I am looking a modeling a section on the Reading Lines between Harrisburg and Reading PA. This section of the system was known as the Lebanon Valley Line, and is shown highlighted on the map below (click to view larger).
The total length of the Branch between Reading and Harrisburg was around 53 miles, but located to the East of Harrisburg (6 miles) was Rutherford Yard, a very large and complex Hump yard which is much too large to attempt to model. On the eastern end of the branch the trackage between Reading and Sinking Springs (5.7 miles) was also used by the Reading and Columbia Branch, so I have been focusing on the area between Sinking Springs and Hummelstown which is located appx. 3 miles East of Rutherford.
Using selective compression, I’m looking and including 10 of the 17 towns on the branch. The Reading produced a guide in 1954 called the Freight Shippers Guide which lists which companies where located in each of the towns, if they had a private siding or used the team track and what products they worked with. This guide has been very influential in guiding my decisions on what to model. The towns that I plan to put on the layout are Wernersville, Robesonia, Sheridan, Myerstown, Lebanon, Annville, Palmyra, Hershey, Swatara, and Hummelstown.
I will be putting up a post on each of them and detailing my plans for each of them shortly.
