Introduction
I credit my father for getting me started in model railroading as he bought me a Mantua HO set shortly after I was born. Neither of us did much with that set until I discovered it when I was around 15. Together we built a typical starter layout on a 4’x8’ sheet of plywood on short saw horses. That layout traveled with me when I got married, but when we moved into the married dormitories at the university they were too small and the layout went into storage. My interest waned as I started my career and raised a family. It resurfaced briefly during the early 1980’s, only to be replaced with my interest in the amazing new world of personal computers.
In the late 1980’s my wife rekindled my interest in model railroading with a surprise gift of a Bachman N-scale set. I built a 18” x 36” table for the small oval of track and then constructed a 4 x 8 ' frame with a sheet of ½” plywood was attached to the box frame and the layout built “cookie-cutter” style. Track was commercial turnouts and flex-track. The layout ran well, but little scenery was built as I became disillusioned with the layout.
Years earlier we had enclosed our 2 car garage to provide more living space. I built two 9’x18 rooms in this space. Once side was carpeted and was used by my wife to store her collection of Beatles memorabilia. The other room was bare concrete floors and still had the garage doors and was used to store bicycles, lawn mowers, etc.. I decided this was the ideal spot for my next layout. However before I could use the space for a model railroad I built a 10’x12’ storage building in the backyard and moved the lawn mower, bicycles, etc. to the storage building. With the room empty, I patched and painted the walls, installed fluorescent lights. A 2’x3’ work bench was built in one corner and carpet was laid. I later paid a contractor to remove the garage doors and enclose the room. I finally had a nice model railroad room to work/play in.
I grew up in south-central Tennessee where I watched Louisville & Nashville trains rumble by, thus my modeling interest in the Louisville & Nashville. I choose the Cumberland Valley division around Harlan, KY because of the density of coal mines and the potential for interchange traffic through the Hagan's switchback to the Norfolk & Western connection at Norton, Va. I named the future layout the Harlan Sub. My choice of modeling a portion of the L&N's CV division was inspired by Ron Flanary's great book "L&N Cumberland Valley Division 1945 - 1985" (Old Line Graphics,1999) .
After reading John Armstrong’s “Track Planning for realistic operation” (Kalmbach Books, second edition, 1979), I decided on an around the wall layout. To get more track distance I planned a multi-level layout with a hidden staging yard just below the top level. I studied Linn Westcott's "How to Build Model Railroad Benchwork" (Kalmbach Books, second edition, 1996) to determine the best way to support the new layout. Work started in the early 1990s however progress was slow with only part of the top layer completed until I retired in 2017. Since then construction has moved along at a much more rapid pace.
Being a "lone wolf" modeler (no nearby N-scale clubs), I created a webpage in the early 2000s to document and share the layout, but after a couple of years the hosting site was discontinued. I created this Google blog page back in 2012 but did nothing with it until 2022 when my layout progress provided more things to share. With more consistent progress on the layout, I plan to regularly update this blog.
Tim