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00:30Hi, I'm David Popp, and I'd like to welcome you to our HO Scale 4x8 Virginian layout.
00:37This is a model railroad that we built for the Pages of MR.
00:41It will start in January 2012 and run through May of that year.
00:45You'll be able to watch us build this layout from start to finish.
00:48Now, for those of you who want more in-depth coverage, if you're a subscriber,
00:52you can click on the link in the description below.
00:56Now, for those of you who want more in-depth coverage, if you're a subscriber,
01:00you can go to modelrailroader.com and watch the video journals.
01:03We covered everything we did from start to finish on this layout,
01:07and you can see it all right there.
01:09Before we take a tour of the model railroad,
01:12let's look a little bit at how we designed this layout and some of the features that it has.
01:19Well, if you ever wondered how our project layouts get their start, here's one way.
01:24I'm down here in the David P. Morgan Library.
01:27Now, if you're a Kambach Publishing Company employee, you have free access to this library.
01:31Unfortunately for the rest of you, you don't.
01:34But, being down here in the David P. Morgan Library one day,
01:37I happened to pull out this book by H. Reid called The Virginian Railway.
01:42This was published in 1961, and it is a story chronicling the birth
01:47and then the end, or the absorption into the Norfolk and Western of the Virginian Railway.
01:51And it's told through the tales of people who worked for the railroad,
01:55people who lived along the railroad, and pretty much an assortment of other colorful characters.
01:59And so, it's a really great read.
02:01You can find this book on eBay still, or sometimes in used bookstores.
02:05So, if you can find a copy, I'd highly recommend it.
02:08While we were working on the project, another gentleman happened to catch wind of it,
02:13and his name is Aubrey Wiley, and he was working on his own book on the Virginian at the time,
02:17and was kind enough to send it in.
02:19And so, this photo book has all sorts of great pictures in it,
02:22some of which we used for inspiration when we were modeling scenes
02:25and the various scenery around the Virginian Railway.
02:28The final piece of the Virginian Railway research saga here
02:32is this Virginian Railway In Color book, part of the In Color series.
02:37And this was indispensable for figuring out things like weathering hopper cars
02:41and locomotive paint schemes and things like that.
02:44So, books are a great way in order to get started on modeling a new project
02:49like we did with our Virginian Railroad.
02:56Well, I'm here with Kevin Keefe, who is the former publisher and editor of Trains Magazine,
03:01and now the vice president of editorial for Kambach Publishing Company.
03:04Kevin, you've seen a lot of railroads come and go.
03:06Tell me your thoughts on the Virginian.
03:09Well, here was a railroad that hauled a tremendous amount of tonnage, coal.
03:13It hauled coal, steam coal, and metallurgical coal
03:16from the Pocahontas veins of coal fields in Appalachia
03:20down to Tidewater near Norfolk, Virginia.
03:23It had tremendous locomotives, it had a lot of heavy-duty tonnage to haul,
03:27and yet it was a really rather small railroad, 600 miles long,
03:30with a real folksy feel to it, given the size of the entire company.
03:33Now, the Virginian was considered a modern railroad by many
03:36simply because of the fact it was built after the turn of the century.
03:39That's true. In fact, by virtue of the fact of the kind of traffic it had, coal,
03:43it had to be a pretty substantial railroad with a lot of great infrastructure.
03:47Obviously, the fact that it was built much of it in the 20th century is part of that,
03:51but also a lot of big bridges, a lot of tunnels,
03:54and then they were ahead of the game in terms of motive power in a lot of ways
03:58with big 2666 steam locomotives and also electrics.
04:03So, Kevin, what's the appeal to modelers about the Virginian, do you think?
04:07Well, I think a lot of it is just the ability to combine so much big-time mainline railroading
04:11in a rather small space, because the Virginian was a railroad of tight curves,
04:15short spaces, small railroad yards tucked into little crevices in the mountains,
04:19that sort of thing, and yet you also get the benefit of big engines, big trains,
04:24so it's like a small, short-line railroad on a grand scale.
04:28Yeah, and that's kind of the reason we chose it for our subject for this project.
04:32That's a great reason to choose it for that.
04:34Cool. Well, thanks, Kevin. Appreciate it.
04:35Great. No problem. Thanks, David.
04:41So by now you've had a little bit of a look into the layout and you're saying,
04:43hey, that's a lot more than a 4x8, and you're actually correct.
04:46Our initial section here is 4x8.
04:49Actually, it's 46x8 because we made it narrow enough to fit into the elevator here at work,
04:54but we've added some other components to it,
04:57and that's why we're billing this series as a 4x8 with more.
05:01And so some of that more is this piece right here.
05:04This is our 2005 project railroad.
05:07It was the Turtle Creek extension, a branch line that was made to plug into our old 4x8 Turtle Creek.
05:13We still had it laying around, and we're using it as a photo studio backdrop,
05:17so we nicely converted it over to fit with our Virginian project,
05:22including some sprucing up of the scenery and some little track work and things like that.
05:27Another feature we added to our 4x8 is this 6-foot, 8-inch-long staging yard
05:32that sticks off the side of the layout here.
05:34This actually unplugs and stores on the bracing under the legs of the layout when it's not in use.
05:40So this three-track staging yard really makes it handy for trains to have a place to come and go.
05:45And one more real estate gaining trick is this fold-up section
05:50that fits right onto the front of our Rogers yard area here.
05:54We did this in order to protect the mainline, but also we wanted a station scene.
05:58So again, the layout can fit into the elevator when this is put away and locked underneath,
06:03or when it's bolted in place, we have a nice place to run trains past.
06:08So to finish up our Virginian project railroad preview,
06:12we thought we'd take a helicopter tour and follow several trains around the railroad,
06:16one down the branch line and one around the main.
06:24We hope you enjoyed this video.
06:27If you did, please like and subscribe.
06:30Thanks for watching.
06:54Oh,
07:24Oh,
07:44Well, we hope you've enjoyed this initial look at our Virginian project railroad.
07:48Remember, it starts in the January 2012 issue of Model Railroader magazine,
07:52and keep those subscriptions up to date so that you can watch every episode of our Virginian railroad project video journal.
07:58Thanks for watching.
08:22Oh,
