What's New on the PRR Panhandle 2.0?

[G3750]

Glad to hear you "prototyped" before building. Kind of the measure twice cut once school of operating. Unless you have a pole barn lying around or an abandoned movie theater to build a layout in you have to compromise. If you have enough of the main elements to bring about recognition you can scale/shift around to get it to work.

Good luck!

Yeah, me too!

I'm being a bit smarter about things this time around. I don't want to be making the same dumb mistakes when there are all kinds of new ones out there!

George

[G3750]

Updated 9/24/2020:

A fair number of things have been started in motion since I last posted:

• The PRR Station at Steubenville has again be re-sized, this time to account for its total footprint from track to Sixth Street. It's now ~36"x10".
• Additional research materials have been acquired.
• An order for flemish bond brick sheets has been placed with The N Scale Architect.
• JTT red clay tile sheets (for the roof) have been ordered.
• A number of downspouts and other details have been ordered from Crow River Products.
• A case (50 pieces) of GarGraves WT101-37 rigid phantom 37" straight track has been ordered.

Things are moving!

George

[rogruth]

Movin', movin', movin'.

[G3750]

Movin', movin', movin'.

Thanks. Yeah, we are trying to keep pushing. There's a long way to go.

While I wait on the rigid GarGraves to arrive (it's immediate use will be on the eastern approaches to the bridge), I need to focus on buildings and scenery in the Steubenville station area. Once that is done, benchwork construction south of the station can commence. I really don't want to build scenery by popping up out of an access hatch. Might as well do it while the area is open.

George

[rogruth]

George,
I certainly agree that it is absolutely no fun doing scenery through a hatch. Had a friend that had a fairly large HO layout who I went to visit one day and he was crawling in and out from under and popping up. I stayed a while and handed stuff to him. He thought that saved @ two hours and his knees.
It turned out to be a beautiful layout that featured Thurmond, West Virginia.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

George,
I certainly agree that it is absolutely no fun doing scenery through a hatch.

The scenery for the final section of my layout was through a large lift out area and while I tried to preposition all of the supplies within easy reach, I was still ducking under, navigating the benchwork to get out, grab stuff, get back in...... Final step was to put the fully sceniced lift-out back into place.....and that does take 2 people now. So I'll be building a completely new fully sceniced lift-out so I can change scenes....... Advil, please!

[G3750]

Updated 10/2/2020:

Unfortunately, most of this week has been spent on trivia (finalizing the contents of 2 mid-term exams, uploading 22 video lectures, taking my wife to her appointments, etc.) instead of model railroading.

However, some slight amount of progress happened despite the universe's headlong rush towards entropy.

• Track and roofing material have been ordered, as previously discussed.
• I have identified the types of HO houses that I want behind the Steubenville station. They are:
  • Walthers Two Story Frame House (933-3786)
  • Walthers Tillman Farm House (933-3789)
  • Branchline Trains Albion Catalog House (181-621)- quantity 4
• I mocked-up the footprint and approximate locations of the houses. They fit the allotted space!

George

[G3750]

Updated 10/3/2020:

Sometimes things just "click". While waiting on various items to arrive, I decided to search for the HO houses that will go above the Steubenville station. The Walthers website is a great source; they seem to have the largest number of HO structures on the planet. I identified a friend's grandmother's house and have acquired that kit. I also have one of the houses to its right (Tillman Farm House). I was intrigued by the 3 identical houses at the right of the Google Earth photo.

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0B5qXGF1G98NiB

They looked vaguely familiar to me. They are Albion Catalog Houses. Yes, you buy the real ones as kits from (get this) Sears! They come unassembled on a truck. Unload the truck and assemble!

Here's the kicker. The reason the house looks familiar is that my maternal grandparents lived in one! My father told me that his father-in-law built his own house in the 1920's. I never explored the subject, but I remember the floorplan and outside appearance of the house. It seems to have been an Albion home with some modifications (expansions). And being a carpenter, cabinet maker, and ship builder (remember the model ships he created?) by trade, this would not have been beyond his skills. This makes a lot of sense.

George

[chuck]

Sweet. Nice insert on the "ad" for the real house "kit". I wonder about the basement plan/layout. I don't see any stairwell going down but there has to be a basement as there is no furnace on the floor plan. You have to go outside?

[G3750]

Sweet. Nice insert on the "ad" for the real house "kit". I wonder about the basement plan/layout. I don't see any stairwell going down but there has to be a basement as there is no furnace on the floor plan. You have to go outside?

Not in my grandfather's house. Under the stairs to the right (on the plan) is another set of steps going down. You could also get to the basement via the outside door on that side of the house. In the basement was the magical woodshop that generated many ship models (big and small), a root cellar, my grandmother's canning shelves, and the washing area with its Maytag upright washing machine (with wringer).

My grandfather's house was reversed from that plan, but identical. He made a number of modifications:

• The room listed as the kitchen on the plan was actually a sitting room with a table for eating and a couch and chair.
• The kitchen was an addition he hung off the back of the house. It also had a powder room attached to it.
• Around the kitchen and reached via a door in the sitting room was a wrap-around porch.
• The land sloped dramatically downward front to back. The backdoor of the basement was a walkout to the vegetable garden, which stretched some distance to the mill chain fence.
• On the second floor, my grandfather had added an outside door to one of the bedrooms (where the ships were stored!) that exited to a second wrap-around captive porch.
• When he bought and built the house in the 1920's, it was coal fired. I think there was a coal chute somewhere (in the root cellar under the front porch?) But in the time I remember, it had been converted to gas. There was a fireplace and mantel in the dining room that was closed up (but I was still told Santa would come down it).

It was a wonderful house, full of happy memories and people I loved.

George

[chuck]

Thanks. It's kind of hard to read some of the text. I now see the arrow pointing down off of "Landing". It helps when you figure out which side is up on the lettering! Great to find a model of a house you remember/visited.

[rogruth]

George,
Where did your grandparents live, Steubenville?

Sears also sold Crosley and some other automobiles that were usually delivered by truck and I was told they were in a large wooden crate.

[G3750]

George,
Where did your grandparents live, Steubenville?

Sears also sold Crosley and some other automobiles that were usually delivered by truck and I was told they were in a large wooden crate.

No, they lived in Weirton in the neighborhood called Terrace Circle. That was behind the Mill Administration Building. The area was claimed by Weirton Steel to put up their BOP, the so-called "Mill of the Future". Which was torn down last year.

George

[J. S. Bach]

Updated 10/3/2020: ...snip... They are Albion Catalog Houses. Yes, you buy the real ones as kits from (get this) Sears! They come unassembled on a truck. Unload the truck and assemble! ...snip... George

I wonder:
A. How many of those houses Sears did sell
B. How many still exist in mostly original form
C. How many in any form still exist.

[G3750]

Updated 10/3/2020: ...snip... They are Albion Catalog Houses. Yes, you buy the real ones as kits from (get this) Sears! They come unassembled on a truck. Unload the truck and assemble! ...snip... George

I wonder:
A. How many of those houses Sears did sell
B. How many still exist in mostly original form
C. How many in any form still exist.

A. 70,000 between 1920-1939 is what I think I saw.
B. Well, those in my first photo (taken a few days ago) are still there.
C. I expect that there are quite a few still in existence.

George