White Oak Branch, WV--11'x17' Track Plan

Scale: HO
Minimum Radius: 28"
Minimum Aisle Width: 36"
Designed by Dan Bourque

This bedroom-sized layout represents the Virginian's White Oak Branch in West Virginia.   It is considerably compressed, bt all of the major features of the branch are included.  Minimum radius was reduced to 28" to get things to fit.  The White Oak Branch originally started as the White Oak Railway which served the mines at Lochgelly and Summerlee.  The White Oak interchanged with the C&O at Carlisle, WV, and the Virginian at Oak Hill Jct., WV.  The White Oak was sold to both the Virginian and C&O in 1917.  Even though it was sold to both railroads, in reality the C&O would interchange cars at Carlisle, and the Virginian (later the N&W) would move them to the mines.

The Virginian (and N&W) ran the White Oak as its own railway all the way into the 1970s.  In the diesel era, a Trainmaster (later an SD9) was kept at Oak Hill to serve as the branch's exclusive switcher.  The switcher would pick up empties from the Virginian mainline at Oak Hill Jct., but most of the traffic came in the form of C&O loads bound for the Summerlee coal prep plant (a destination for both loads and empties).   Because of the switchbacks and shortage of run-around tracks, the switcher had to make a lot of pushing moves to get its work done.  The C&O crew would run from staging into Carlisle to drop-off both empties and loads and to work the mine at Oakwood.