Trackwork on the Baltimore and Ohio L&S Division

Ed Lorence demonstrates some model railroad track laying tips and techniques that he has learned to keep rails from kinking on his Baltimore and Ohio L&S Division. On flextrack, Ed is using Atlas Code 100 track, where one rail moves while the other is stationary. When you assemble the rails, you have to put a stationary against a moveable section, otherwise the rails will move and you will get kinks.

In the beginning of modeling, Ed had several rows of track in his mind. For a time he did have several different rows of equipment and rolling stock. However, this became confusing and he realized he had to narrow his focus. Like everything in life, it had to be one thing at a time. As Ed says, if you don’t do things one at a time, you lose time. Allen Keller asks how his passenger trains play a part in the operations of the layout. Like the real Baltimore and Ohio, the passenger trains were becoming very popular in the 50’s and railroads were making a profit for the first time since WWII.

In their operating sessions, they run at least four trains in a session to create a little confusion. Back then, scheduled passenger trains had the right of way, unlike today. This means freight cars have to get off the main line to allow the passenger trains to come through, which slows everything down and makes the sessions last much longer. To keep this all somewhat organized, Ed prints a sheet from the computer and operators follow the sheet, which usually consists of ten different moves with ten different trains across the whole operation. To learn more on painting railroad tracks and ballasts or weathering track made easy, visit the Model Railroad Academy archives.