Joe Lofland's Erie-Lackawanna in HO Scale - by Joseph Lofland and Model photos by Robert Schleicher.

Joe Lofland is modeling the Erie-Lackawanna's operations from East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania to Binghampton, New York. The layout is mostly still in the bare benchwork and trackwork stage, but many of these scenes along the prototype will be recreated on the finished model. There's an index of previous prototype-based layouts "on Tour" on our website at www.railmodeljournal.com The layout is built in a room that my wife and I built onto our house for the express purpose of building a railroad. Therefore, we used trusses so there would be no columns. The room is 24 x 44 feet. And yes, we did most of the construction work ourselves. In planning the layout design, I wanted to make it so no matter where you are standing, left is west and right is east. The only place where this is not true is when you are standing behind Scranton Yard. The track is 90 percent hand-laid with Campbell wood ties and Micro Engineering rail. The switches are powered with Switchmaster machines or are hand throws. In this way, the engineer or conductor has to do some work, which in fact, they did have to do in the 60s. The motive power for this room is Railcommand. I find the potential of having collisions very realistic. If you lose track of your train, you are in real trouble. The installation of the½?stei~ itself and the decoders is very easy to accomplish. The visual part of the railroad goes from East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania to Binghamton, New York on the Lackawanna side of the railroad. The freight schedule is based on a 1967 freight schedule, and the passenger schedule is based on a 1966 timetable. On either end of the railroad are storage loops that represent east (Hoboken Croxton) and west (Chicago/Buffalo).

Click a thumbnail picture for a larger view.
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