The Philly Express offers several opportunities to operate on some of the truly spectacular home and club model railroads in the Philadelphia Division. Below are the confirmed layouts. Layout addresses will be emailed to paid registrants several weeks in advance. For more information, please contact Chair Mark Wallace.
Steve Salotti, MMR’s New York, Susquehanna & Western (NYS&W)
Set in 1949 in northern New Jersey, the railroad runs between the Hudson River, Little Ferry (major yard), and up through Hainesburg, NJ. The layout features passenger and mainline freight service, with many locals serving industries, both along the line and on the waterfront.
Location: Collegeville, PA 19426 - 17.6 miles, 25 minutes from the hotel
Layout Scale: HO
Layout Theme: NYS&W prototypically set in northern New Jersey around 1949, just after dieselization
Accessibility: Layout located in basement. No special access, but facilities are residential.
Train Dispatching System: Modified Timetable operations (TT&TO) over dark territory with dispatcher and written forms
Car Forwarding method: Switchlists
Layout Control System: Digitrax DCC. Please bring Digitrax throttles if you have them. Simplex Radio only. Limited provisions for WIFI enabled devices.
Ops scheduled for:
#802 - Thursday, 7-10pm
#803 - Saturday, 10am-2pm
Fee: $10 per session
Max Operators: 12 per session
St. Alban’s Model Railroad Club (StARR)
This 25-year-old club has an operating layout featuring both a proto-freelanced PRR 4-track mainline and the Reading Railroad with connections at Perkiomen Junction set in the post-WW2 era before the mid-1960s. Operations involve heavy freight trains performing industrial switching with both intercity and occasional commuter passenger trains. There are opportunities for a variety of jobs from fast freight runs to flat switching industrial areas.
Location: Newtown Square - 12.6 miles, 25 minutes from the hotel
Layout Scale: HO
Layout Theme: Southeastern Pennsylvania along the PRR mainline as well as Reading RR set in portions of the Schuylkill Valley or upstate PA. There's also a large steel mill and manufacturing facility with plenty of switching opportunities.
Accessibility: Layout located in basement. No special access, but facilities are located in an existing church building.
Website: https://www.starr-mrc.org/our-layout/
https://www.facebook.com/StARR.MRC
Virtual Layout Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN_7kVPHBHw
Traffic Dispatching System: CTC with FRS radio
Car Forwarding Method: Switch lists
Layout Control system: Digitrax DCC with WiFi capabilities. Please bring Digitrax throttles if you have them. Plug-in, Duplex & Simplex Radio. Or - WiFi capability for wireless devices; iPhone, Android, TCS or similar.
Ops scheduled for:
#809 - Friday, 1-3pm
Fee: $10
Max Operators: 15 minimum up to 25 maximum
Charles Kadyk’s Pennsylvania and New England Railroad
The PNE is set in the early 1950s and is a proto-freelance-type layout. The operations are based on a previous layout and still incorporate many of the aspects of that old layout. The original version of this layout stretches from a connection to the PRR at just north of Harrisburg along the south shoulder of Blue Mountain, up through New Jersey, New York up over the Poughkeepsie Bridge, and into New England. The central portion of the layout modeled consists of a passenger terminal, freight yard, and an engine terminal. Trains enter and exit through an active staging area or fiddle yard. There are through freights, through and local passengers, and local freight, running with steam and first generation diesel.
Location: Mohnton, PA 19540 (37 miles or 45 minutes from the hotel (with tolls))
Layout Scale: HO
Layout Theme: Proto-freelance, point-to-point.
Accessibility: Entrance to the layout is down a comfortable set of steps with handrails. Residential facilities on the first floor.
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups/119032054779790/
Train Dispatching System: Dispatching through JMRI. Detection in place with signaling to follow.
Method of Communication: Road crews use FRS radios with headsets, Dispatcher, freight yard and passenger terminal use phones. Please bring FRS radios and headset.
Car Forwarding Method: Car Cards using color coding system & Micro-Mark paperwork.
Layout Control system: NCE DCC with wireless capability using either NCE wireless or TCS and smartphones through WiFi.
Specific jobs requiring regular operators other than guests: Fiddle Yard Operator, Dispatcher, although a good guest dispatcher is always welcome.
Specific Jobs for guest operators? Freight yard switcher, passenger yard switcher, road crews
Ops scheduled for:
#808 - Friday, 7-10pm
Fee: $10
Max Operators: 8 minimum up to 10 maximum
Earl Paine's Reading Mainline
Depicting the Reading Railroad's mainline along the Schuylkill River between Philadelphia and Reading in the early 1970s leading up to the Conrail merger. The modeled portion extends from Falls Yard through to Abrams Yard, west through Phoenixville, Royersford, Pottstown, Stowe Yard, Monocacy, and Birdsboro where the line diverges to the Belt line/Turkey Path and the Main line through to Reading Yard. Operations involve heavy freight trains performing industrial switching with an occasional commuter passenger train. The section modeled was yard limits over half modeled distance in its day, which allows for interesting operating situations for general freight, coal, cement, steel, and industrial switching.
Location: Schwenksville/Skippack, PA 19430 (23.8 miles or 30 minutes from the hotel)
Layout Scale: HO
Layout Theme: Southeastern PA along the Schuylkill River in last years of the Reading prior to the Conrail era
Accessibility: Layout located in basement. No special access, but facilities are residential
Website: To Be Announced, but layout is well known in local operating circles
Note: Owner will post available positions on a Google sheet after guests have marked up.
Train Dispatching System: Sequential operation with verbal dispatching. Please bring FRS radios.
Car Forwarding Method: Local Switch lists posted at specific locations on the layout
Layout Control system: Digitrax DCC with WiFi capabilities. Please bring Digitrax throttles if you have them. Plug-in, Duplex & Simplex Radio. Or - WiFi capability for wireless devices; iPhone, Android, TCS or similar.
Ops scheduled for:
#801 - Thursday, 7-10pm
Fee: $10
Max Operators: 12
Eric Craig's Philadelphia and Reading Railroad
A point-to-point, double-deck, around-the-room, prototypical layout set in the early 1920s. Scenery and parts of the layout are not finished. The east end is Port Richmond, going west is Berks Street yard, Philadelphia, West Falls yard, Pottstown, Stowe yard, Reading industrial, West Reading yard, the Reading yard, St Clair yard, Shamokin, and Newberry Junction. Industries featured include the Reading Iron Co., Eastern Steel (Pottsville), Pottsville, Wadesville and Herbline Collieries, and the Park Place #2 Colliery.
Location: Macungie PA 18062. (46 miles or 57 minutes from the hotel)
Layout Scale: HO
Layout Theme: P&R - Reading Railroad in the 1920s
Accessibility: Layout is located in the basement. No special access, but residential facilities on the first floor.
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups/392794309349401 (A private group). Layout is known in nearby operating circles.
Train Dispatching System: Dispatcher with 75% signaled. FRS radios and verbal. Bring FRS radio with headset.
Car Forwarding Method: Car cards with crew briefs.
Layout Control system: 100% WiFi with a NCE command station. WiFitrax modules for the switches, signals, power and detection. NCE throttle, TCS throttle or phone with app should work. There are no plugins
Positions Available Include: Port Richmond yardmaster, Port Richmond helper (2), Stowe yardmaster, Stowe helper, Reading industrial yardmaster, Reading industrial helper. Reading yardmaster, Reading helper (2), Possibly St. Clair yardmaster/helper. We'll use an in-house dispatcher.
Ops scheduled for:
#804 - Friday, 10am-2pm
Fee: $10
Max Operators: 15 guest operators
Greg & Angel Shindledecker's Western Maryland, Thomas Subdivision in the mid-‘70s
Based on the WM’s Thomas Subdivision extending along the upper Potomac Valley into West Virginia during the years after the merger into the Chessie system; the layout is modeled from just west of 21st Bridge (east of McCool, MD) to Elkins, WV. Two large staging yards represent points east - Cumberland/Knobmount, MD and beyond; the other being coal branches radiating from Elkins to Durbin, Webster Springs, Dailey, and Belington. In between lies the Blackwater Canyon, in which the famed Black Fork Grade required multiple helpers on almost all trains moving coal eastbound.
Combinations of power using WM, B&O and the early Chessie schemes are seen. Online industries include coal load outs and mines, pulpwood and wood chip loading, the Westvaco paper mill at Luke, MD, coal-powered electric generation at Mt. Storm, a tannery, a Kingsford Charcoal plant, and car shops for maintenance and repair at Elkins. Railroad is dark but dispatched using manual block signaling unique to the prototype.
Location: Coatesville, PA 19320, (26.5 miles, or 37 minutes from the hotel)
Layout Scale: HO
Layout Theme: Western Maryland in the Chessie Era, mountainous West Virginia set in the 1970s
Accessibility: No special access, but layout room is at grade, with restroom in an adjacent room
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WMThomasSub (Layout is well known in regional operating circles)
Train Dispatching System: Dispatcher authorized utilizing WM style manual signaling. Bring FRS radio with headset
Car Forwarding Method: Car cards
Layout Control system: NCE DCC. NCE throttles are available, but feel free to bring a NCE throttle if you have one. Also WiFi enabled throttles or phones with appropriate app can join.
Ops scheduled for:
#807 - Friday, 10am-2pm
Fee: $10
Max Operators: 13
Mike Berus’s B&O Railroad
Mike Berus's S-scale B&O Railroad is located in a large basement space and constructed on two levels. The lower level represents the B&O from Cumberland, MD westward to Wheeling, WV, including the towns of Bridgeport and Martin's Ferry in eastern Ohio located on the banks of the Ohio River. There are two staging yards: Fairpoint, Ohio (home to the coal hauling EM1), and Cumberland, MD. The railroad hauls coal to power plants and coal barge traffic located on the Ohio River, as well as servicing the steel and aluminum mills, glass manufacturers, pipe mills, and other heavy industries prolific in this region during the transition period with local freight operations.
The second level features the southern branch to service the coal production in Benwood, WV and Cabin Creek, WV. The railroad fictitiously pushes far into southern West Virginia to reach the chemical production in Bell and even further to the logging region in Slaty Fork.
Location: Harleysville, Pa. 19438 (16.5 miles or 35 minutes from the hotel)
Layout Scale: HO
Layout Theme: B&O RR, steam/diesel transition - Maryland & West Virginia. Point-to-point.
Accessibility: Layout is in the basement. Rest room is adjacent to the layout.
Website: None
Train Dispatching System: Dispatched by owner to control traffic flow. Signaled or verbal.
Method of Communication: Verbal
Car Forwarding Method: Car cards for engineers and switch lists for yardmasters.
Layout Control system: Digitrax DCC (simplex or duplex) and WIFI (TCS throttles) or phone APS.
Ops scheduled for:
#810 - Friday, 9am-12pm
Fee: $10
Max Operators: 8-10 guests. 4 Assistant yard masters will be paired with a docent. 6 engineers will be paired docents as conductor.
Specific Jobs requiring regular operators other than guests: 4 yardmasters, 3-4 conductors.
Specific Jobs for guest operators: 4 Assistant Yardmasters, 6 Engineers. Operations are mostly local freights requiring a lot of switching by yard masters. Approx. 13 trains operate over a 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Jobs include coal drags, through freights, and through passenger trains, and a logging run.
Mike McNamara’s Northeast Kingdom Railroad
The Northeast Kingdom Railroad represents the prototype railroads Maine Central, Canadian Pacific, Boston & Maine, Lamoille Valley, and North Stratford Railway in northern Vermont and northern New Hampshire in 1980. Actual locations and trains from that era are modeled on the layout. Sound-equipped diesel locomotives. Operationally the layout features 2 yards and primarily slower-paced local trains switching industries and performing interchanges throughout the session.
Location: Delran, NJ 08075
Layout Scale: HO
Layout Theme: Fall 1980, 1st and 2nd generation diesels, 40' and 50’ freight cars, 1 passenger excursion train.
Accessibility: Layout is in the basement. Residential facilities on first floor.
Website: https://nekrailroad.com
Train Dispatching System: Sequential Train List, train assignments coordinated through superintendent of RR as session progresses.
Method of Communication: No radios needed; direct communication between crews as needed.
Car Forwarding Method: Car cards with waybills
Layout Control system: Digitrax DCC. Both simplex and duplex throttles plus WiFi capable network (LNWI) for personal devices such as TCS throttles or tablets.
Ops scheduled for:
#805 - Thursday, 6-10pm
#806 - Saturday, 9am-12:30pm
Fee: $10
Max Operators: 3 to 6
Specific Jobs requiring regular operators other than guests:
St. Johnsbury Yardmaster (1 or 2 persons)
Morrisville Yardmaster (1 person)
Road Operators (can accommodate up to 4)
