1 - O Scale Trains Magazine Online

The Cabin Creek LineArticle and Photos by Don EastmanCabin Creek Line was a coal haulin’ branchline of theChesapeake and Ohio Railway. This branchline wandered 18miles up the ”holler” through some of West Virginia’s richestKanawha coalfields. During the ’30s and ’40s, there were 51coal tipples along the route with no roads in sight. All suppliesto the coal tipples and company stores were moved in, andcoal was moved out, on a single rail line.Motive power, because of the stiff grade, consisted of 2-6-6-2 Mallets. Tandem 2-8-0’s, 0-8-0’s, and 0-10-0’s did theshifting of the hundreds of coal cars.During the late 1980s, layout and benchwork for my OScale Cabin Creek branchline model got underway. A gridworkof 3/4” birch plywood, cut in 5” strips, was drilled so thewiring would not hang below the gridwork. The backdrop is1/8” Masonite, attached to the wall for the ‘sky’. Cardboardmountain shapes were erected on the benchwork, free-standingfrom the sky. Contours of cardboard and masking tape,covered with Sheetrock 90 plaster and paper towels, form themountain scenery.All rock outcroppings were hand-carved and painted witha mixture of latex white and oil-based black paint, mixedtogether in the same can. This resulted in excellent rock painting.The forest effect of West Virginia was achieved with bagsand bags of lichen. The roadbed was band-sawed, from oneinchbarn pine, to the curvature of the track. The ties were cutfrom basswood and stained with Jacobean stain. Code 125plastic tie-plates were pre-painted and handlaid, precedingthe weathered nickel-silver rail, hand-spiked at every third orfourth tie. There is a total of 250 feet of track.Turnouts were kit-formed and are from Old Pullman. Themaximum grade is 5% for the Shay to climb to the sawmill;otherwise the total trackplan is at zero, or 54” from the floor. • O Scale Trains - Nov/Dec ’07The railroad is controlled using a MRC Tech 3 Power Command9500 and an Innovator 2000 hand-control.On my O Scale layout, all the actual structures are fromthe West Virginia area, and were drawn to scale and scratchbuiltto an exacting detail. More than 100 structures were allbuilt from basswood that was cut in my wood shop, althoughNortheastern and Mt. Albert Scale Lumber Company suppliedthe wood siding. Most of the windows are commercial, butsome prize models were built from scratch.All coal hoppers and C&O cabooses were scratchbuilt ofcardstock, wood siding, styrene and brass angles. Trucks werefrom Jim Watson (Old Pullman).Let’s take a ride in a Weaver 2-8-0, #701, up the branchline.This locomotive is pulling the daily mail car and a convertedC&O coach from the 1880’s. This car has been rebuilt1