Category: HO PRR Renovo Div. Erie Main

Turn the Lights Back On

February 26, 2024 My New Year’s resolution is to stay motivated to rebuild and expand my HO railroad. Having taken down a wall to open to what was a separate storage room, by the end of last November I had those walls painted sky blue. I decided next I needed a ceiling above and what a difference! Starting in January I used the Armstrong track system, put fiber wool sound deadening insulation above and built a valance surround. The LED lights are now flush mounted and controlled by a wall switch. Now I can build the staging yard I want below, and extend and finish the ceiling as I rebuild my existing layout. Here is a link to Turn the Lights Back On 2024, a photo album of my ceiling project . Inspiring me as I worked was a song by Billy Joel by that name, his first release of a new song after 30 years. Some think this song is a metaphor for his life and career. I think that also this song is a metaphor for my railroad renovation!

Track plan and chart

Here is the evolution of my track plan of the Pennsylvania Railroad Renovo Division Erie Main at Warren, PA.

This is a picture of the control panel for my HO layout 1980 – present. It is a freelance plan not following any particular prototype. From this layout there are elements I can salvage and put toward building a new layout that follows the PRR prototype I have chosen. The arrow on the control plan is supposed to point to the upper-level town that would have provided point to point operation. That town would have been controlled by another panel, the blank panel to the right. There was a concept of staging in that the mainline tracks in the upper left were hidden in a tunnel and a mainline passenger would park on the outside track and a mainline freight would park on the inside track.

The Northern Division, Erie Main at Warren, PA, as described in my Chief Dispatcher SOQ, that will be the source document for my build. I plan to take the track plan above, lengthen it, eliminate the grade to the upper level, mirror the yard on the other side. To it add a John Armstrong coach yard wye, see the bottom example in this image from one of his books. But instead of a coach yard pictured, on my layout there will be two staging yards.

Selective compression is needed so Struthers moves to the Erie Main. Warren and Struthers are sibling industrial yards to support local industry at each location. That is a change from the prototype where Warren is the main yard and Struthers a subordinate yard. Tower IRV is west of Warren and tower OTTS is east of Struthers on the Erie Main. The Salamanca Branch is an alternate route between the IRV and OTTS towers, it is a return track to allow continuous running and one leg of a wye to turn trains.

Here is the result:

To see my track plan, here is a link to PRR Northern Division at Warren drawn with JMRI XTracKCAD and enhanced with PowerPoint. The layout is designed to fit in an 11 by 20-foot space as an island with access on all sides and modular construction. Generating a track list there is about 100 ft. of track total, so I estimate 50 ft. of that total is the main line.

To see my track chart, here is a link to Warren Trackchart that will be the basis to for my Union Switch and Signal Panel using JMRI Panel Pro. Signals will indicate routing. Timetable and train order will grant authority.

Next, building an operations database. The operations database will provide train crews with a switch list. For the Chief Dispatcher SOA, I started an Excel database from an example presented at a clinic. Since then, I attended another clinic this time on building a database using JMRI operations and I decided that this is how I will build my operations database. Entering a small amount of data for proof of concept I have decided this is how I will generate my computerized manifests and switch lists. Some examples can be found here in this link to Train Manifests.