The setting is the Hudson Division in the Highlands. The time period is roughly 1940s, but Rich manages to dodge the time cops when he runs his Alco PA’s and the Commodore Vanderbilt detours! Rich’s layout covers an area roughly 24’x21′ in a U-shaped configuration, with some easy chairs placed in the middle. This is Rich’s 10th layout, his first was a 3-rail American Flyer system he started in 1944. He started his present layout when he settled into his present home in 1991, but didn’t get to work on it much during the ten years he was playing with a 1:1 scale railroad! Now he has more time to devote and it actively working on it again. Scenery on the Breakneck Ridge area was completed last winter, a little more work needs to be done before starting on the SS 43 section (where four tracks go down to two). Here we see a Westside J-3a #5414 with passenger train eastbound at Breakneck Ridge on NYCSHS director Rich Stoving’s HO scale layout. Digital photograph by John Heitmann using a Nikon D70s, 50mm at 1/3 sec, f/22, processed with Helicon Focus.

Another photo from Stoving’s Hudson Division layout, this time it’s NYC 5344, the shovel-nosed streamlined steam engine named “Commodore Vanderbilt,” seen here exiting Bear Mountain Tunnel eastbound. Digital photograph by John Heitmann using a Nikon D70s, 48mm, 0.4 sec at f/22.