Mike Berus’ B&O Railroad Construction of the B&O railroad began in 2014. The RR is built in S scale and occupies a little more than half my basement in a space 22ft. X 65ft. and is on two levels. The lower level represents the B&O from Cumberland, Md. westward to Wheeling, West Virginia and includes the towns of Bridgeport and Martins Ferry in eastern Ohio located on the banks of the Ohio River. The RR fictitiously includes the city of Wheatland, Pa. just east of Youngstown, Ohio. During the first 75 years of the 20 th century the RR prospered hauling coal to the many power plants located on the Ohio River as well as servicing the steel and aluminum mills, the pipe mills and other heavy industries prolific in this region. Today, coal production is loaded onto barges for shipment on the Ohio River. All these activities are represented on the RR. The second level of the RR is the southern branch to service the coal production in Benwood, W. Va. And Cabin Creek, W. Va. The RR pushes far into southern W. Va. to reach the chemical production in Bell, W. Va. and even further to the logging region in Slaty Fork, W. Va. The most striking scene on the RR is the extensive saw mill complex representing the actual sawmill located in Slaty Fork, W. Va. This multiple building scene was built from lazer kits produced by BTS (Bill’s Train Shop) located in Bellingham, W. Va. The RR has about 750 ft. of track, about 75ft. was hand laid and the rest utilized 3 ft. sections of flex track. The steepest grade is 3.8%. There are about 125 switches, approximately 25 motorized and the rest manually operated with caboose hobbies throws. There are four fully automated reverse loops where polarity and switch movement is done with DCC specialties electronics and tortoise machines. About a year was spent designing the RR using Xtrakcad prior to beginning construction. Track work was carefully completed with wide radius curves to accommodate the many large articulated steam engines operated moving coal. There are two staging yards, one in Cumberland, Md. which includes a Wye track and classification yard. This actual yard is still in use today by CSX and includes a hump track. The second is in Fairpoint, Ohio where miles of coal hoppers and large EM1 articulated locomotives lived to service the coal production. This yard no longer exists. Mainline: https://youtu.be/2FXMRGfgnVY Railfanning: https://youtu.be/1YMz6ohMzYI Flyover: https://youtu.be/8E4ulV5EaRw
