Contact: David Wartell.
I am modeling the Philadelphia and Delaware County Railroad, which later became the Newtown Square Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, part of the Philadelphia Terminal Division. What interests me in this branch, besides having grown up near the branch, is that it is a single track branch with a lot of the character of a small branch line railroad. When I began planning for the model railroad I initailly planned to model 1950, but as I was doing research on the branch I became intregued with its early years, 1894 - 1913 when it was known as the Philadelphia and Delaware County Railroad. I have decided to model the years from 1894 through 1913. This allows me to still have passenger service as well as significant freight traffic on the line.
The Philadelphia and Delaware County Railrod was completed and open for operation in June 1894 and was immediately leased to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Pennsylvania Railroad assigned control of the line to the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad. In 1900 the Cardington Branch was opened to tap the commerece of Cardington Mills and open up other potential business along the Upper Darby/Philadelphia border. It was later extended to the 69th Street Terminal. The design of the layout allows me to model this second branch as well. The benchwork is completed and most of the track hass been laid. The exceptions are a couple of sidings and in the staging/storage area. The design includes three levels on one wall and a two level design for the remainder of the layout. To go between levels I have built helices in two locations.
The lower level will consist of a staging/fiddle yard to represent West Philadelphia. This is yard will originate trains for the branch as well as being the destination for trains from the branch. It will allow me to model beyond the layout. The original sketch of this level is included here.
The main level will represent the beginning of the branch through East Lansdowne, Upper Darby, & Haverford. It will also have the Cardington branch as well. It is reached from the lower level by a helix. Above this helix is another helix that connects the second and third levels to allow continuous running if it is desired.
The upper level will continue the journey to the end of the line at Newtown Square. While designed as a poin-to-point layout, as mentioned I can also have continuous running options with the helix at the end of the the line at Newtown Square. After having a copy of a 1900 property atlas for the Newtown Square area provided to me I have redesigned the Newtown Square area to more closely follow the original. That is not shown on this drawing.
Work on the layout has been slower than expected over that last couple of years because of a number of outside influences. I'm still working on the layout but there have been few visual differences to show in the photo section.
The main focus of the layout will be operations. The branch opened with seven daily passenger trains during the week and five on Sunday. This dropped rather quickly as the branch saw competition from traction lines. Passenger service completely disappeared in 1908. I plan to run some intermediate level of passenger service. I am still researching the freight service during this period. Using this time period will allow me to add the turntable that was in the Newtown Square yard. It appears that the original was removed in about 1904.
The ideas behind the layout have been evolving for many years and has continued to evolve. As I learn more about the railroad my plans have continued to be updated. The maps shown above where what I started construction with. The plan has change as I was able to find more information about the branch in its early years. I have been adding photos of the layout to this page as it has developed. For information on the branch I have been able to acquire some of the plates from the 1909 Property Atlas of Delaware County published by A. H. Mueller. Another great reference for developing the plan of the layout is the form CT1000 documents issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad's transportation department.
Additional sources of help and information include the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society (PRRT&HS), the PRR Talk mailing list hosted by Jerry Britton, and the Early Rail Yahoo group. The Early Rail group is for anyone interested in railroading from the 1860's to 1914.
This layout is a member of the
Copyright 1996 - 2008
Last modified: February 03 2008.
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