Overview of the New York, New Haven and Hartford
Bill AldrigeDescription
This is the New York, New Haven and Hartford model railroad of Bill Aldrige. This HO layout is the result of extensive historical research and superb scratch-building skills. Bill fell in love with the New Haven as a child and this devotion continued through his working years as a member of the Board of Directors. With so much of his life tied in with this railroad, it was only natural that the layout in his basement would become a place to hold his memories. It’s also a place for Bill to display his extensive fleet of scratch built steam engines and passenger cars and recreate the majestic days of the passenger railroading, when the train was the way to travel. Bill is a stickler for authentic details on the equipment he builds to reflect these majestic days.
The New Haven layout is designed as a circle around the edge of the room. This is because Bill’s primary interest in the layout was reproducing scenes along the New Haven shore line, which he is very familiar with. He also wanted a relatively simple layout and not a lot of peninsulas which require tremendous amount of maintenance work. The basement in which layout resides is 50 by 35 foot space. He completed it in only three years after the original version was torn down after 20 years. The minimum radius is 50 inches with flex track and the benchwork is made of 2 by 4’s bolted to the wall. The tour around the layout will start in Providence, Rhode Island.
This is the New York, New Haven, and Hartford of Bill Aldrich. This HO layout is the result of extensive historical research and superb scratch building skills. Bill fell in love with the New Haven as a child and this devotion continued through his working years as a member of the Board of Directors. With so much of his life tied in with this railroad, it was only natural that the layout in his basement would become a memory machine. It's a place for him to display his extensive fleet of scratch built steam engines and passenger cars. Recreating the majestic days of passenger railroading when the train was the way to travel, is one of the purposes of this layout. And Bill is a stickler for authentic details on the equipment he builds. Hi, I'm Allen Keller, and this is Bill Aldrich, the creator of the New Haven Railroad that you see here. Bill, the layout is designed as a circle around the edge of the room. Why is that? My primary interest is that it reproduced the scenes along the New Haven shoreline, with which I was familiar. Second reason is I wanted a relatively simple layout and model of peninsulas which require a tremendous amount of maintenance work. The HO scale New Haven runs around the walls of Bill's 50 by 35 foot basement. He completed it in only three years, after the original version, which was 20 years old, was torn down. The minimum radius is 50 inches with the flex track laid on lath strips. The bench work is made of two by fours bolted to the wall. We'll start our trip at Providence, Rhode Island.
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