Quote from: deemery on December 19, 2025, 11:32:04 AMI remember "Mountaineer Precision Products" did a Mail Pouch barn kit about 20 years ago.  I got it for my brother, we'd see those all over the place in Western PA/WV.

dave

Sam's prototype was a barn outside Morgantown, WV that he drove past on frequent trips to and from WVU in his college days.

Quote from: Philip on December 19, 2025, 08:05:13 AMGreat layout and very industrial. How did you do the mail pouch barn stencil? So cool!

Thanks.  The Mail Pouch barn is a custom build by Sam Swanson.  I'm not sure how he did the sign; knowing him, he made the decal himself, but it is about the same size as on one of those vintage signs decal sheets.

Thanks very much, Dave.  I will add this to my growing digital antique technical books collection.  Much appreciated!

Quote from: deemery on December 18, 2025, 07:24:26 PMI was wondering about the source of the iron ore for those prototype furnaces.  I found this:  https://ia601402.us.archive.org/32/items/mineralsofpennsy00hick/mineralsofpennsy00hick.pdf  I thought I'd pass it along.

dave

I truly appreciate the praise!  A note on the sculpted tunnels:  the rock work was hand-carved using Doug Foscale's (FOS Scale Models) 5-minute technique for working with small-batches of Plaster of Paris mixed to peanut butter consistency, applied and roughed-in with artist trowel and knife, and finished with an Exacto blade as it dries.  I stumbled across his How-To video on the process, tried it, and found it to be a very relaxing way to spend an hour or so making a couple square feet of rock wall that doesn't look like the same five molds were used.  All of the rock surfaces on the layout that aren't shale were made that way.  The concrete portals are built up from 1/2"-thick insulation foam.  By the way, the shale was made by dragging a steel file cleaning brush across foam insulation.

Now I'll move on to the blast furnace complex at Richmond Furnace.  This is my model-in-progress of the South Penn Furnace Company's facility at Richmond Furnace.  It is totally fictitious, although there had been a charcoal iron furnace at the site in the early-19th Century (thus the place name).



Simply put, the blast furnace complex is the raison d'etra for the Path Valley Lines.  It represents a merchant blast furnace, so called because it makes pig iron for sale on the open market through commission agencies in distant business centers.  Merchant Pig Iron was a segment of the American iron & steel industry that is mostly ignored by the "steel mill modelers" of the model railroading world.  And that's not surprising, since it is also largely ignored by industrial historians, as well.  Perhaps that is because it had mostly died out at the onset of the Great Depression, and those few merchant blast furnaces that survived into the 1940s were dismantled during or shortly after World War Two.  I know of one exception, the furnace of Warren (Ohio) Consolidated Industries near Youngstown, which, as a modernized facility, lasted into the early 2000's. 

The South Penn Furnace is based on the historical merchant blast furnace at Riddlesburg, PA, shown below, about sixty airline miles to the west of Path Valley on the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River.  It shared the Raystown Valley with two other such furnaces - the grounds of one of which are now the site of the State Police and Maintenance Facility at Everett, near the Bedford Exit of the PA Turnpike.  All used local iron ore and limestone and were heated with coke made from coal mined on the west side of Broad Top Mountain.  A fourth such operation, the Rockhill Furnaces, did the same on the east side and was served by -- wait for it -- the famous East Broad Top narrow gauge railroad.



Here endeth the lesson ...

The core of the modeled blast furnace is the kit produced by Walthers during the mid-to-late 1990s.  As designed by the late, great Dean Freytag the Walthers blast furnace is part of a comprehensive set of kits called "The Works," and represents a selectively compressed up-to-date plant that would be at home in any integrated iron and steel complex from World War Two through the current era - the USX's Edgar Thompson Works come to mind.  I say selectively compressed, because the stack itself (minus the ducts and other stuff on top) scales out at only 65 feet tall; the real things are 90 feet or more tall.

The photo below is a composite of the Walthers stack as built out of the box (left) and a second one that I back-dated to reflect a typical, up-to-date merchant blast furnace of, say, 1895-1920.  While 65 feet is way too short for a true-to-scale "big time" blast furnace, it is close to perfect for many of the scores of merchant blast furnaces, averaging 70 or so feet tall, that thrived in small towns, like Punxautawney, PA; Johnson City, TN; Buena Vista, VA; and elsewhere throughout Appalachia from the end of the Civil War through World War I.  The one in Johnson City, by the way, was served by another famous 3-ft line, the "Tweetsie."



Anyway ... this one has survived, against all odds, into the late-1930s (the furnace at Riddlesburg lasted 'til 1942).  And, like the one at Riddlesburg, it did so because it modernized with the addition of a pig casting machine - a conveyor of pig molds fed by teeming ladles, which replaced the old method of pouring molten iron directly from the furnace into hundreds hand-made molds in the foundry sand floor of the casting house.  My scratch built pig casting machine occupies the cast house in the panoramic view at top and is a bit closer up in the end-on view, below.  Construction of the pig conveyor involved fabricating I don't know how many individual molds from various sizes and shapes of Evergreen styrene strips, rods, and shapes and ultimately consumed three months of very therapeutic 2-hour daily sessions at the workbench, all diligently recorded for posterity to become the subject of a build topic in the (I hope) not too distant future.



As with a lot of the Path Valley Lines, its design and construction followed an organic process, rather than a blueprint, and, so, there will be some changes at the delivery end in the offing.  These changes will all involve facilitating the dumping of cooled pigs directly into a gondola rather than having to be man-handled from the loading dock to a conveyor as currently is the case.  Duh!

At the other end of the complex sits the blowing house, wherein resides the blast, or blowing, engine that provides the "blast" in Blast Furnace.  A number of years ago at a Steel Mill Modelers meet in Pittsburgh I was fortunate to find a first-gen 3D printed kit for a vertical blowing engine produced by Phillip's Foundry.  After years on the shelf, it finally got put together a year-and-a-half ago and became the core of a detailed interior for the blowing house, the subject of yet another planned build topic.



Other parts of the complex, such as the teeming station end of the pig casting machine and neat details like the "mud gun" (used to plug the tap hole at the furnace base when the flow of molten iron is at an end) will have to wait for the build topic on the pig caster.  The mud gun, by the way, is a wonderful addition to the iron and steel modeling world 3D printed by Yelton Models of Ontario.



And with that, I'll bring this post - and the overall tour of Path Valley Lines - to a close.  I really appreciate all the kind, encouraging words.  See ya soon!

So, here we are at Tascott, the junction and classification yard serving the South Penn Furnace and its subsidiary West Conococheague & Potomac RR. The So. Penn Branch emerges from the tunnel at right, the WC&P comes out of the left tunnel.

The WC&P is a totally fictitious line (meaning no one ever even thought of building a real railroad there, which, in the history of rural Pennsylvania is something quite unusual) that follows its namesake creek to a junction with the Western MD Rwy at Williamsport, MD.  It is a source of raw materials, especially limestone, coming off the Western MD for the blast furnace.  The road names on the hoppers reflect that relationship.



PA Rte 75 roughly parallels the PRR's So. Penn Branch and the B&SGE. In the 1930s it was paved with funds provided by the Federal Works Progress Administration, here reflected by a rather weather-worn billboard -- my Mom, who was a child at the time, said they used to say WPA stood for "We Poke Along."

The furnace company relies on leased PRR power to handle its furnace traffic.  Due to the lack of a satisfactory HO steam Path Valley Lines made do with a Baldwin VO-1000 (BS10 in PennsySpeak), un-prototypically teleported a few years back in time.  But in Summer 2025 the BLI B6sb's finally arrived, and the changing of the guard was duly recorded by our company photographer. That FA-2?  It's the power for one of Path Valley Lines' "time travel" photo specials run for visitors.



This view looks from the PRR's Richmond Furnace facilities back toward the tunnels and yard at Tascott.  The water standpipe to the between the main and passing siding to the left of the tub is a very recent addition and a great relief to the crews of trains coming from Chambersburg, who formerly had to do a double switchback dance with the crew of the furnace shifter to take on water.



The spur from Tascott Yard follows a sweeping curve behind the photographer to reach the coke oven siding, the steep ramp to the furnace's stockhouse, and the long (and equally steep) ramp up to the B&SGE interchange.  No. 44 has turned out to be great hauler and has no trouble on the steep ramps leading to the blast furnace highline and up to the B&SGE interchange, which is pictured in an earlier post.





I'll stop here and conclude next time with a more detailed look at the South Penn Furnace.  Thanks for stopping by, and stay tuned!

Thank you, Ron & Rich, for your kind words.   Ron, I'm working on new blast furnace complex "build" topics about the blast engine house interior and the pig casting machine expansion project.  But not sure if it belongs here or in another forum area.

It has been a while, so I hope folks are still watching.  We're just getting settled in after a 5-week sojourn in Sicily and environs.

As promised at the end of the last entry from atop the Buchanan Branch at Cowans Gap, this episode backtracks to the Richmond Furnace area but on the PRR side of operations there (SEE Schematic). 





This picture has been used in an earlier post.  It shows what I call "the alcove" and was taken during our open house for the 44th National Narrow Gauge Convention in Sep. 2024; it's where the two gauges come together at Richmond Furnace. The PRR tracks come into the scene in front of the visitor on the right.

On second thought, it might be worthwhile to show you how the PRR gets here, so I'll go back to Chambersburg Yard where I started this tour to put things into perspective.  "The alcove" is behind the backdrop under the arrow.



A bit of history to go with this panoramic view:  In 1930s timeframe of the Path Valley Lines layout, Chambersburg was the operating center of the PRR's Cumberland Valley (CV) Branch, running from Harrisburg, PA and Enola Yard (beyond the layout, stage right) in the northeast and southwest (beyond the layout, stage left) to Hagerstown, MD (Western MD & N&W); Martinsburg, WV (B&O); and on to Winchester, VA (B&O).  Two sub-branches fed the CV to the north and south of Chambersburg; the Mont Alto Branch diverged just north (RR east) of Chambersburg Yard and ran southeast to Waynesboro, PA, while the South Penn Branch headed west from Marion Jct. a few miles south (RR west) of town.  Richmond Furnace was at the end of the South Penn Branch.

On the layout, two trains a day run between Chambersburg and Richmond Furnace via the South Penn Branch; they leave the yard to pass under the massive Cold Storage that hides an equally massive hole in the wall and follow a 200-degree 24" radius curve under Cowans Gap and Buchanan on the B&SGE and magically switch on to the South Penn Branch somewhere under there. 

OK, we're going to go through that arched doorway next to the Cold Storage and around the corner to get to "the alcove."



By the way, the big brick and windows warehouse to the right of the Cold Storage only recently took on that look.  For years it was a blank concrete wall, and – unhappy with the results of my clumsy attempts with printed paper – I was at a loss.  So, in desperation on the eve of the Narrow Gauge convention I hung this sheet that probably scales out at the size of HMS Victory's mainsail.  It got a few laughs.  Then, in March 2025 a vendor at the Mid-West Narrow Gauge Show in Salem, OH had some great printed backdrop building flats glued on black foamcore, et voila!



Now, finally, we arrive at Tascott on the South Penn Branch.  Tascott is named for early PRR president Thomas A. Scott, who was born nearby.  It was just a flagstop station on the historic branch, but on the Path Valley Lines it is a junction and classification yard serving the South Penn Furnace Co's Richmond Furnace plant and the Furnace Co's subsidiary West Conococheague & Potomac RR. 



And at this point I must pause, as I've reached the max allowed limit on pictures I may post at one time.  We'll continue the tour after someone has had time to reply.  Stay tuned!

Quote from: Jerry on October 21, 2025, 10:18:45 AMI don't know how I keep missing your updates?

That is a fine looking layout you have there!

Jerry

Thanks, Jerry.  I've been quiet for several weeks; camping trip, other stuff.  Probably be early Dec. before I can get back at working on the RR.

Quote from: Philip on October 15, 2025, 09:36:11 AMWas that Coaltrain who your speaking of? Great layout you have!

I don't recall, Philip.  It was so long ago, and he just dropped out.

Thanks, Dave and Curt.  I got the backdrop technique from a series of posts on RR-line; the guy was building a layout set in West Virginia during Autumn, and he had developed a pallet list of the tube acrylic paint colors that matched the shades of Woodland Scenics coarse ground foams.  He also had in-progress pictures and how-to's on how to use sea sponges to dab on the paint.  It was a revelation!  I painted my backdrops about 3-4 linear feet at a time.  I should look thru my archived posts from way back then to try and find the "recipe" ...

Thanks, Curt.  Wifey mentioned the other day that I seem to be more motivated to spend time at the layout, because it's become such a pleasant environment after almost two years of 1-2 hours a day of "work."  There's something to be said for that.

This segment will follow the B&SGE's Buchanan Branch to its terminus in the real-world place called Cowans Gap.  Emerging from behind the blast furnace complex the branch climbs a 3% grade on a sweeping curve butting up against the backdrop.  B.S. (before scenery) the clearance diagram allowed the largest loco's (K27 2-8-2's) to pass, but the addition of a 1/2" thick foam shale cut above the overpasses reduced that to the little C19 2-8-0's.  Fortunately they are powerful enough to haul the empty ore cars and other local traffic up the grade - but no continuous runs for anything bigger during open houses.



The track comes off the curve to pass behind a mountainside that is only about 3" deep but is designed to give the impression that the branch dives into the mountains.  The section with hand carved rockface is removable for track cleaning.  I promise to someday continue the rock work on the rest of the mountainside... honest.

That crazy train on the PRR, by the way, is not something that gets run during ops sessions; it's my NMRA collectibles train run for visitors from time to time.  The caboose is a Western Maryland prototype in 1970s Chessie livery; it reminded me of my days as a kid waiting for the morning drag out of Hagerstown, MD to pass thru Chambersburg on my way to high school ... which meant that I would be late for homeroom!



The tall trestle and the road overpasses below it are the work of the late-Don Reed.



Not far above the trestle the branch enters the village of Buchanan, which exists because of the So. Penn Furnace Co's iron ore mine and processing plant.  The village, itself, is represented by the dome of the Russian Orthodox church poking above the woodline (based on the one in the former coal company town of Woodvale on the E.B.T.) and a printed image of company houses pasted to the backdrop visible through the draw behind the mule barn.



That little red barn is a basswood kit by Webster Classic Models, and the tipple/processing plant is the Walthers Glacier Gravel kit, with conveyors repurposed somewhat.  The depot is a kit for the E.B.T.'s long-gone depot at Coles, while the enclosed water tank across the tracks is another Tom Middleton scratchbuild of the one at the same location on the E.B.T.

The two tracks converge just beyond the waste conveyor to pass through a hole in the wall disguised by a deep rock cut and tree tunnel ...



... to emerge at Cowans Gap, the end of the branch and site of another, smaller iron ore mine.

By the way, Buchanan gets its name from the PA state forest of the same name, which in this era (1930s) is being planted by the Civilian Conservation Corps - one of whose camps is just off-scene to the right of the ore tipple.  From left to right, the covered bridge is the snap-fit Walthers offering, the store is another of those structures scratch-built by someone else for sale at a train show in the misty past, the depot is a JL Innovative Designs McDougall Telegraph Office that I modified with wooden shingles, brick chimney, and other details, and the tipple is cobbled together from pieces left over from the Glacier Gravel kit and Evergreen styrene siding, with scratch-built walkway and railing.



Camp S-54 houses the young men who are planting in this area and building the future Cowans Gap State Park.  It receives occasional shipments via the stub of the Kalbach Branch (a remnant of the logging RR of the Kalbach Lumber Co. that clear-cut this area in the early-1900s, thus the CCC being here); the Kalbach Branch passes through another hole in the wall to enter hidden trackage that reappears at the other end of the modeled B&SGE (Tuscarora Valley Jct).

That's it for this entry.  Next time I'll backtrack to the Richmond Furnace area and the PRR's piece of the operation there.

... as I was saying, 

Having finally gotten back to work on the B&SGE side of the Path Valley Lines, I've begun the process of making the mock-up of the East Broad Top's iconic concrete coaling bunker at Rockhill, PA into a 3D model using the instructions and some components of the old (ancient, actually) White Ground Model Works kit.

Much foam has yet to be cut, shaped, and the "crumblies" vacuumed, but it's a start.



I've moved all the rolling out of the way while the work is in progress, so the scene is a bit empty, too.  In the view above, you can see the backside of Richmond Hill is still pretty bare, too.  Lots of puff ball trees to make for that!  The small interchange yard, used mostly for transfer of freight from narrow to standard gauge cars is in the foreground, and the steep standard gauge ramp track leading up past the South Penn Furnace from the PRR's Tascott Yard is at lower left.

Turning around, from left to right, are the coal loads-in/empties-out tracks for the unseen beehive coke ovens, the Buchanan Branch leading up to the So. Penn Furnace Co's mountain-top iron ore mines, and the spur to the iron ore dump house above and behind the blast furnace's stock house.



The 3-story brick building in the foreground, above, has a recently completed detailed interior, including brick walls and a kit-built vertical blast engine from an unfortunately now-defunct source, surrounded by scratch built supporting walkways and little people.  That project kept me busy for some weeks in Spring 2025.  More on that in a later post.

The B&SGE's Buchanan Branch starts its climb up the 3% grade to the mines on a sweeping curve, passing over the underpass tunnels for the standard gauge spur to those "Brigadoon" coke ovens and the extension of the PRR's So. Penn Branch into hidden continuous run trackage.

Another project that kept me from the narrow gauge for most of the Winter and Spring of 2024-25 was adding a pig casting machine, teeming ladle complex, and traveling crane extension to the blast furnace so it would remain competitive into the 1930s (spoiler alert: The Great Depression kinda didn't help).  More on that, later, as well.



You can see the standard gauge tracks leading up to the stock house "high line" to the left of the coke ovens underpass.

OK.  I'll leave it at that for the time being.  Thanks, again, for all of the supporting comments.

Vagel 

Thanks for all the complimentary words, guys.  It means a lot!

Continuing with the tour, the B&SGE east of Springtown wraps around the base of Richmond Hill on a high fill and through a deep cut on its way to Richmond Furnace, its eastern terminus and interchange point with the PRR's South Penn Branch.



As you can see, this is the end of a long peninsula forming the left side of a deep alcove designed as the geographical and operational center of the Path Valley Lines.  As such, there is a lot of model railroading to cover in there, but we'll stick with the narrow gauge for the time being.



By the way, Debbie took the picture above during our open house for the 2024 Nat'l Narrow Gauge Convention.  One of our "wouldn't it be neat if's" when construction started back in 2008 was to someday host a national-level open house ... and our hope's were not disappointed.  Over two days in Sep. 2024 we had 139 visitors from 26 states and 6 other countries.

A lot of what I've showed so far was also ready for my fellow narrow gauge enthusiasts - including the full skirting of the bench work that Debbie finished literally just in time - but there were still some "Terra Incognita" scenes ... like the Richmond Furnace yard and engine servicing facilities.



The facilities here feature a duplicate of the East Broad Top's engine house at Mt. Union, PA - built by Steve Riddlebaugh - and a scratch built representation of the EBT's turntable at Rockhill, PA - built, I believe, by Tom Middleton.  There are some workers dwellings that I scratch built for the old basement version of the B&SGE, and the depot is a scratch built structure that I purchased at a train show.

After 15 months of intensive work getting the B&SGE presentable for the narrow gauge convention, I shifted to other projects and only recently got to work at Richmond Furnace.  But that will have to be covered in a new post, since I have apparently maxed out my attachments for this one ... 

Quote from: nycjeff on September 16, 2025, 10:04:24 AMHello Vagel, thanks for giving us such a nice tour of your layout. I too really like the bridge scene, it must be nice to watch a train travel through that area.

Thanks, Jeff.  It is a favorite spot for railfans.  I found a picture I posed for a FB post I made a while back.

Quote from: Lynnb on September 12, 2025, 08:08:24 PMVery nice long run layout , love the bridge .

Thanks, Lynn!