One of my all-time favorite railroads is the old Seaboard Air Line, which ran from Richmond, Virginia to Miami, Florida and a whole lot of places in between.

I grew up in Georgia and researched, railfanned and modeled the SAL for decades.  When I bought my first house in 1992 I set aside a small bedroom to model the SAL route through Petersburg, Virginia, which I thought was a perfect prototype for a small, one-town model railroad.  I collected a lot of information about Petersburg over the years and I thought a blog post about the place would be inspiring and fun.  

Below.  A northbound SAL train about to pass underneath the ACL overhead bridge in Petersburg.  Four motors are pulling a long train with a whole lot of head-end traffic. 

Below.  Here’s an aerial photo of the compact, very modelable SAL route through Petersburg, circa 1957.  The major features, from right (north) to left (south):

• A very long steel viaduct over the Appomattox River and the N&W
• A short branch into town (to warehouses, a suitcase factory and SAL’s Market Street Station)
• A short stretch of factories along the main track
• A small, two-track yard along the main line
• A “new” depot built in 1944
• More warehouses
• An ACL overhead crossing (no interchange)
• And just out of view, a small yard to interchange cars with the N&W

…and that’s it.  The long Appomattox River bridge and the ACL overhead bridge serve as bookends, with a station and a bunch of industries jammed in the middle.

Here’s a rotated view of the photo above, calling attention to the some details.  

Below.  This aerial photo from around 1959 that shows the N&W “old main line” running along the top of the photo from left to right.  Seaboard’s long bridge across the Appomattox River and the N&W can be seen diagonally on the far right.  The shadow cast by the bridge is prominent.  

A quick Google search of “Seaboard Railroad, Petersburg, Virginia” will reveal a few more photos I couldn’t add here.  There are a few nice ones in the online J. Parker Lamb photo gallery at http://www.railphoto-art.org/collections/lamb/group-three/.  Check ’em out if you have a chance.  

Below.  A southbound SAL train charging over the bridge.  The date and photographer are unknown, but looking at the consist this appears to be The Orange Blossom Special.  

My old friend Walt Gay kindly allowed me to use some of his photos for this post.  Walt has lived in the Petersburg area his whole life and railfanned the SAL extensively.  Here are two of Walt’s photos from the early-SCL era, showing how tall the viaduct was over the river and the N&W.  Thanks Walt!

SAL’s first station in Petersburg station was built in the 1880s and was a stub-end terminal located on Market Street near city-center.  A single-track branch left the main track at Dunlop Street and stub-ended at the Market Street Station.  The branch also served the massive Seward Luggage Co., an SAL freight house and a few other small customers on the way to the station.  The branch was less than a mile long and can be seen in the large aerial photo shown above.  Last time I checked, around 2002, the old Market Street station was still standing.

Below.  Along the branch to Market Street, SAL installed a small diesel fuel facility for local switchers.  The huge Seward Luggage Company complex is in the background.  Photo courtesy Bob’s Photos.

To eliminate slow back-up moves to the Market Street Station downtown, SAL sold it and built a new depot on the main line on Dunlop Street around 1910.  A wonderful photo from the online Barriger Library collection is included below.  It is the only known photo of the Dunlop Street Station.  The view is south.  In the left foreground you can see the branch to Market Street leaving the main track and curving away from the main track. 

The Dunlop Street Station was located on the sharp curve leading to the viaduct, and trains stopping here–in either direction–would often leave cars hanging uncomfortably over the bridge.  Starting and stopping heavy trains on the sharp curve was also a problem.

Below.  I have a mountain of slides and prints taken in this area going back to the early 1980s, but they are all in storage back in the U.S.  The few images I do have include this view of some small factory buildings at the site of the old Dunlop Street station.  The main track to the viaduct curved sharply to our left.

On the other side of Dunlop Street were a few factories.  A larger warehouse complex has been saved and turned into loft apartments.  Another factory–the Titmus Optical Supply Company–is still extant but it in a poor state of repair.  I have a ton of pictures of Titmus but they too are all in storage.  Here’s a good view of the small plant thanks to Google Earth.  The view is distorted a little because of the 3D image software; interestingly the software makes it almost look like a painting.  SAL used to run along the grassy side of the building at left.  There were at least three or four car spots.

Next to Titmus is the Long Manufacturing Company, seen below.  Long had spots for 2-3 cars on a slightly lower level adjacent to the main line.  The factory consisted of two long warehouses, a couple of large Quonset huts, and another steel fab building.  This is another Google Earth view.

In 1944 SAL built another new station about a half-mile south of the old station on Commerce Street, adjacent to the Long Manufacturing Company site seen above.  This was SAL’s last depot in town, and was a small, classy, colonial-style depot with a long platform.  SAL retired and razed the Dunlop Street station after the new depot was placed in service.

Good photos of the 1944-built station on Commerce Street are hard to find.  On the track side, the station was obscured by the long platform and photographing the depot itself was practically impossible.  On the street side, well…nobody bothered taking pictures.  The station itself was small–just a few rooms.

Walt’s best photo of the depot is this one below.  Walt took this photo to record one of the last runs of the old Silver Star passenger train.   That’s SCL 515, a former ACL E-6, in the lead.  This view faces north.  

Here’s one of my all-time favorite Walt Gay photos, below.  This view is also at Commerce Street but facing the opposite direction.  This view shows a northbound SCL train ready to hoop up orders at Commerce Street.  The lead engine is a former SAL E-7, originally SAL 3017, now in SCL paint.  Love the rainy, late afternoon ambiance.

Below.  Here’s another cool Walt Gay photo showing an SCL-era train, southbound, passing Commerce Street—just barely out of view at the far left—and the quarter-mile long row of warehouses next to the depot.  In a moment this train will be heading under the ACL overpass.  This image was probably made around 1970.  The engines display a neat mix of early SCL liveries.  In the lead is an SCL GP-40 in the “bumblebee” scheme (the former ACL colors).  Next is a former SAL GP-35 in dark green, and third is another former SAL engine, a GP-40, in “Jolly Green Giant” paint. 

If your a diesel-era guy there’s a decent ACL-SAL-to-SCL conversion roster online at https://www.thedieselshop.us/SCL.HTML.  That’s the site I used to figure out which SCL e-units are in Walt’s photos.

A few hundred yards south of the 1944 station the SAL ducked underneath the double-track main line of rival Atlantic Coast Line.  There was no ACL interchange here, just an overhead crossing.  However, just past the bridge was a connection with the N&W, whose line ran along the Appomattox River valley nearby as seen on the aerial photos.  SAL and N&W shared a three-track connection here. 

This photo, below, courtesy Bob’s Photos (it may originally be an H. Reid negative) shows SAL 1109 moving tonnage under the ACL bridge.  For decades SAL operated a local “Petersburg Turn” from the road’s main classification yard in north Richmond to Petersburg and back.  This could be the turn, picking up cars from the N&W connection. 

SAL 1109, by the way, was one of 50 F-7 class 0-6-0s built in 1930.  They were widely regarded as the most modern and powerful 0-6-0s ever built.  I was paging through the old Richard Prince SAL book last night and found a photo of 1109 in Richmond, so I suspect this engine was assigned there until the end of steam in 1951 or so. 

Below.  This Walt Gay photo in the exact same area, about 25 years later, shows an SCL-era passenger train overhead on the former ACL overhead bridge.  As the photo says, we’re looking “railroad south” on the SAL lines.

The photo below is from 1957, showing the SAL at center and the N&W line at top.  The interchange yard is the diagonal trackage seen on the top left of the photo.  Coast Line can be seen going from top to bottom of the photo on the right side.  The SAL Commerce Street Station is just out of the view to the far right.  If you blow up the photo, you can also see that the fair is in town.  See all the tents and rides and things on the bottom right?

My friend Herman Wilkins grew up in Petersburg and was an SAL fan, and he wrote to me often.  He once wrote, Incidentally, that is the circus in your photo that is seen on the field to the right of the ACL mainline. When the circus came to town, it always set up on that field.  Look at the line of white cars on the SAL track between the SAL mainline and the interchange track to the N&W.  I am almost certain that is the circus train.  At one time, sometime after 1958, there was a Pepsi bottling plant built at that location.  After the SCL merger, the old SAL mainline was cut north and south of Petersburg and a connection built off the old ACL to the old SAL line. It was called the Battersea Lane connection after the nearby, historic Battersea area of Petersburg.  That track served the Pepsi facility.  I haven’t been able to tie down the date that connection was built but it was definitely after the Seaboard-ACL merger in 1967.

South of the ACL overhead crossing and the N&W connection there wasn’t much else on the SAL.  There was a hospital that took a carload or two of coal for a heating plant, and a few miles further south was another N&W crossing at Ryan (seen below, with the SAL running top to bottom). 

At Ryan an SAL connection ran up alongside the N&W to reach a long yard to interchange cars with both N&W and ACL.  The interchange yard ran alongside the N&W and was called “Seacoast”–a combination of Seaboard and Coast Line, since N&W used it to transfer cars to both roads.  In later years a steel plant was built at Ryan and was served by both SCL and N&W.  NS has all that business today.

There wasn’t much else on the rest of the Richmond Subdivision all the way to Raleigh, which is a big reason why the whole line was torn up in the 1980s.

I built a small layout of the town scene but moved to a condo two years later, and the little layout came down for good.  The warehouses and luggage factory on the branch and the warehouses along the main track offered just enough switching.  The N&W interchange served as the major industry, so to speak.  I also modeled the Ryan connection as visible staging to add a little bit more switching.  The SAL viaduct and the ACL overhead offered some visual breaks and interest.  It was a fun layout.

For kicks, I’m adding an excerpt from a 1944 SAL employee timetable, which shows 24 scheduled trains a day on the single-track, CTC-controlled line through Petersburg, not including locals.  I hope you can download it.

Hope you enjoyed this little trip through Petersburg.  My personal thanks to Walt and Herman for sharing the memories.  – John G

Thanks to work and family there hasn’t been much modeling happening lately–none, in fact.  To keep the discussion going here is a story on a nice modeling site near my adopted hometown of O’Fallon, Illinois. –

Near my adopted hometown of O’Fallon, Illinois is the small city of Belleville, Illinois.  Illinois Central’s busy St. Louis main line ran through Belleville, and while I was visiting St. Louis this summer I spent a few hours railfanning around the old station area.  I’ve always thought IC line through Belleville would make an interesting one-town layout. 

Belleville grew up as a small industrial center and coal mining town in the shadow of East St. Louis.  Three big railroads made their way through Belleville: Louisville & Nashville, Southern, and Illinois Central. 

The nice view of Belleville’s Illinois Central station was taken by my buddy Loren Casey in 1992, long after the depot was sold off by the IC.

A few shortlines moved Illinois coal through Belleville too, most notably the St. Louis, Belleville and Electric–which ran under wire–as shown in the photo below.  The StLB&E is one of my favorite electric roads, with odd-looking engines and gritty, suburban coal mines.  The photo below is provided courtesy of John Carty.

Illinois Central’s main line to St. Louis is now operated by CN, and it’s still busy.  IC’s ornate brick station still stands on Illinois 159 just south of downtown, and near the depot there were a number of rail-served industries and a lot of main line action.  I’ve always thought this area would make a great one-town layout, or LDE as it’s called–a Layout Design Element.

Here’s an aerial view captured from Google, showing Illinois 159 running north-south right down the center of the photo.  The depot is just to the right of IL 159 at lower center and the large freight house is across the highway on the left.  A few of the old industries are still there, and the remnants of a few short sidings can still be seen.

Here’s a circa 1970 view of the depot after it was sold off by IC.  I included this view because it’s the only one I have that shows the large coal dealer that existed behind the depot.

Below.  Here’s a Sanborn map, circa 1920s of the depot area.  In the World War I era IC had a small depot on the west side of IL 159 closer to the freight house.  This depot was removed in the 1920s and a larger depot as seen above was built across the street.  In addition to the coal dealer there were a few more tracks behind the depot that reached freight customers closer to downtown.   

Here’s a nice view of an eastbound train at the new depot, circa the mid-1960s.  This photo is from the Kohlberg Consortium Collection, courtesy John Kohlberg.  Love that slant nose!

A few hundred yards south of the depot and just out of view of the Sanborn maps, a short branch left the main line and turned north to reach a couple of plants.  And these are plants of great modeling interest too–an iron stove foundry and a brick plant.  

The large brick freight house on the other side of IL 159 can be seen in the background of the photo above.  Here’s another view provided by John Kohlberg.

The depot was sold off by the railroad around 1970 and the freight house became the depot for IC as far as freight operations were concerned.  An operator was stationed there in the 1960s, hence, the order board and train order stand.

Below.  Here’s a view of the freight house from July, 2018.  It too was sold off in the early 70s.  

Here’s the other half of the Sanborn map from the World War I years.  This view is a few hundred yards west of the depot.  Things get interesting behind the freight house.  There was a water tower next to the freight house, and behind it were a number of tracks that reached team tracks and commercial customers. 

The tracks heading off to the left of the photo, according to John Kohlberg, are the “southbound main”.  IC had two mainline routes running south out of St. Louis that met here in Belleville.  “When IC installed CTC here in the 1960s”, John told me, “they pulled up the southbound main.”

Here’s an aerial view of the same area today.

Behind the depot is this cool grain elevator.  If you look closely in the views of the freight house posted above you can see this building in the background.  It had a large red and white Purina checkboard painted on the track side of the building.

Half a block north is this more modern silo complex.

Here’s another view, below, looking west.

Below.  A closeup of the loading machinery. 

Across the tracks from the grain silos is this structure.  It’s unlikely this exact structure was standing in the 50s or 60s, but there is plenty of evidence that there was once a siding here, and there are remnants of concrete bins everywhere, plus old telephone poles and other things, that indicate there was a once a thriving industry in this spot.

Just across the tracks is the huge St. Elisabeth’s Catholic Hospital complex.  One of my daughters was born there in 2004.  IC delivered coal to the hospital’s powerhouse for decades.  

An update.  After I posted about the siding to the power plant at the hospital, Loren Casey wrote and corrected the record:

Just a quick note about something I found out from the old IC crew guys I meet with once a month.    That spur next to St Elizabeth’s hospital was not for coal delivery to the hospital.   It actually went past the hospital to an Illinois Power facility a couple blocks further north.  Coal and other things were deliverd.   The old heads were talking about delivering long poles that had to be carried on two flats and that they would groan going around a curve up that spur.   

So there it is–a neat little place to model with a neat depot and freight house at center stage, plus plenty of industry in every direction.  Plus there’s lots of run-through opportunities too.  I hope to find more photos and also find out if and where the IC line interchanged with the Southern and electric roads, as that would add a lot more  modeling interest.  – John G

A few weeks ago I got really frustrated trying to find Sanborn maps for some areas I’ve been researching in St. Louis.  I’ve been trying to assemble material for a couple of blog articles on small layout ideas but have not been able to gather suitable information.

In frustration, about three weeks ago, I went back to the US Department of Agriculture website and ordered a complete set of their earliest available aerial photography for the entire St. Louis area.  The process was so easy that I’m disappointed with myself for not doing it much earlier.

The USDA site can be found online at https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/aerial-photography/index.  I e-mailed a request, carefully following the instructions on their site, and included a map that highlighted the areas I was interested in.  I also told them I preferred digital copies since hard copies are much more expensive and take longer to print and deliver.  

I got a response from Linda Cotter at the USDA the following day.  She sent me an entire set of 28 photos for the St. Louis and East St. Louis area for just $25.  The images are from 1955 through 1958.  The images are TIFs; they’re about 400 megabytes each and were sent on a thumb drive and arrived here in Germany in just eight days.  It was necessary to crop them down and convert them to JPEGs to present here.

Here’s an example of the photos.  The image below is at the where the MacArthur Bridge lands on the west bank of the Mississippi.  The area just south of the bridge has always intrigued me.  In the transition era there was a maze of track with warehouses and industries everywhere.  Soon after these photos were taken, the area north of the bridge was obliterated to fit in a massive interstate highway bridge and junction, and also the Gateway Arch park.

Here is a view of the same area, below, from the Barriger Library collection on Flickr.

The photos are fascinating.  They answer a lot of questions I have had about St. Louis’s rail history and local industries.  In the photos, all the yards are still in place, all the roundhouses can clearly be seen, and nearly all of St. Louis’s famous industries are right there in black and white.

Below is an area I’ve been studying for years, just off the Missouri Pacific about a mile west of St. Louis Union Station.  I like the yards and the tracks curving sharply into the factories

The image below is the same area today, from Google Earth.

There are some other cool things to be seen—or not seen—as well.  Landmarks like the St. Louis Browns stadium, the original Monsanto plant, the ACF plant next to the Budweiser brewery, and East St. Louis in all it’s economic greatness (no kidding!) can be seen.  There are no hideous Interstate highways, no Poplar Street Bridge, and no Gateway Arch

By the way, the earliest photos maintained at the USDA date to about 1955.  If you want earlier photos, you’ll have to talk to the National Archives in Washington D.C.  The good news about the USDA collection is that it is virtually complete in it’s coverage of the United States.

Below, the B&O Cone Yard roundhouse, which was still standing along I-55/70 in East St. Louis the last time I was in town in 2017.  The PRR main line runs through the center of the photo behind the roundhouse.

The imagery isn’t quite as sharp as what you can get on Google Earth for example, but they’re good.  In almost all cases you can make out tracks, rolling stock, and other details.  

Below.  I’ll have to talk to Ed Hawkins about this one…but I think this is the ACF plant on the Missouri side.  Can anyone help me confirm this?  On the right along the river is the Missouri Pacific main, and at the bottom left is part of the compact Manufacturer’s Railway yard that served the A-B brewery.

There is so much more in the photos that I can’t share here.  They’re priceless for the prototype modeler and researcher.  And at just twenty five bucks, they’re worth every penny.  – John G

What does this post have to do with prototype railroad modeling?  Nothing…but I thought you might like seeing something a little different.

A few typically cold, overcast and rainy Saturdays ago I visited the railroad museum in Neustadt, Germany, which is about 45 minutes away from my home.

I have never been a fan of European railroading but now that I am living in Germany I have taken a little more interest.  Most German railroading today looks like the photo below.  This is the passenger station at Neustadt very near the museum.  Most railroading in Germany is about moving passengers–it is fast, safe, efficient, and well-maintained.  Freight traffic is limited to specific routes.

Just out of the picture to the left, along the wall, is a nice little museum contained in a few older buildings.  This is the Eisenbahnmuseum Neustadt—the Neustadt Railroad Museum.  The museum was founded in 1967 and moved to it’s present location in 1972.  My online buddy John Hodson told me about last year.

The view below is what greets you upon entering the museum grounds.  The main building at center is a retired steam engine shed.

The museum grounds are cramped, and most of the collection is outdoors.  Even the collection housed indoors is under a shed and is for the most part exposed to the elements.  It’s not very fun too look around on a cold day.  It is cramped and photography is difficult.  Nevertheless it was definitely worth my time to see the collection, which included locomotives, rolling stock, signals, and a variety of equipment.  The fireless tank engine and freight car are right up front as you walk in.

Below is a very interesting display.  A steam engine has been literally chopped in half so you can see how steam was created and routed through the “engine”.

Below.  I have never been a fan of VW busses, having driven one occasionally in high school.  However, I would drive this one if given the opportunity.  This was an inspection car for the Pfaltz Railway.  There is no steering wheel–just a speed control where the steering wheel should be.  I don’t recall seeing if it was stick-shift, but that would be interesting.

Another view, below, of the VW Inspection Van and the tracks leading to the museum trackage.

Speaking of the museum trackage, at the entrance end is a cool three-way switch.  You don’t see too many of these around the US, but they’re all over Europe.  The only one I ever saw on an active line was on the Aberdeen and Rockfish in Aberdeen, North Carolina–and that one is a stub-end!

There are a few freight cars in the collection, including these wagons pictured below.

The museum also has a nice collection of signal equipment.  A few of these semaphore-type signals are still active on a few lines around Germany.

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In addition to these 1:1 signals, the museums very-very-narrow gauge line can be seen at the bottom of this photo.

Under the shed in the museum are a number of pieces of rolling stock in good condition, including steam engines and passenger cars used in excursion service.  Photography is virtually impossible.  Outside, behind the museum, are a number of pieces of rolling stock including this rusting engine.

This is a self-propelled snow plow engine in very good condition.  Other engines are also kept in good condition.

And finally…here’s the pride and joy of the museum.  The 18 505 was built in 1908 by Krauss-Maffai in Munich.  It is a 2’C1′ locomotive type, weighing in at 163 tons.  Top speed was 120 km/h. It is in good condition and smells great–like a steam engine should.  I believe it is still in running condition.

If you’re interested in more information, the museum’s website is http://www.eisenbahnmuseum-neustadt.de/index.html