Operating Session - Al Crate's Pittsburg & Shawmut Railroad Layout - Feat.

On the 2nd of this month, Division 11 club member Al Crate was holding an operating session at his layout that evening. Normally on Thursday evenings I would meet up with fellow club member, Chris at his dad, Gary's house to work on his layout and run trains, however Chris was out of the area for the weekend. At the same time, I had already made plans with friend/fellow UA-camr, ‪@TerencetheTractor525‬ (Christian) for us to meet up that day, with the intention of running trains somewhere. Unable to meet up with Chris that evening, we were both pleasantly surprised when Al invited us to attend the op session at his layout.
Al has modeled his layout after the Pittsburg & Shawmut Railroad as it was in the late 1980's, which would've been towards the final years. The Shawmut was once a local railroad with their main shops being in Brookville. The main line consisted of about 88 miles of track between Brockway, Pennsylvania and Freeport, Pennsylvania. The layout currently does not have the line between Brookville and Brockway, but does have the line from Brookville to Freeport. There is also a lower part of the layout, which was modeled after Conrail. I'm unaware what exactly this is part of the layout is meant to replicate, so I can't say too much about it.
On the Shawmut's end of the layout, the line has many trestles, tunnels, coal loaders, and other structures that you would've seen along the line back in the day. Some of my favorite locations on the layout are the Brookville shops, Old Scale, East Branch Viaduct, and Coulter Tunnel to name a few. Of course, what makes this layout are the trains, and you'll notice that the locomotives on this layout are red, white, and blue, as the Shawmut repainted their locomotives in 1976 to celebrate America's bicentennial. Al's railroad is operated via DCC and uses the Digitrax system. This obviously allows you to run multiple trains with multi unit consists, and you'll of course see this in the video.
Overall Christian and I had a great time that evening hanging with Al and the other club members, and Christian himself even had the opportunity to get behind the throttle and run some trains as well. I myself have operated on Al's layout a couple times now, and I really enjoy every opportunity I have to visit the layout, simply because of the interest I have with the Shawmut. Although the railroad has been gone for about 30 years now, in a way the Shawmut still lives on through Al's recreation of it.
If anyone is interested, I have provided a link below where you can find out more about the P&S and its history.
Dennis Snyder's P&S Website: shawmutline.com/
For those who may be interested, I have also provided a link below to Division 11's website, so feel free to head on over there and take a look. If you're in the area and wish to become a member, be sure to reach out to someone as well.
Allegheny Plateau Division's Website:
div11-mcr-nmra....
Facebook: / plowbenderstudios
Discord: / discord
Support the Channel: paypal.me/Plow...
Email: [e-mail]

[@JAYSMODELRAILROAD]

Cool layout wish I could design one like it

[@garymartz7587]

This is a very nice rendition of the Shawmut's Brookville yard. The lower Conrail line was the former Penn Central/Pennsylvania Low Grade secondary line. It would eventually be purchased by the P&S and became the Mountain Laurel Railroad and later purchased by GWI. Unfortunately, most of this trackage has been removed.

[@PlowBenderStudios]

Yes, that is correct. The lower grade between Brookville and Sligo was abandoned sometime in 2007, and the tracks were removed in November. It's now the Redbank Valley Trail. Around 2005 I walked through the tunnel in Brookville and across the viaduct that runs over Redbank Creek. Both are still there today, although the tunnel has experienced 2 cave ins now. I've also been following the route which ran between Brookville and Mahoning, which there are several tunnels and viaducts on that route that I've been looking into.

[@garymartz7587]

@@PlowBenderStudios Thanks! It's sad that these lines have become trails. My Father grew up along the Shawmut, so we made many trips to Brookville to railfan on the P&S from the sixties up till the demise of the line as we knew it.