Piedmont Pilgrimage 2022 Part 3

 Greetings All,

Piedmont Pilgrimage 2022 Part 3

On Saturday, November 12th 2022, I had the good fortune to visit two model train layouts as part of the NMRA Southeast Region, Piedmont Division's layout tours in Georgia known as the Piedmont Pilgrimage.

The Piedmont Pilgrimage celebrates its 20th year of layout tours this year and gives us up close views and interactions with some very talented model railroaders. 

St Louis and Southern RR

I started the day visiting the St Louis and Southern RR of Randall Watson of Suwanee, Georgia. The layout is set in the modern day and covers the Norfolk Southern from St Louis to N. Fort Wayne. For more on the layout read here.

The layout was huge and has 3 1/2 levels. The work done thus far is impressive. 

The NS is well represented.

The helix in a separate room has a 2% grade that gets the trains from level one at 28.5" off the floor to level two at 44.5" high to level three at 60.5" high. The bench work at the top is a reverse loop for level 3.5 that is 78" high and reached by an around the room grade  of about 2% from level three.

The layout room was beautiful as was the workmanship on the layout. Randall uses both extruded foam and hard shell plaster cloth of cardboard strips for his scenery.

Good looking scenes were plenty like this one on level two. The weathering and ballast really bring the scene to life.

Hard shell hills with nice rock work and a good looking backdrop give the sense of traveling far distances.

Randall was a great host and spent a good amount of time giving me a personal tour of his RR. Here he is showing me some of his DCC control boards that are mounted under the layout using drawer slides. Good idea!!

A coal mine waiting to come online. Note Randall is using dump trucks under the structure to the right. Another good idea!!

Hugh Handford Tool Company was a big structure that started out as American Hardware Supply. 

This is a modern era layout and double stacks were plenty. Being the good guest I am I didn't question the 40' container on the 53' container. That was a no-no twelve years ago when I worked for CSX but could be OK now.

A Cement Plant is open for business. Note the HVAC vent. The room was very comfortable and having heat and a/c in Georgia is a good idea.

As you can see Randall's layout is huge occupying most of his basement. In a word I would compliment it as "tight". Meaning it looks great in its present state and I appreciated how the railroad and trains flowed around the room on 3.5 levels.  The construction, track plan, track laying, wiring, structures, scenes, rolling stock and motive power was "tight".

A very big thank you to both Randall and Mrs. Watson for being such friendly outgoing people and fantastic hosts. From the minute I arrived until the time I left both were extremely cordial to all of their guests and perfect hosts for this type of event. Thank you also to the operators who ran the trains.

Onto the next stop!!!

The Brandywine & Benedictine RR

My next stop was the Brandywine & Benedictine Railroad of Norm Stenzel of Suwanee, Georgia. The name may be whimsical but make no mistake this is a serious layout focused on operations. You can read more about it here and here.

The B&B RR aka "The Mason Dixon Line" runs between Winston Salem NC and Pittsburgh PA in 1953 with a 50-50 mix of steam and diesel power. The modeled portion cover the 55 miles from Martinsville, VA to Sulphur Springs, W.VA. Gandin Yard in salem, VA serves as the division point between the Carolina Division to the south and the Allegheny Division to the North.

The layout is housed in a 2300 square foot basement devoted to model railroading consisting of a railroad room, a workshop and a crew lounge. The layout about 2000' of hand laid code 70 track. 

I started my tour at this steel mill which is very impressive.

As I said very impressive!!

An very big!! Slag cars, bottle cars and the flatcars look great. 

Steel coils get loaded. I did say this was big!!

Big and impressive!!

It even has a slag dump!! 

This scene is based on Natural Tunnel in Duffield, VA. 

The B&B is a coal hauler and here is one of the mines. The aisles were very generous and the B&B can comfortably host 18 operators. 

Beautiful scenery and a great sense of historic realism are on display every time I checked something out. As you'll see I couldn't stop taking photos of this masterpiece.

Not overly done the scenery, trains and structures have room to breath.

An empty hopper train sits in yard. 

Steam engines get serviced. Possibly the Pauldon Helpers which are added to most northbound trains. Note the car cards and waybills. This is a serious operation.

Maybe not so much today! The Hogwarts Express comes thru to the delight of the Harry Potter fans who are visiting.

And there it goes! Mrs. Stenzel had pleasure of running this train during my visit.

A close up of the steam engines and their facilities. Very impressive.

A coal served industry.

The gentle curves, buildings, backdrop structures and mountains really give a another excellent view of the work put into this beautiful layout.

Here's the same scene from a different angle.

Rail served industries. The greenery at the front edge really sets off another realistic scene. The bridge dead ends as the layout edge.

Diesels and steam engines congregate at the roundhouse and turntable. The black and yellow units are painted and lettered for the Brandywine & Benedictine.

The steam fleet is also painted and lettered for the Brandywine & Benedictine.

A view of the yard, passenger station and coach yard.

The B&R hauls passengers as well as coal and general merchandise.

As I said this layout is seriously focused on operations. An interchange track with a tower protecting the crossing and all the necessary paperwork, switch control buttons, DCC power source and a telephone add to the realism of running this trains on this layout. 

I made it back to the yard area when it cleared out. Another well planned and laid out scene. Check out the orange rims on the B&O trailers. Good idea!

A B&B Alco burbles away in the yard. Note the red & green pinheads near the switch stands. Another good idea!

A nice corner scene with about eight tracks and plenty of space between them. 

As we come around the corner it looks like a car repair shop and caboose track.

An ice house and platform. Perfect for 1953.

Hemingway Finishing Company has expanded!!! First spotted on John Travis' Johnstown and Gerryville RR in Part 1 it looks like Mr. Hemingway is well known to Norm Stenzel as well. They are both NMRA-SER-Piedmont Division members after all. I wonder if anything actually gets finished here!

A fine looking mine!!!

One more photo of the coal mine before I depart.

The last photo!!! The company houses and a beautiful scene call for one more shot of this masterpiece layout.

If I had one word to describe this layout it is a toss up between masterpiece or serious. I'm choosing serious because of its focus, attention to detail, attention to operating prototypically complete with a B&B timetable, working signals and the option of running under Centralized Traffic Control or Time Table & Written Train Order. But it sure is a masterpiece!!! 

A big thank you to Norm Stenzel and Mrs. Stenzel for allowing me visit and being another set of fine hosts.Thank you also to the  operators who were running the B&B this day. I really enjoyed my visit here as you an tell and appreciated Mrs. Stenzel cluing me in on where the name of the railroad came from. 

Mrs. Stenzel's favorite drink at one time was a B&B, a drink made up of French Brandy and Benedictine Liqueur and she once worked on Brandywine Street. She liked the name and here we are. BTW the drink was reportedly first made at the 21 Club in Manhattan, NY in the 1930's.

So far I'm six for six on the Piedmont Pilgrimage layout tours. A big thank you to everyone who put this together, coordinated the tours and the layout owners and their families who opened their homes to the visitors. You are all truly ambassadors of the World's Greatest Hobby. 

Thanks for reading!!!

See you soon!!!