Ben's GM&O Layout Page

Ben's Model Railroading and GM&O Home Page

LAYOUT

ROSTER

About the Layout

The layout is based on an area of the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio railroad, from Prattville to Montgomery, Alabama. I grew up in this area and when I was a kid, my grandfather would take down to a crossing, just off of highway 31, and let me watch the trains go by. There was another premium place to watch, down off of Upper Kingston Road, at the GM&O freight depot. He would take me about once every two weeks, and I can remember I always liked counting the cars. My favorite engines then, like now, were those big black and white ones (GP-30s). I was always disappointed when, instead, they had one of those rusty red ones (Alco RS or S). That did change as I got older, because I like all of them, now.

Another interesting aspect of this area is the wide variety of industry served just in the Prattville, and Hunter Station area, around highway 31. Oddly enough, these small industries are also represented by a number of common HO kits. As an example, from the Red Devil area, just south of Prattville, you have Prattville Ready Mix (similar to Walthers Medusa kit) and you have a wye that actually goes west to Union Camp paper company (or at least that is what it was called when I was kid). There isn't a kit that actually represents it perfectly, and I don't have a plan for it on my layout, but if I was going to do attempt it, I would probably merge the large Walther's power plant and paper company.

From Red Devil, the line makes a straight shot for Alabama River. The bridge over the river is extremely tall, especially for this part of Alabama. In fact, when I was in high school, it was common for one of the guys, who was afraid of heights, to walk out over the river and look down between the ties at the water. It was supposed to help you conquer your fear of heights. It didn't work for me, and in fact, the two times I did it, I am certain I made the river rise. You could model this bridge using 3 warren truss bridges, but if I decide to incorporate it somewhere (which is not the current plan), for space sake, I would probably only use only one. Across the bridge, you go through a wooded area and then, you come into an industry area called Hunter Station.

The first area is fuel farm, with a distribution area. I remember it was called something like Fleet Petroleum. On the rail side of highway 31 was the fuel farm, and on the other side was the Fleet offices. On the highway side of the rail road, and right next to the fuel farm was Suburban Gas. A service track came off of the mainline, and into the fence surrounding the store, and two large tanks were behind the office. These tanks were the same size as the liquid petroleum tanks that Walthers offers in HO scale. There is a super market kit, that is think is made by life-like, that looks very similar to the Suburban gas building. Right next to Suburban gas was the Union 76 station, which was a splitting image of Al's Victory Service. On the other side of the track, is Standard Forge and Axle. They often had flat cars in the process of being loaded with either complete, large truck axle or train axle assemblies. Here is a current copy of the layout plan, built using Atlas Right Track( blue is the DCC section, red will be analog). If you are interested, in the Atlas RT file, just email me and I will mail it to you.

Hunter Station Baptist Church is actually across the tracks and across Highway 31 from Standard Forge, but I took some modeling license by fitting it, the Union 76 station, and Hunter Station Lumber across the highway from here. I took more liberties with Hooper Stock Yards, which is actually about 10 miles from Hunter Station. This part of the plan has a high probability of changing.

If you go further down the line, and out Old Selma Road, you come to a petroleum distributor. I am including this on my layout, mainly because I purchased GM&O single dome tankers from the GM&O historical society several years ago, and wanted to incorporate something that went nice with them.

Finally, I am incorporating a building isn't that actually isn't there. But, like with the tank cars, I have some GM&O flats, with boats, that I wanted to feature somehow. So, I this building will probably be a cruiser hull manufacturer. My leading idea is calling it Jonas Grumby's Custom Cruiser Hulls. Those Athearn boats always reminded me of the USS Minnow, so I thought the name was fitting (Jonas Grumby is The Skipper, on Gilligan's Island).

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