Path Valley Lines

[VagelK]

Howdy Vagel, your layout looks like it's a lot of fun to operate. Excellent work.  Have fun, mike

Thank you!

[VagelK]

Enjoyed the photos Vagel, I'll be looking in.....

Thank You!

[Zephyrus52246]

Beautiful layout.  Thanks for sharing it's story.

Jeff

[VagelK]

Vagel,

Nice layout photos. Love those old locos.

Tom

Thanks, Tom.  Being born after all the fires got dropped, models are my way of experiencing the real thing.

[VagelK]

Beautiful layout.  Thanks for sharing it's story.

Jeff

Thanks, Jeff.  There's some "unfinished" parts coming up.

[VagelK]

Looking forward to more photos!

dave

Thanks, Dave.  More to come.

[Lynnb]

Very nice long run layout , love the bridge .

[VagelK]

Very nice long run layout , love the bridge .

Thanks, Lynn!

[nycjeff]

Hello 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.

[VagelK]

Hello 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.

[PRR Modeler]

Vagel very nice photo.

[Jerry]

Don't know how I missed this.  Great looking layout thanks for sharing with us.

Jerry

[TomO/Tloc]

Great layout tour and layout itself. Love the steam

TomO

[VagelK]

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 ... 

[VagelK]

... 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