The model is located in a basement approximately 28 feet by 34 feet, with the usual basement appliances to work around. Although the ceiling is fairly high, the central beam and heating duct prevented me from fitting a mushroom into the space, so we settled on a double-deck layout. The track plan is a relatively simple walk-around plan with one central peninsula and staging at either end of the visible portion of the railroad.

This plan allows the inclusion of much of the Bloomsburg Branch and the Main Line from Scranton to Mount Pocono, with East Stroudsburg added at the end. There is about a 45 foot run between Scranton City Yard and Taylor Yard, allowing a significant run between yards. Through trains drop and pick up cars at City Yard, while classification and most switching is done at Taylor, as the prototype did. Transfer runs between the two yards occur throughout the day, and help keep the Taylor Yardmaster out of mischief. And, of course, the transfer runs are exactly right for the Overland EL transfer caboose!

The modelled Main Line is about 325 feet long, and the Bloom is about 160 feet long. The Main Line grade begins in Scranton yard and continues to Lehigh Summit, reaching a maximum of 3.5% but remaining about 2% for most of that distance. We were able to imitate the profile of the prototype, though the grades have been exaggerated for operational interest. As on the prototype, though, there is a stretch of level track through the Nay Aug tunnel to challenge the train crews! The heavy trains and steep grades challenge the crews and the trains actually need the helpers to get up the hill.

The plans below show the general mainline layout of the mainline and branch. In some areas local spurs are detailed but the local track arrangements were adapted to the space available using prototype track plans as a guide after the mainline was built. Since plans for a double-deck layout can be confusing, I've included separate figures showing the Lower and Upper Levels, with the Bloomsburg branch and staging yards shown in different colors. Town name colors indicate mainline, branch, or staging. In the Upper Level figure, some Lower Level features (like Taylor Yard and the outline of the Branch under East Stroudsburg) are shown to help illustrate their relative positions.

Also note that the plan includes a "mole" position. We constructed the layout in stages, and started operations before the Mole had been built. I therefore found that to restage the railroad, all that is necessary in the staging yards is to swap the power and caboose, and turn the waybills. Because of the way trains were working in Scranton, the west end of the train was always the block worked -- on both eastbound and westbound trains.

So, we decided not to build and use the Mole, and extended the Upper (Croxton) Staging Yard behind the furnace and to the wall beyond the water heater. This has proven to be a very good change because Croxton was not a very large yard and severely limited train lengths. Now train lengths are controlled by traffic levels and more trains can be long enough to require helpers -- as did most non-TOFC trains in 1975. Next step is to replace the yard throat, which was originally built as a compound ladder using 3-way turnouts to save space, with a longer one utilizing a simple ladder and #8 turnouts. Hopefully that will eliminate the operational issues caused by the interaction of the 89-foot TOFC flats, autoracks, and other long cars with the unfortunate geometry of the 3-way turnouts.