Lunger Valley Model RailRoad - the beginning

In 1953, my dad and I went out one day to get our first Lionel model trains. I have it until today. About 1993, I set it up again in our Dingmans Ferry basement for the kids to enjoy. It stayed up for about 3 years. Since moving into our new house, the itch got me again last December to set up trains for the grandchildren. The circle under the tree has become a full fledged project.

After an inventory and re-acquaintence period, I tried a tiny layout on a small table. That quickly became too small, so I went to the basement floor, which quickly became too painful. I finally had a good design laid out on paper, so it was time to build an official train table. Here's the 1st one of 3 for the Lunger Valley Model RailRoad (LVMRR).

The table allowed me to lay down some track, see how a train would look, set in some of the original "Plasticville" buildings, and layout the beginnings of the "village" of Lunger Valley.

Of course, I quickly realized that the residents needed a means of transportation throughout the village, so a terrific birthday gift from Robin and Evan got me an original Lionel trolley. It is perfect to carry patrons around the village and down to the station. It nicely surrounds the village park.

Building the 2nd table enabled me to determine track location for the railway surrounding Lunger Valley farm. This is at the heart of the Valley, and will eventually look up to an elevated bridge over Lake Lunger, and an even higher elevation up to Mount Lunger. If you can zoom in on the picture you can see the outline of a square cut in the table. This will allow me to gain access to the inner portion of the layout once all the landscaping is complete. I will come up from underneath the table.

The 3rd table is the location for the Valley's freight yards. Some accessories of interest include a long loader, a milk car and loading platform, and a cop & hobo car. In the foreground is a recent addition from Robin to celebrate my retirement. It is an original 1957 Lionel No. 42 Picatinny Arsenal gas turbine switcher. This No. 42 switcher is a scale model of the (then) new experimental gas turbine switching engine built by Davenport Locomotive Works for the U.S. Armey Transportation Corps. When I retired from Picatinny Arsenal I was credited with 42 years of service - so when I discovered this switcher I just had to have one.

Here's a recent shot of the entire 3 table layout in a corner of the basement. There's plenty of under table storage and access to wiring and farmland access. Next step is to create the ramps along the left side and rear to allow the LVMRR to climb across Lake Lunger and further up through Mount Lunger.

Stay tuned for the further development of the LVMRR.