Matty G's comment in the "Playing with Trains" thread (in which he mentioned the frequency of model railroads featuring a West Virginia location) strongly suggested a new thread, a sort of survey, which asks the question:
What location and time period do you model?
My own choice is West Virginia, the area between Charleston and Gauley Bridge, ca. 1948, which is favored for scenery, classy and modern big steam on long, heavy trains on three favorite roads (C&O, Virginian, and an outpost of the NYC, the former Kanawha & Michigan), plenty of passenger action (on the C&O, with a little 3-car local on the Virginian), classic structures (including C&O wood depots), plus this is a section of the C&O that is not too frequently modeled--a chance to be a bit different.
Two other locations (still in West Virginia, although this is not meant to be a West Virginia thread) I would consider interesting would be B&O's West End (with its extensive helper operations out of Rowlesburg's M&K Junction, and a colorful terminal and junction at Grafton), and the network of lines around Wheeling and Benwood, W.Va. (where I'm from originally), featuring the B&O, PRR, W&LE, an industrial road at a steel plant, and, (prior to 1947, and especially in the late 1930s), an extensive streetcar system.
What do you do?
My railroad is based loosely on the Maine Central and its connections with the B&M. The time era is late 40's / early 50's that would cover steam and diesel. All engines are small, IE, 4-4-0, 2-8-0, 2-10-0, H 16-44, GP7, RS 3, 44 tonner.
My railroad as well as my towns are completely fictitious and are situated in New England/New York during 1920.
Mine is a "what might have been" and I doubt you would find any prototype similar.
But I'm having fun! ;D
My road represents the Rock Island as it was in the mid to late 50's. Some steam and some diesels. In particularly I have tried to replicate the Choctaw Division as it ran from Memphis, thru Little Rock and on to Oklahoma City. I hope someone who is a Rock Island fan would respond to this post. I'm beginning to think I'm the only one in the whole world who is a RI fan.
My Railroad Represents The Intermodal Operations found in Northern NJ and Staten Island, NY in a Modern context except that I use Chessie System and Conrail Locos Just because I like their paint scheme better then the CSX locos. A separate Level will show The Staten Island Railway passenger service.
I have nothing but complete admiration for modelers who are able to recreate in scale a particular place and era, but such is not my lot in model railroading (for lack of space, lack of time, and perhaps most importantly lack of self-confidence in my own abilities). My Frostbite Falls & Anhedonia is a short line that hovers in a nebulous Neverland between two great mountain ranges (that is to say, two Woodland Scenics ready-made tunnels ;D ). My current emphasis is on vintage HO equipment, both rolling stock and scenic items, and on any given evening, anything might be found running on the single-track main line from an 1860s woodburner to a 1950s F-unit passenger train--and in any road name from the PRR and the B&O to the SP, the UP, the AT&SF, and the GN.
But I sure am getting a lot of fun and relaxation out of my trains! :)
Mine is basically what if Norfolk southern sold the Ex. nickle plate road line. when i gave it some thought, i came up with a funny little back story that mentions a museum buying the line and does the local jobs. so its litterly the Ex. NKP from lakewood to rocky river... except rocky river is winterton. so its fictional.
mine/ my little engineers is not set in any time frame and he runs steamies and diesels and the Acela Express as far as where...its what ever is in his imagination, as long as he has fun... time and place is irrelevant right now
Ah, yes, we've all been there at one time, and in reality, we still go there. . .
How did Edmond Gwynn put it, as Kris Kringle, to a young Natalie Wood in the classic film, "Miracle on 34th Street?" I seem to recall the line went, "You've heard of the French nation, and the British nation? Well, there's also the imagi-nation. . ."
I'm an old movie fan, too.
my own preference is also for west virginia, particularly the ridge & valley region south and east of cumberland, md.
second place would be the former western maryland lines out of elkins, which i saw extensively with my dad in the late 1970s.
m&k/rowlesburg and grafton would be fascinating, as would the former virginian out of mullens running e33s and train masters.
wheeling and benwood has me puzzled. i go there every wednesday on my job, and most of the trackage is now long gone but it looks like there were lines everywhere. particularly interesting in the wheeling bridge & terminal line from martins ferry, with one major bridge and 3 tunnels Just to hop across the river and connect with the other railroads. i am still trying to figure out who owned what in this area.
I think I would have said The Monks' Island Railway was situated on a fictitious island off the coast of New England. In reality, I haven't 'pinned down' its exact location. While the Monks' Island Brewery (basically a 'contract brewer') is a major industry - fishing is the other means of livelihood for our intrepid islanders. The island is some 18 miles long (and about 2 miles wide) and has two major population centers: Molena Point on one end (home of several businesses such as the brewery); and Sweet Haven on the opposite end of the island...hosting a thriving fish processing plant.
Originally I viewed the setting of the railway as in the late 1940s to 1950s. Our only locomotive was a Plymouth WDT so the time frame fit. The shareholders of the Monks' Island Railway recently decided that a new Trackmobile would be a valuable asset to railway operations - so there went the time setting...afterall it is my world!
I am rapidly nearing completion of Molena Point's second [visible] business: Captain A. Habbs Marine Supply (made from the excellent Bar Mills craftsman kit Witzinger's Washboard Co.). There are some distant plans to build another, connecting layout, to represent Sweet Haven. This one will feature a double-tracked turntable fabricated from a CD - and just large enough for a Trackmobile. Kudos go out to Jack Trollope, in Scotland, for this unique design element...now we will see if I have the skills to build one.
Thanks for asking,
Ray
Well, I'll see if I can do something quick (my wife is near, with "Honey, will you do. . .?")
B&O: Original line from Grafton to Moundsville via Roseby's Rock, turning north at Moundsville to run up the Ohio River to Benwood and Wheeling, originally terminating in stub freight and passenger stations in the vicinity of the current Civic Center (and the pre-Civil War freighthouse survived to be demolished for that Civic Center--ugh!); later connected with another line coming from Pittsburgh via Washington, Pa., and Elm Grove; part of this route is now a bike path, including the large curved stone bridge and tunnel visible from Interstate 70. Final approach to the B&O station that survives today as a college was on street trackage down 17th street, with elevated platforms at the station proper and a bridge over Big Wheeling Creek, then a descent to street level to run along the Ohio as far as 30th street or so, then turning in to follow the base of the ridge into Benwood. Also B&O is the large bridge with a loop approach in Benwood, and a wye junction on the west approach; south leg went to Zanesville, Oh., while the north leg went north to Bridgeport and turned west to Holloway and Willard; now abandoned.
Special note about the B&O's track arrangement in Benwood: for trains coming to or from the B&O station in Wheeling, they had to cross over their own line/Benwood and points south line on the Benwood bridge's east approach, cross the line to Benwood and points south at grade, go around a double-tracked loop to where they rejoined the Benwood-points south line (also double tracked at this point). It was a track arrangement that looked like something a model railroader would plan, and for the same reason--lack of space for a wye junction at bridge level on the West Virginia side. Equally amazing, at least for me, is that the junctions with this loop, including the combined grade crossing and junction at the north end of the yard at Benwood (which included at least one double slip switch), was never interlocked; it was handled to the end by switch tenders in a shanty adjacent to the junction.
PRR: Both lines down the Ohio from Stuebenville, Oh. and Follansbee, W.Va., Wheeling station lost to fire in the 1960s, was located north of the Civic Center location, part of its walls remain as retaining walls above a section of right-of-way that is now another bike path (argh!). Ohio line still proceeds south to Powhatan Point; West Virginia line parallelled B&O to Benwood along the river; had its own yard and roundhouse in Benwood, but I have never seen photos and could not tell you where it was.
W&LE (NKP after 1947): Ohio River line on the Ohio side parallelling the PRR from Dillonvale, Ohio, turning inland near Martins Ferry to curve and climb to a bridge over the Ohio (now gone), running through two short tunnels followed by another bridge over Big Wheeling Creek in the Fulton area, then following the creek to a a station located adjacent to thethe B&O station on 17th street. The last passenger trains ran in 1938 on this route, and the station would be demolished and replaced by a bus station in about 1947; the last time I saw it, the bus station was in use as an electrical supply business. I can still rember in the 1970s finding tracks on the other side of the creek that looked like they would have been the station approach tracks; in any event, it seemed strange to be looking at what seemed to be the remnant of a fairly elaborate fan of tracks that went nowhere.
Wheeling also had a fairly elaborate street railway system, at one point had three companies providing service. Wheeling Public Service had a standard gauge line out to Elm Grove (it had once gone to West Alexander, Pa.), which had once been a narrow gauge steam dummy line in the 19th century; one of its cars survies in a trolley museum in New England, and is operational. The other lines were broad gauge, 5"2 1/2" (same as Pittsburgh), and part of these survived as late as 1947. Remnants visible today include two car barns, one in Center Wheeling virtually in the shadow of I-470 near 30th street, , and the other, if I remember correctly on Chaplain street; both are now occupied by other businesses. There are also two bridges running from Wheeling Island in the river to the Ohio side that carried trolleys back in the better day.
Also, across the river in Bellaire, was the eastern terminal of the Ohio River & Western, a narrow gauge line abandoned in 1930 or 1931; two of its last engines were second-handers from the East Broad Top, one a 2-8-0 identical to the same type on the D&RGW, the other a 4-6-0 like what Bachmann makes in large scale and On30.
Hope this helps out; I have to go, when I get back I will try to list some other information sources for you.
Though my "home layout" is only a length of track on shelf in my office, it will eventually be a fictitious small-town in West Virginia - 1920s.
It comes spent just about every summer during the 60s and 70s around Wheeling, Pittsburgh, Romney, Harper's Ferry, Elizabeth. Add in plenty of hiking/biking along the Appalachian Trail and C&O Canal, and I'm a big WM, and B&O and PRR fan. Relatives worked for the C&O down around Clifton Forge.
So the locale comes from childhood, but I like the 20s because railroads were at the top of their game then.
The club I belong to in Denver is early 50s Colorado, so it's a similar and different.
Well, I'm back for now, with a "homework" assignment (as Jonathan likes to call this sort of thing) on railroads in the Wheeling area. Funny that Jon calls this "homework;" I wish my own had been as interesting! And Rye Guy, Johnson Bar Jeff, and P. D. Lethbridge will like all the smaller and older power that appears as well.
B&O Power, by Larry Sagle and Al Staufer, published by Al Staufer, 1964; has some Wheeling area photos by the late J. J. Young, Jr.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in West Virginia, by Bob Withers (ex-newspaperman from Huntington, W.Va.), Arcadia Publishing, 2007; still more photos, including both the 6th Street Station and the elevated Anne Street Station in Parkersburg.
Pennsy Power III, 1847-1968, Al Staufer with William D. Edson and E. Thomas Harley, published by Al Staufer, 1993; more Wheeling photos by J. J. Young, Jr., a couple of which include the Pennsy station that burned in the 1960s; also, photos of the passenger trains that called at this station, including Pullmans that had been set out for this connection up the river; power alternated between G5 4-6-0s and a burly doodlebug that was powerful enough to pull a short train.
I also vaguely recall a suburban passenger station on this line in Warwood (northern suburb) that was similar to the Plasticville suburban station in style, and was of stucco finish on the outside; sadly, demolished in the 1970s.
The Nickel Plate Story, by John A. Rehor, Kalmbach, 1965; the best history I've seen so far on the Wheeling & Lake Erie, which was merged into the NKP in 1947 (and the whole works merged into the N&W in 1964). Includes a Wheeling map.
The Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway, by John B. Corns (a former CSX publicity man, by the way), TLC Publishing, 1991; some other photos you won't find elsewhere, including more by J. J. Young, Jr., on the W&LE.
Hidden Treasures, by Edward H. Cass, copyrighted by Edward H. Cass in 1997 and published by Timber Times; the story of the Ohio River & Western narrow gauge line.
The Interurban Era, by William D. Middleton, Kalmbach, 1961; general interurban book, but includes some West Virginia photos.
West Penn Traction, principle author Joseph M. Canfield, Central Electric Railfans' Association Bulletin No. 110, 1968; do not let the "Bulletin" description fool you, this is a hardcover book on the Wet Penn Company, and it includes the Wheeling systems because they were either subsidiaries of West Penn or had at least a physical connection with it; best set of rail maps, including Wheeling, I have been able to locate.
From Small Town to Downtown, by Lawrence A. Brough and James H. Graebner, Indiana University Press, 2004; history of the Jewett Car Company, which was run by Wheeling interests. What was most fun--the Wheeling interests were originally a bunch of Germans who made their money in the new world in brewing and banking, which lead to real estate, which lead to a need to tie the real estate together with a trolley line; they later wound up with the Jewett company after its original owners had not proven up to the task, and later the Wheeling lines would be one of Jewett's better customers. And, if you know anything about old trolley systems, you also know that many trolley operators built amusement parks so the trolleys could earn money on Sundays. The Wheeling men did the same, and wound up with a wonderful level of vertical integration--passengers who patronized their banks, bought their homes in their developments, rode the trolleys to their jobs, drank beer in the taverns supplied by their breweries, rode the trolley to their amusement parks, where they drank more beer from the breweries. . .amazing! Wheeling Park on US 40 is a former amusement park property on the Wheeling & Elm Grove/Wheeling Public Service line.
I also highly recommend a visit to the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Washington, Pa.--but I don't think I'd have to twist your arm too hard for that!
http://www.pa-trolley.org/
I'll try to get back with some photos.
I have three layouts, one real, one odd and one imaginary.
I built the real layout for my grandson. It's just a 4x8 HO table with a very loose contemporary Wisconsin theme. So loose, in fact, that it has a mountain with tunnels, some desert, two industrial districts, several passenger "stations," and a large second level city fashioned after the town near where he lives. The idea is that he can just run trains on the double-track mains or learn about switching and real railroad operations. His line is the Wisconsin Midland. It runs wherever a train might go and uses both steam and diesel. He has his own 60' stainless passenger train and his own lokies and rolling stock, as well as rolling stock from anywhere. His class act is the Polar Express with a custom painted Berk and a four car train with a baggage/north pole mail car, two hot chocolate cars with music and an obs with just a single passenger. The cars are all fully lighted and fit with interiors and riders. The cars have glittery snow and icicles. Yes, I got carried away but then this little fellow could flawlessly sing both Polar Express songs before he was three years old.
The second layout is a neglected 6x9 large scale layout in the basement. I need to either finish it or sell it. It's a quandary.
The last -- my -- layout exists solely in my head. It will be real soon enough, however. We are moving to a smaller home in a year or two and I'll have a dedicated train room. I have an old E-type Jag which I will have to sell and I'll use the money to pay for a custom layout finished to the point of readiness for scenery. My as yet unnamed railroad will be a connection between the ATSF on a lower level and the DRGW on an upper level, set in August, 1939. There will be no helix; my railroad will be the connecting link winding around the walls. It will also have staging which will serve as an interchange with the UP in Cheyenne WY. The whole thing will obviously have a southwestern theme. I have tons of structures, locos and rolling stock which constitutes my current model railroading. I am thinking pretty seriously about joining an HO club, too.
So there you have it, the real and the overheated mind.
--D
Really enjoyed reading all of the imaginative and real areas that folks have modeled.
I have two small layouts:
N scale that is set somewhere in West Virginia. I lived for a short time in Charleston. Has a coal mine and a small city.
My HO Scale layout is set where I went to College in La's Cruses New Mexico. It is a fictional branch line from La's Cruses to Alamogordo aka New Mexico and West Texas RR. I have tried to model several buildings in La's Cruses and have found that was a lot of fun.
Very interesting how many people on this thread have modeled West Virginia...
Believe me I can Spell Las Cruces but spell chekc fixed it for me ;D
Well, let's see what we can come up with for photos;
This is supposed to be Wheeling, but I can't really tell (it's just a roster shot):
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo1386s.jpg
Out of service in Benwood in 1933; these engines were called "Snappers" on the B&O:
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00002432
Benwood again:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo1952s.jpg
Down the river in St. Marys, W.Va.; engine is Class E-24, copy of PRR H6, this one still has flat valves and Stephenson valve gear:
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00002438
E-27 at Benwood:
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00002443
B&O had a lot of older engines, some of its own, and others inherited in mergers. This is a former Coal & Coke engine at Benwood:
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00002452
Stored serviceable in the Depression at Benwood:
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00002541
Supposedly Benwood in 1949--but blast, no landmarks to confirm the location:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo7163s.jpg
Not really Benwood, but it looks to be close by, either down the river a way, or just across it in Ohio on the way to Holloway:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo657s.jpg
Sad photo; a beautiful beast, awaiting death by fire; note how the engine and especially the tender ride a little high, due to no water in boiler or tank; also, take note of the auxiliary tender couple behind, perhaps homemade, perhaps made from a tank car.
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-s674.jpg
Former E-27 2-8-0, now class L-2 0-8-0, at Benwood, identifiable by a brick building barely visible in the background that I believe is still there:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo841s.jpg
Supposedly Benwood in 1947 (no landmarks visible); if date is correct, the diesels are taking their toll:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo5100s.jpg
This is more like it, even though the Depression stalks the land:
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00002493
A blue 4-6-2 in Benwood (there's that building in the background mentioned above):
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-s106ags.jpg
Descending from the Ohio River bridge into Benwood; large junction with a double slip switch, yet not interlocked and operated by switch tenders is just ahead, and the train is also passing the two-level station that was at this location:
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00002454
Benwood:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo4190s.jpg
Behind the roundhouse at Benwood, and awaiting the end:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-s476.jpg
Not identified, but looks like Benwood again:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-s413.jpg
Some distance out in Holloway, Oh., but a good Q-4 shot:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo4436s.jpg
This is supposed to be Benwood in 1955, but I don't recognize the cranes in the background; the presence of what looks like a C&O hopper in the background suggests to me this may actually be Huntington:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo4465s.jpg
Across the river in Holloway; I remember the newspaper story about the night that wooden roundhouse burned in the late 1960s or early 1970s:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo505s.jpg
Hump service at Holloway:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo506s.jpg
Benwood in 1989; I like the way things used to be:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-benyd-arw.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-benyd-brw.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-benyd-erw.jpg
Sixth Street Station in Parkersburg in the 1970s--gone:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-parsta-goa.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-parsta-gob.jpg
From the mouth of Tunnel No. 1, also called Tunnel Green, looking west; the Ohio River is beyond the ridge, the bridge crosses Big Wheeling Creek on its way to the street track age down 17th Street and the B&O station, and I-70 and its tunnels would be later built just out of sight to the right. This is now a bike path:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-v-tunnel.jpg
The same bridge, photographed from creek level; I-70 is visible in the background, and the now-abandoned roadbed of the W&LE approach to its station (which was apparently later taken over by the PRR, as I remember Pennsy Baldwin switchers with four exhaust stacks working it) is on the ledge barely visible through the trees on the right.
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-whebri-asr.jpg
Wheeling station:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-stawhe-bbu.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-stawhe-abu.jpg
Supposedly Benwood again--but there are those cranes--perhaps I was wrong ;
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-s670.jpg
Looking down 17th Street; passenger station powerhouse just visible in the background:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-s5240ahn.jpg
About to head west and south to Benwood; all except the building is gone:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-s5313bhn.jpg
Benwood:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo-s7608amm.jpg
17th Street later; I liked it better with steam, and better than it is now, with the track gone:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo3546arw.jpg
I'm glad to see these, but sad, too; you know why.
NWTRR - 'Glad you corrected the spelling of Las Cruces. My wife and I spent a month in NM this past summer - and plan on spending next winter in the Las Cruces area. You have an absolutely beautiful state!
To the rest of the posters: Sorry about this off-topic post; but if you haven't visited New Mexico you just don't know what you are missing!
Regards,
Ray
some interesting comments on the wheeling details.
i had an inspection card from an nw2 in the altoona scrap line in 1985. it showed this locomotive working out of benwood in 1984 so the ex pennsy line was still in service then.
i was fortunate enough to ride the chessie steam special out of pittsburgh to wheeling in 1977, the first year they ran. when everybody got off in wheeling, we stayed on the train while they ran it around the benwood loop.
it appears that the wheeling terminal aka nickle plate line along the south side of wheeling creek ran through another tunnel across the creek from where their passenger terminal was. this tunnel came out in the vicinity of 26 street, and appears to have split there with one line going down to the river to connect with the prr under the i-470 bridge. the other endappears to have connected with the b&o in a small yard around 40th street. i often drive through this abandoned yard on my way to jamison carpet.
on the west bank of the river, it appears the b&o to holloway crossed the prr twice, once at the bottom of the ramp to the ohio river bridge, currently used by wheeling & lake erie, and again at bridgeport. just short of where this crossing was there was a junction with a branch line into martins ferry. the branch is still in, the crossing and the line to holloway is gone. was this branch b&o or nickle plate?....btw, they filmed some scenes from the movie unstoppable on this rickety branch.
jsut north of martins ferry there is an abandoned yard which looks like it was associated with the wheeling bridge/nickle plate line into wheeling, yet is on the prr right of way. was this a prr interchange? or was the wheeling bridge & terminal in fact jointly owned? some prr system maps show a line crossing the river at martins ferry as a prr line.
I haven't picked a place, yet. It will be somewhere that has a junction, where small engines drop off there unit coal loads and are picked up by a drag freight engine and hauled to points east (or west). For some reason, WV seems to be where all the train action is. There must be some other states that had trains. Don't you think? :)
My time will be a loosely based transition era, as I'm sure I will have some stock that didn't run during that time. I can live with that. At least I'll be able to play with my steamers and diesels.
B&O will be the main roadname, although I'm going to have to let a few other minor businesses play along. There just isn't enough B&O equipment out there to stay exclusive.
Regards,
Jonathan
A friend decided to model a brachlinne on his favorite railroad as it would have appeared on his birthday (that is the day he was born.) It was harder than he thought! He did a lot of research to be sure every thing that appeared on his layout was bult and running on the prototype before he was born.
It is an interesting idea and I suggest it to others.
Quote from: jonathan on May 02, 2010, 07:16:44 AM
...For some reason, WV seems to be where all the train action is. There must be some other states that had trains...
:D So true! I think what happens is that many people who have never been to the area just say "West Virginia" when they mean Appalachian coal region. Western Maryland, northwestern Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania, even parts of Kentucky all are very similar. But the fact is that for most people, when you say "mountain" and "coal mine" - it's WVA they think of.
This map will help you sort out some of the railroads in the Wheeling area:
http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.asp?fname=Wheeling42r49sw.jpg&state=WV
As for my Cumberland and Susquehanna RR, its a slim gauge pike connecting with the EBT at Neeleyton and the Western Maryland's Lurgan line at Pineola (near Shippensburg). Time frame is mid-1950's. The road runs with a mix of home road power and leased EBT locos. Primary traffic is coal coming off Tuscrora Ridge, with some limestone and brick thrown in for good measure. Scale is O/On3. My very first railroad, in HO, was the Potomac North-Western. It was loosely based on the Cumberland and Pennsylvania RR, but also had a narrow gauge branch with a bit of dual guage. That layout survived about 10 years, and was broken up in the mid-1970's, by which time I had gotten the On3 bug.
Neat map; last updated in 1935! Of course, this map is great for contours and rivers, but some things like track arrangements are not a detailed or as accurate as one would like.
Still, some interesting things do show up here. The first is to note that a couple of sections of the city's trolley system show up where it was on private right of way. These locations are along the oxbow in Wheeling Creek near Fulton, and another section that avoids a small but sharp knob in the Edgewood area. At least part of this segment of right of way is still visible and open; one end of it is behind Vance Memorial Church on Route 40. Also visible is the interchange track than ran from the foundry (now gone) in the oxbow from the Wheeling Bridge and Terminal company to the B&O at a somewhat out-of-the-way location at the east end of Tunnel No 1.
Wheeling Terminal's distinctive feature was a bridge over the Ohio. The image on this stock certificate from e-bay portrays the bridge from the Ohio side of the river, looking north. West Virginia is on the right. This bridge was demolished earlier in the 21st century.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270451623969
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=270451623969
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/landmark/bridges/rrbridge.htm
http://www.wle.railfan.net/oldwle.html
I've been hunting a little, too, and have found some things, including a surprising amount of general Wheeling images at this library, which occupies the site of the powerhouse and steam plant (now gone, of course) for the B&O station in Wheeling:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/
Wheeling history link from this library:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history.htm
Now we start looking in different sections. We won't pull everything; there's too much here. And you want at least some thrill of discovery, don't you?
This is a sample from the map section--great for trolley modelers for its collection of businesses in 1939. In many ways, the names and types of businesses will be typical of a medium sized city in this time frame:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/Maps/Wheeling_Downtown_1939_1.htm
Wheeling is an old city, predating the American Revolution, and was a jumping-off place to the West that was then Ohio. A panorama from Wheeling Hill in the pre-civil war era; the stagecoach visible is coming up what is now part of Route 40, the National Road:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/view01.htm
Another early view; recall that West Virginia used to be part of Virginia prior to June 20, 1863:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/view02a.htm
Wheeling in the 1890; note not only the Suspension Bridge from before the civil war that's still there, but the Pennsylvania Railroad station and (pre-1890) train on the riverfront:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/harpers0.htm
Looking downstream from the "new" steel trolley bridge (ca. 1890, demolished in the 1960s), which was just a block south of the suspension bridge in the view above. Waterfront to the left, PRR station out of sight to the left as well:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN76.HTM
From the same steel bridge in 1904--newer (compared to 1890 engraving) PRR station visible to the left. Only some walls remain following a fire in the 1960s, when the station was a coffee house:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/artwork/wharf01.htm
From the suspension bridge in 1922, looking downstream at the steel bridge; note old cars and trolley, too:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/whg1.htm
Upriver view from the suspension bridge in 1922; PRR right of way is visible and a very long gone railroad yard can be seen to the left:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/whg3.htm
Suspension bridge and steel bridge visible near top center; PRR station would be to the left of the steel bridge by about one block. So, so much is gone now:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/artwork/whg04.htm
Looking up Wheeling Creek from behind what is now Ohio Valley General Hospital. Wheeling Bridge and Terminal Company (PRR/W&LE line) visible on the right; B&O visible near the center, turning onto 17th Street. Interesting to note the industries visible, including the cone-shaped stacks of a ceramics or glassware plant near the center of the photo; it's been gone a very long time, although the delicate-looking street bridge over the creek was only demolished in the 1990s or so. Also, note that there are relatively few trees compared with today; despite the presence of coal, people still used at least some wood:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN75.HTM
Downtown from the hill near the hospital, ca. 1910. We are to the left (west) of the previous photo. Large yellow building is the old (and gone) McKinley Vocational school; its far side faces 17th street and the B&O street trackage. At left center are, from front to rear, Wheeling Bridge & Terminal (PRR/W&LE) team tracks (this would be part of what I thought was the approach to the passenger station--a discovery for me!), a food warehouse (still there), B&O station heating plant and powerhouse, and adjacent B&O team tracks (location of tall smokestack, all gone, now the site of the Ohio County Public Library), and the Wheeling City Hall (replaced by an ugly building in 1960 that we still have to look at). Old jail (castle-like structure) and stables for the police department (large brick barn-like structure) are visible to the right of the City Hall, and both lasted at least into the 1960s and 1970s respectively. Two trolleys are visible in the street just to the right of the Wheeling Bridge and Terminal team tracks. East throat or fan to the B&O station visible in the street to the right of the food warehouse; the road went from one track to four here, under control of the station's interlocking tower. B&O and W&LE stations partially visible at far left. I was born in the wrong time.
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/BirdsEyeView1.htm
I'm going to admit this one has me stumped. What looks like the Ohio River is visible to the upper right, and that should be Wheeling Creek running through the picture. Ohio Valley General Hospital would later be built on the hill in the background. The railroad we see should be what later became the B&O, down 17th Street, but the area doesn't look like anything I remember, and what about that roundhouse and yard in the center of the picture? Does it greatly predate the construction of the B&O station around 1910?
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/Birds_Eye_View01.htm
From the hospital, W&LE and B&O stations at center:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/whg7.htm
Other photos:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/whg5.htm
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/whg4.htm
From Wheeling Hill, looking down into what would later be Fulton. This is above the oxbow loop visible in the 1935 map posted above. B&O stone bridge leading to Tunnel 1 visible at far right; Route 40 (National Road) starting up the hill at far left. This photo predates the construction of the Wheeling Bridge and Terminal, and also predates the construction of a large foundry later operated by Blaw-Knox. The foundry was demolished perhaps 10 or 15 years ago; and the Wheeling Bridge & Terminal is long gone, too. I-70 now cuts across between this location and the stone bridge in the background.
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN36.HTM
Aerial view of Wheeling from the 1930s, location is almost above the mouth of Wheeling Creek where it joins the Ohio. B&O passenger station and west fan or throat on elevated structure over streets and Wheeling Creek partially visible at far right. Another set of B&O team tracks (apparently reached by a switchback operation in the street just to the north), pre-civil war B&O freight house, and riverside PRR freight house visible in lower center. Ramp down from the passenger station's elevated tracks to street level and an interchange yard with the PRR out of the frame, at bottom left center. B&O freight house demolished for one of the ugliest Civic Centers I've seen in the 1970s; large warehouses adjacent to street track age demolished for parking garage in the 1990. These buildings occupy the site of the first B&O passenger station from 1852, which looked like a smaller version of Camden Station in Baltimore:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/Wheeling_Brochure/Page04_photo1.htm
Taken from the elevated platforms at the B&O station, looking north; Knights of Pythias building visible at right. Also note dual-gauge trolley tracks (standard 4'8 ½ " and broad 5' 2" Pennsylvania gauge) and trolley safety island in street. The location of the Pythias building is now an open plaza in front of the B&O station building, which is about the only piece of railroad left. All the trackage, all the bridges except the stone structure leading to Tunnel 1, and including this elevated platform, are gone:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/Wheeling_Brochure/Page02_photo3.htm
National Road used to be in brick; can you imagine driving on that today?
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/views/elmgr1.htm
Industry list; among them are Bloch Brothers Tobacco (Mail Pouch), and Marsh Wheeling Stogies. Labelle Nail is still around, with some machinery in service in the plant that's on the high side of 150 years! This is the largest cut nail plant left in America if not the world. Cut nails are most commonly known as masonry nails, and are made from a sheet of iron that is cut to form the nail. Although largely limited to masonry work today, they've been used for all kinds of things over the years, including barrels, and they hold about five times as well as the wire nails most people think of today. Problem is, no one has figured out how to build a nail gun that can use cut nails; you still have to drive them with a hammer and your arm.
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/bus/index.htm
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/bus/labelle1.htm
Some people had money, to judge from the houses:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/landmark/homes/index.htm
Just to whet your appetite for the search:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/artwork/grubb01.htm
Another shot of the City Hall, which was West Virginia's first capitol building, and the site now occupied by the ugly current city building. Supposedly this thing was so solid a wrecking ball couldn't knock it down; it had to be cut apart internally first. My mother thought its destruction was a crime.
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/landmark/public/city_co.htm
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/landmark/public/CityBuilding.htm
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/artwork/fount1.htm
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/artwork/jail01.htm
"Independence Hall" refers to a building in which West Virginians decided to quit being Virginians in 1863. This is still around, and has been restored (which makes it a rarity here). It had also been a post office and customs house. Customs house? Wheeling was an "inland port" for sealed cargo coming into a young America from New Orleans. Some things like "inland ports that we think are so new aren't really that new. Take note of the interlocking tower for the trolley lines!
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/landmark/public/indhall1.htm
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/landmark/public/indep.htm
http://www.wvculture.org/museum/WVIHmod.html
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN.HTM
If you know where to look, you can still see parts of the foundation blocks leading up the hill. This location is alongside Route 2 through South Wheeling.
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN81.HTM
Old court house, replaced by a theater in 1900, while the court moved to the former state capitol:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN19.HTM
Wheeling & Elm Grove Railroad, steam dummy line later replaced by trolleys (Wheeling Public Service). This one's narrow gauge, but can you picture a standard-gauge version to pull Bachmann's Jackson & Sharp excursion cars for your 19th century transit service?
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN42.HTM
The suspension bridge, which predates the civil war. The highway department wanted to tear it down about 20 or 30 years ago. For once, the preservationists won.
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN45.HTM
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN45A.HTM
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN45B.HTM
Early Wheeling transit. How would you model this one in a form that runs?
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN47.HTM
Play ball!
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN61.HTM
Other photos:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN92.HTM
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN93.HTM
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/brown/BROWN94.HTM
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/postcards/b&o1.htm
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/postcards/depot.htm
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/postcards/ywca1.htm
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/postcards/wdsdale1.htm
It's been so long since I was in Center Wheeling that I can't tell you if this old library building is still standing. I do know it was later used as a theater for local plays in the 1970s.
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/orgs/P1/library.htm
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/orgs/P1/lib11.htm
For the Navy men on this site.
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/gunboat/index.htm
What some people consider the most important part of Wheeling:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/events/sports/index.htm
I'll close off for today with a bit of personal commentary.
I have mixed feelings as I look at all these photographs. Some of it is a wondrous look at another time; some of it is personal memories, for many of these scenes were still around when I was growing up there. There is sadness that so much is gone, and there is anger, rage, that the powers-that-be were so stupid to throw so much away.
It didn't help matters that I was laughed at for suggesting that what was called progress may have been a serious miscalculation. It didn't help matters that the now-abandoned B&O line from Wheeling to Washington, Pa. was available for sale, with welded rail, bridges, a signal system, etc., for only $5 million in the 1980s. This option was not only not pursued, instead the city worked very hard on a much smaller project--a new stadium on the island in the river for the local high school system. This was after the Civic Center, an Interstate highway that also ruined much of the tax base, and other examples of less than stellar judgment. It didn't help that no one seemed to foresee problems with gasoline prices and availability, even after two oil embargoes in 1973 and 1979. It didn't help that we threw away architectural beauty and engineering prowess that cannot be duplicated today. It didn't help that this was supposed to be for an economic future that turned out to be false, and that my once beautiful city on the river now looks much like the Luftwaffe has worked it over.
My state of West Virginia owes as much to railroads for its existence and economic development as Colorado, and for much the same reasons. Much of this state is still a combination of garden and resource treasure house. I believe we still have enormous untapped potential, and that a mountain state rail system is a key to this. Yet both our business and political "leaders" make pot-bellied, balding me look like a cross between Albert Einstien and Audie Murphy. That same bunch, or same class of people, in my current area of residence (Berkeley County, which includes Martinsburg) not only laughed at me, but even called me a Communist (no kidding!--and one had comments I can't repeat on a family-friendly forum) for suggesting a modern light rail line might be a better idea than copying the mistakes of Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland, even when I presented a cost study that suggested the proposal was at least worthy of serious consideration. We are getting a dinosaur of a four-lane highway, with the prospect of the return of gasoline at $4.00 per gallon, and perhaps worse.
This country is going through some trying economic and political times. Many people are angry, perhaps some justifiably so, at the current political administration in Washington, and at the Wall Street crowd. However, I think much of the anger is misdirected.
I think many of us, perhaps most of us, need to take a closer look at the person in the mirror.
J3a-614
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=292231&nseq=25
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=269983&nseq=43
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=271820&nseq=42
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=258778&nseq=54
J3a-614, you make some great points. I spent many a vacation day with my relatives in Elm Grove (I was born at OVGH where my mother worked and it was fun to see the old views from there) and saw much of what you say happen during the 60s and 70s. As model railroaders (and, presumably, railfans and fans of history) we should be some of the louder voices for preservation. Not just for preservation's sake, but because it is penny-wise and pound-foolish to discard what works.
J-3a - Don't know if its just me, but I can't seem to get any of the pics from the Wheeling-Weirton library to open. Maybe I need to go directly to their web site?
E.B.T.,
Looks like that may be what you will have to do. They do not work directly for me, either.
Sometimes links like this have an expiration time, as I found out with the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER)set I put up with the Martinsburg thread under "Post Civil War Roundhouse." By the way, Wheeling's pre-Civil War freight house, which dated practically to the arrival of the B&O in Wheeling, Virginia (prior to June 20, 1863), is among 1,900 or so railroad subjects in the HAER, as are the Martinsburg roundhouses and the former Cumberland rolling mill (where B&O used to make its own rails before we had a big steel industry).
It's amazing to me to see how some early railroads, among them the B&O, the Pennsy, the N&W, GN, and the SP were so truly self-reliant into relatively recent times. Usually it was because they were old enough or far away enough than it made so much sense to do things themselves. And in locomotives, who would argue with N&W that for them, homemade was the best?
I've said it before, perhaps too much, but I think we've been very, very foolish over the last 50 or 60 years--we will wish we had so much back. . .
Well, tried them again, and now they work! Sometimes when something like this doesn't work and then it does, that could mean computer or internet problems at the other end, in this case at the library. Try again, see if the links work this time.
Your mention of the HABS/HAER materials is a reminder that they also documented the EBT's shop complex at Rockhill Furnace. FEBT has since added the Saltillo station and is about to include the Coles tank house.
Well, I got the photos working today, so I guess it was some ISP glitch. One note on the USS Wheeling. That's about the same type of gunboat that was represented by the San Pablo, the centerpiece of the novel "The Sand Pebbles" that was made into a movie starring Steve McQueen.
Glad the photos worked out.
I also have to thank Colorado Mac, J. S. Ward, and another (not named as he sent an off-line message, so I'm assuming he prefers privacy) for their kind words as they recalled another time in a very old city on the Ohio.
I have turned up some more material (including a fair number of trolley photos, and even a video clip of the surviving Wheeling Public Service car in operation at a museum in New England), and that stuff combined with what's already here has me thinking about moving this material to a special Wheeling or West Virginia thread when I get the time (I should be a librarian!), but in the meantime I wonder if anybody does model anything outside the Colorado Rockies or the Appalachians!
I kind of do encourage responses. I understand the management here does read things, and just maybe it can help get something you want into production--like a colorful red and black Rock Island GP-7!
Oh, I've been doing a bit of research on the new 2-6-6-2, and one of the things that surprised me was that the original locomotive class, a single prototype in Class H, with a production order in Class H-1 (all this circa 1911 or thereabouts) turned out to be a pioneering engine design that would, with certain detail changes, be used by a number of roads, including Norfolk & Western, Baltimore & Ohio (inherited in a merger with the Buffalo Rochester & Pittsburgh in 1930), Denver & Rio Grande Western and Southern Pacific, and possibly others. One of these engines even got a replacement tender that is in Bachmann's parts stores; I'll let you guess which one it is for now. At least one of these other roads, and a second one that got engines from the first are, in my opinion (but remember, I'm not the boss here), candidates that could be something to consider for production with relatively minimal tooling costs. This is in addition to a couple of more C&O classes that could be made with even less modification--and Rye Guy will like this, one of those ran on the model Gorre & Daphetid. This particular C&O series is significant in that two examples survive today, and these two engines are the next to last and the very last individual steam locomotives to be built by Baldwin for a North American railroad.
Even if Bachmann decided not to make these engines, they may still be doable with some extensive redetailing (including moving air compressors to the left side and coming up with a different smokebox front for most of them). If I get the time, I'll try to start a thead on the subject.
Anticipate!
(Now, if I could only figure out how to make money at this. . .)
Been a bit busy, but did find this site with some contemporary photos. I'll let you decide whether you like the new or the old better:
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=794844
Enjoy.