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I’m a Chessie and Conrail guy at heart. But you can’t really talk about the Penn Mary area without bringing the Canton Railroad into the conversation. The Canton RR was started in 1906 as a way to bring customers into the then-undeveloped area. Neither the B&O nor the Pennsy wanted …

In a previous post I talked about construction in stages, building and mostly finishing only the Penn Mary area before moving on. I lied a little about that. But I have a good reason. Really. The problem with limiting construction to just Penn Mary means that track wouldn’t yet be …

I know I’m repeating myself, but in my view any track plan is only the latest draft; it’s never finished. Changes happen, and they should be welcomed. As we talked about last time, I’d already laid and wired the track for the GM plant when I discovered I wasn’t happy …

Once upon a time, in the city of Baltimore, there was an auto plant… Joe wanted to model it, so he drew a track plan for it, built it, nailed it, and lived happily ever after. If only it were so simple.

I’m a little behind on my model railroad magazine reading. This could be because I’ve been wasting time building a layout, or that I spend too much time blogging, or that I subscribe to too many model-oriented publications, but I doubt it. It’s probably just because I’m lazy. Either way, …

I’ve said it before, my layout, although strongly based on Baltimore, will not be an exact replica. In fact, I look at it more as an alter-ego than anything else, with the freedom to change things based on my needs (and whims). General Motors is no exception. In the GM …

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I give you… General Motors. Before you think I’ve completely lost it, I am aware that there’s nothing there but painted walls. And I’m also aware I’ve already talked about the sky. So let me rephrase: without further ado, I give you the site …

I try to do things in order. I really do. As you’ll see I’m not always successful. Before you start to build benchwork, it probably makes sense to paint your backdrop.You don’t have to do it that way, of course, but it sure is easier to paint a wall with …

I previously talked about the layout of the General Motors plant and how I thought it would easily translate to a track plan. And for the most part, it did. At right is my original track plan covering the area in and around GM, including Penn Mary Yard and the …

I’ve talked about how daunting it can be to model an auto assembly plant. They can be massive, sprawling affairs with lots of buildings and scale miles of track. But in this case I got lucky. The way that this plant was laid out made things pretty compact, which definitely …