New Pittsburgh & Lake Erie fan

[P&LE]

Hello all,

Just registered today after lurking and reading for quite a while.

After a lifetime spent following and modeling the MoPac and UP, a recent trip to Pittsburgh introduced me to the P&LE. I think I finally found the perfect railroad to model!!

It has everything I've been looking for. Great scenery, HEAVY freight traffic (it's nickname was "the little giant" due to the tonnage it hauled compared to it's overall size), and (more and more important to me lately) lots of passenger traffic. It's NYC connections are also fascinating.

After lots of research (many nights burning the midnight oil), I've learned a lot about the P&LE and I've narrowed my modeling era down to 1952. Besides being the year my dad was born, this will allow me to enjoy late steam, great early diesels (FM H10-44s and Alco PA-1s), and a fairly heavy passenger schedule.

My scale is gonna be HO, I thought VERY hard about switching to N (easier for running long passenger equipment), but my eyesight, a desire for quite a bit of switching work, and the lack of certain equipment have scared me away. I'll just have to live with space concerns and stick with HO.

I'll be posting questions as I come to them, and I'll also post any info anyone may be interested in about the P&LE.

If there's anything I may be able to offer in the way of P&LE knowledge, particularly late '40s and early '50s, feel free to send me a message and I'll see what I have.

Great Forum.

PLE

[railfan]

Welcome.....howdy do......and now I will read up on the P&LE.....since I've lived around ohio off and on......seems that RR would run somewhere near ohio.....but you never know....until you know....lol. Sounds like a great idea for a layout. Best of luck!

Mike

[P&LE]

Railfan,

Thanks for the welcome.

The P&LE ran in to Ohio, but never made it to the lake. It's western terminus was Youngstown, where it had a hump yard from the late '50s on. Parts of the line is now owned/operated by CSX, but the yard in Youngstown (called Gateway yard) is abandoned.

PLE

[CSX_road_slug]

Welcome to the forum! Great choice for a prototype railroad. Since I like modeling the steel industry, I may have chosen it myself if I wasn't so heavily vested in the B&O. If you can find enough space, I would recommend setting up some Walthers steel mill structures because there were a huge number of those along the P&LE right-of-way during the fifties.

I remember [when I was a kid] having a paperback book full of Howard Fogg watercolors, mainly of the P&LE but also a little WM and other roads. Wish I could figure out whatever happened to it...

[grande man]

Welcome to the forum. You plan sounds like a great project.

[railfan]

Originally Posted by P&LE

Railfan,

Thanks for the welcome.

The P&LE ran in to Ohio, but never made it to the lake. It's western terminus was Youngstown, where it had a hump yard from the late '50s on. Parts of the line is now owned/operated by CSX, but the yard in Youngstown (called Gateway yard) is abandoned.

PLE

I used to live in youngstown in mid 1970's...and my dad lived near struthers just up the hill from the river (mahoning river?) and steel mills.....not very far west of the gateway yard site. I found this and other photos of gateway yard in its time. Then I used google earth to look at it today or as recent as the google earth image is.

Not sure how to capture that G.E. image.....but though the rail appears to have been removed from the yardsite....you can still see lines where the tracks used to be....and a bunch of industrial stuff on the other side of the river is still there. I've probably driven on roads all around there.....but never knew it was there before now. I probably have seen the hazleton yard a few times.


Mike