Covid interrupted and slowed the progress, but a substantial amount of work has been completed on the new Carolina Model Railroad layout, thanks to the efforts of a dedicated team of club members.   

The original DC layout with HO, N and HOn3 scale trackage was constructed in 1973 in one of the former waiting rooms at the ex-Southern Railway train station adjacent to our current location in the former Railway Express Agency building.  When the station was renovated beginning in 2001, the club moved to a former knitting mill in northeast Greensboro and then to our current location in October 2003.  It and the current layout have been DCC since then, with electronics by Digitrax. In 2019, the 2003 layout was dismantled and a new adventure was begun. 

Below is the track plan for the HO portion of our new layout depicting the Piedmont, Sandhills and western North Carolina.  

The HO layout has 1200 feet of code 83 track, 42 yard switches, five rivers and 195 structures, as of June 2023

Below is the N scale freelanced (not meant to represent any specific area) layout

 

                                                               

Seen above is the layout room in the former Greensboro Railway Express Agency building, with the HO portion of the layout in the foreground and the N scale layout in the distance

    

Greensboro Pomona Yard spot car repair and crew facilities on the HO (above)

The N scale layout is seen above

Big hands, tiny little cars.  On the N scale (above).  

One of two mines and backdrop on the N scale layout (above)  

An operating session on the HO layout (above)

Don't you wish you were lazing along in that boat?  On the HO (above)

A picnic next to the tracks on the HO (above)

Santa Fe's "El Capitan" passing a Union Pacific train on the N scale layout

Scenes (above) on the HO

 The Perdue grain elevators in Candor NC, seen on the HO (above)

Greensboro intermodal yard on the HO (above)

Color for the usually monochrome Norfolk Southern (on the HO above)

Work progresses on the western NC mountain landscape on the HO (above)

1940's small town scene on the HO (above)

Coming around the wye (seen above on the HO).

Norfolk Southern freight train passes old factories on the N scale above.

Central of Georgia Fairbanks-Morse unit with a freight on the HO (below)

From across the pond: 4-6-2 "Tornado" (above left) and 0-6-0 Class J-11 from the UK (above right) on the HO; GB Railfreight Class 66 (essentially an SD40-2 built by EMD) on the HO (below)

The HO model in the two photos below is of Evonik Stockhausen Chemical in Greensboro. 

A fixture in Greensboro for years, it is the largest manufacturer in the world of a super-absorbent polymer used in diapers and similar products, producing over 100,000 metric tons a year. 

 

 Below are views showing details inside some structures on the HO layout

Susquehanna GE B40-8's rolling though town on the HO (above)

Excited Superliner passengers as Amtrak heads out on the HO (above)

 

43-car Bangor & Aroostook freight rounds the bend on the HO (above)

N&W local freight pulled by an Alco RS-11 on the N scale (above)

A big DL&W 4-6-4 eases into a little depot one day in 1940 on the HO

Other scenes on the HO below

                                               

Switching the HO layout with a Burlington Northern unit one afternoon (above)

Southern Railway freight train with GE power on the N scale (above)

Scenes around the Siler City NC depot on the HO (below)  

CSX freight on the HO (above) 

The people living in these houses above are all railfans

 

Taking out a load of scrap metal on the HO above

US Army Transportation Corps HO train pulled by 65-ton Whitcomb diesel (above)

It's a busy day on the back dock at the HO scale Bartlett Milling

The HO Greensboro Pomona Yard, with the Colonial Pipeline petroleum tank farm in the background. The actual Pomona Yard has a capacity of over 800 freight cars. Colonial's 600-acre Greensboro complex is the largest on their 5500 mile system, with pipeline branches to other cities in the eastern US that deliver 3 million barrels of 86 types of petroleum products daily.  The Colonial site and other company facilities nearby make it one of the largest tank farms in the US, with a capacity of over a billion gallons of refined petroleum products stored in over 125 tanks within a mile radius.  

Pulling freight through the edge of town on the HO (above)

An evening train glides into town on the HO (above)

Another view of the HO layout (above) and the N scale in the distance

Above: Southern Pacific "Daylight" passenger train on the N scale

(Above) The HO National Pipe and Plastics facility in Colfax NC

Other scenes from around the HO layout below -   

  

 

 

 

The HO Davie St. Bridge (above) as it is sometimes seen

 

Joe (above) knows exactly where to stop his train on the HO

Digitrax power station for the N scale layout