Path Valley Lines

[VagelK]

The Path Valley Lines is my new name for the Blacklog & Shade Gap Eastern layout that lived digitally on the former RR-Line forum from 2009-2025.  The new name reflects both its geographical setting & the presence of two HO model railroads:  the narrow gauge B&SGE and a branch line of the standard ("of the World") 😉 gauge PRR.

I'll start the tour with a couple before and after (actually, after and before) views of the scene that greets visitors as they enter the layout.  The B&SGE mainline loops around Richmond Hill as it runs northerly between the terminal yard at Richmond Furnace and Springtown, PA.





I hope I spell Sellios correctly in the probation section. 🙄

[VagelK]

I'm trying, again, to embed an image in a post.



I think I figured it out.

[GPdemayo]

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

[deemery]

Looking forward to more photos!

dave

[VagelK]

We'll start at Chambersburg, which was the historic HQ and operation hub of the PRR's Cumberland Valley Div. (downgraded to Branch by the 1930s).  The roundhouse area is not true to the prototype, but not totally fictional, either.





The diseasal servicing facility IS fictional; in the diseasal era there was an EMD SW-something or other assigned to C'burg for duty but the Hagerstown, MD engine house for maintenance.



Recent work in this area involved installing water stand pipes & details around the coaling bunker.





I captioned the last image, "It's all fun and games until a pigeon poops on you."




More in my next post.

[PRR Modeler]

Great layout photos Vagel.

[nycjeff]

Hello Vagel, I'm really enjoying your layout photos and a belated welcome to the forum. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your modeling.

[VagelK]

Many thanks for the kind words.  I'll pick up at the un-sceniced diesel service area, which is at the north (RR east) end of Chambersburg Yard.  By the way, I probably ought to show a layout schematic:



The arrow shows generally where I stood to take most of the pics in my previous post.  If you go back and look at the diesel facility you'll notice a highway overpass above and behind it.  That hides (or tries to hide the giant hole where the standard gauge goes into the long hidden part under the narrow gauge B&SGE.  It's also a transition in time from more or less the present to 1938, thus the attempt at a scenic block of low hill with tall pine trees.



The highway miniatures are late-40's to late-50's (except for that tiny, little E. German "Trabant" that's pulling out to pass, which remained unchanged for 30 years until the fall of the Iron Curtain ... my Cold Warrior slip is showing).  By way of explanation of the time shift, PRR motive power on the layout runs from early-1900's steam to 1960's diesel-electric, the latter heavily weighted away from EMD products.  This is the result of undisciplined purchasing during the 1990's and early 2000's before I started the layout; so, Chambersburg is sort of an HO RR Museum of Pennsylvania with a Pennsy collection that the 1:1 scale museum in Strasburg WISHES it had.

So, in my twisted logic, when trains leave Chambersburg in either direction, they dive into darkened underpasses and pass thru a time warp to emerge in October 1938 Path Valley.  Ahem.  So, on the other side of that line of pine trees is Tuscarora Valley Jct.



The tail of the "wye" at TV Jct was once a 2-mile connecting track to the real-world Tuscarora Valley RR, which ran from the hamlet of Blairs Mills to Port Royal, where it connected with the PRR's Middle Division.  It was abandoned in 1934, but my friend George Pierson, who also wrote the history of the TVRR, modeled it beautifully, and we had an occasional exchange of joke letters complaining about service on each other's railroads.  Below is his module depicting the engine house and yard at Blairs Mills, with examples of his superb modeling.



Sadly, in 2024, the HO TVRR was also dismantled, but George's modeling lives on - unlike me, he is an accomplished kit-basher of HOn3 locomotives - all of mine are strictly out of the box - and he built three B&SGE engines to replicate interchange service between our two lines.  I've put his B&SGE No. 4 to work on the daily mail runs, and she is pictured below coming into the "new" depot at TV Jct, since the old one was no longer convenient to the post-interchange flow of traffic.



More scenic work has been accomplished since that picture was taken, so I'll leave off for this installment with a later view from the same perspective showing the addition of a milk platform and Fall cornfield and woodline backdrop embellishments printed and trimmed from an image found by Googling "Fall Cornfields." 



Until next time, see ya on the railroad ...