just like the prototype. My layout features the 3 primary yards found at Tamaqua, Gordon, and Shamokin, As well as the two coal marshalling yards at Saint Nicholas and Locust Summit.
The three main yards are manned by yardmasters and yard drill crews. While the coal marshalling yards are worked by the designated road crews.
Helper action anthracite mining and mountain grades are the main theme of the layout. Helper engines work out of Tamaqua and Shamokin. The helper action out of Gordon provides the most excitement. As trains are shoved west up the 2.6% Locust Summit grade. The grade which is 65’ in length is a favorite railfan spot since it guarantees plenty of steam powered action.
Currently the layout has 15 mines and coal loaders that contribute dozens of coal loads during an operating session. Some of the coal is raw coal using live loads and is moved in dedicated mine runs directly to the coal breakers. Plenty of actual anthracite coal is scattered around the layout to replicate the years of uncontrolled mining and waste piles.
Operating sessions are held the first Saturday of each month and last approximately 4 hours. They typically require a group of 18 people with half being road crews. Trains are controlled using a Lenz DCC system with crews using radio headsets to communicate with the dispatcher.
Currently 32 scheduled trains are run under control of a central dispatcher. Six are passenger trains ten are mine runs with the balance being symbol freights of varying priorities and road locals. Coal extras and an occasional detour train using CNJ power round out the schedule.
Like several other layouts in my area I use loco and car cards along with color coded waybills developed by modeler Ray Fisher. Ray also worked up the various train order sheets and train schedules. Without Ray’s unselfish assistance the layout would not perform nearly as well as it does.
Specifications
Era: 1952 to1957 Scale: HO Layout Style: Linear walkaround Size: 30 by 40 feet Benchwork: Open grid with risers Roadbed: Half inch plywood with glued cork or Homasote
Track: Atlas Code 100 staging, code 83 mainline Turnouts: Mostly Atlas #6, some #4’s and #8’s. Some Walther’s code 83 curved turnouts Minimum Radius: 30 inches Control: Lenz plug in DCC
Country: USA ~
Posts: 5887 ~
Member Since: February 12 2014 ~
Last Visit: April 29 2024
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Posted - April 12 2024 : 9:43:18 PM
USA ~
Posts: 
Posted - April 14 2024 : 04:29:43 AM
