Welcome
Well, you found it. Welcome to my little corner of the World Wide Web. My name is Ed Kowalski and I spent 38 years running locomotives for the Pennsylvania Railroad, then Penn Central, then Conrail, mostly up and down the Middle Division and over the Mountain. When I hung up my grip in 1998 my wife Carol said, and I quote, "Edward, you are not going to sit in that chair." She was right, as usual. I went down to the basement instead, and I have been there more or less ever since.
This site documents the Juniata Valley & Western, my HO scale model railroad. I taught myself the HTML from a library book in 2004 and I update these pages myself, so if something looks crooked, that is authentic hand craftsmanship and I will thank you not to email me about it. Unless a link is broken. Do email me about that.
Pull up a chair. Watch your head on the duct by the stairs.
About the Layout
The Juniata Valley & Western occupies a 24 by 13 foot room in my basement, double-decked, with a helix in the old coal cellar connecting the levels. The railroad is set in the summer of 1956, which is the summer I turned twelve and decided what I was going to do with my life, so the era was never really up for debate.
The JV&W is a freelanced bridge line. The story I tell is that it connects the Pennsylvania Railroad main at Juniata Falls with the Glen Hollow branch, a coal hauler winding up into the ridges to a mine that geologists will confirm does not exist. Freelancing gets you funny looks from the rivet counters, but it means nobody can tell me my paint scheme is wrong, and after 38 years of taking orders from dispatchers I enjoy being the president of the railroad.
Some particulars for those who like particulars: 41 turnouts, most of them handlaid on the visible portions, Peco in the hidden trackage where my conscience does not have to look at them. Code 83 rail on the main, code 70 on the branch. Minimum radius 30 inches on the main level. The railroad was converted to DCC in 2019 after much grumbling. I held out for years on the grounds that I had wired the original block control myself and it worked fine, but the club fellows wore me down, and I will now admit in print that they were right. Running two trains through Juniata Falls with a throttle in each hand and no toggles to flip is the closest thing to being back on the head end that a man my age is going to get.
One more thing about the layout, and it is the part I would keep if I had to give up all the rest. Carol painted the backdrop in 2007. She was a watercolor person, never touched acrylics before, and she grumbled about it the way I grumbled about DCC. But she got the clouds over the ridge exactly the way they stack up on a July afternoon in the Alleghenies, and people who visit always ask about them before they ask about the trains. Carol passed in the fall of 2021. Friends from the club have offered to help me extend the backdrop when the upper deck grows, and we will match the new sections in as best we can. The layout will keep changing, layouts always do. The clouds stay.
Tour the Layout
Six scenes, in the order a westbound would see them. My nephew Danny scans the prints for me, and where the photos came out too dark he helped me draw the scene instead, which I have decided counts.
The Horseshoe Curve homage, my pride and joy. The trees took a winter.
The engine terminal at Juniata Falls. The turntable is a Diamond Scale kit from an estate sale, and it still indexes true.
The wood trestle at milepost 4 on the Glen Hollow branch. Scratchbuilt from stripwood, 212 pieces. I counted.
The Juniata River crossing. The girders are rattle-can primer gray and in 20 years nobody has ever noticed.
Downtown Millersport, with the depot at right. Carol named the hardware store after her father, and it does more business than the railroad some days.
The Glen Hollow Coal Co. tipple, the whole reason the branch exists. Loads out, empties in, same as it ever was.
The Roster
Current motive power of the Juniata Valley & Western, ten locomotives as of this writing. The DCC address is the road number, which is the only sensible way to do it and I will debate anyone at the club who says otherwise.
| Road No. | Type | DCC Addr. | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| JVW 10 | 0-6-0 switcher | 10 | The yard goat at Juniata Falls. My first brass engine, 1983. Runs like a watch. |
| JVW 25 | 2-8-0 Consolidation | 25 | Pulls the Glen Hollow turn most sessions. Rebuilt gearbox in 2022. |
| JVW 27 | 2-8-0 Consolidation | 27 | Sister to 25. Sound decoder crackles, needs work. It is on the list. |
| JVW 88 | 2-8-2 Mikado | 88 | Stalled on the branch grade for two years. See the June 2026 workbench note. Vindicated. |
| JVW 90 | 2-8-2 Mikado | 90 | Best runner on the railroad. Will start a 40-car coal drag on the curve without a slip. |
| JVW 104 | 4-6-2 Pacific | 104 | Passenger power for the Juniata Flyer. Repainted 2020, decals by Betty. |
| PRR 1361 | 4-6-2 K4s | 1361 | Run-through power off the Middle Division. Bowser kit. Took me two winters and some language Carol did not approve of. |
| JVW 51 | Alco RS-3 | 51 | The board of directors bought diesels in 1955. The president voted no and was overruled by himself. |
| JVW 52 | Alco RS-3 | 52 | Second unit, weathered from a photo of a Lehigh Valley unit Danny found for me. |
| JVW 7 | GE 44-tonner | 7 | The mine shifter at Glen Hollow. Wheels need a cleaning schedule all their own. |
Ed's Workbench Notes
A running diary of projects, newest first. The older entries back to 2004 are in a spiral notebook and Danny keeps threatening to scan it.
- June 2026
- Finally fixed the grade on the Glen Hollow branch. It was 3.1%, no wonder the mikado stalled. The track plan said 2.4% and the track plan lied, or more likely I lied to the track plan in 2009 when I was in a hurry. Shimmed the whole climb with cedar shingle tapers over three evenings. Number 88 walked up it with twelve hoppers like nothing ever happened, and I said a few words to her about the two years of blame she took.
- April 2026
- Rewired the reverse loop under Millersport with an auto-reverser module. For seven years I flipped a toggle at exactly the right moment and felt proud of it. The module does it better and does not need reading glasses. Progress is humbling.
- February 2026
- Built 22 removable coal loads from foam blanks topped with real coal, crushed with Carol's old rolling pin, which I believe she would find funny. Sifted three grades. The kitchen is not fully forgiven.
- December 2025
- Christmas open house for the club and the neighbors. The Flyer ran for six hours straight and the grandkids ran the 44-tonner with more caution than some brakemen I worked with. Best day on the railroad all year.
- October 2025
- Ballasted the last mile of the branch. Three evenings of work and I estimate half the ballast went into the shop vacuum, which is traditional. Used a finer grade than the main so the branch looks like the poor relation it is supposed to be.
- August 2025
- Replaced turnout number 14 at the yard throat, the one every single engine picked for twenty years. Handlaid the new one square and true and dared anything to derail on it. So far nothing has, and the whole yard seems to know it is on probation.
Tips for Beginners
People email me asking how to start in this hobby. Here is what 40-odd years at the workbench boils down to. None of it is original and all of it is true.
- Clean track cures most ailments. Before you blame the locomotive, the decoder, or the manufacturer, wipe the railheads with isopropyl alcohol on a rag. Nine problems out of ten die right there. A hard masonite pad under a boxcar will keep it clean between wipings.
- Do not trust rail joiners to carry power. They loosen, they oxidize, and they fail on the far side of the layout where you cannot reach. Solder a feeder wire from the bus to the rail every six feet or so. It is dull work. Do it anyway, once, and never think about it again.
- Buy an NMRA standards gauge before your second locomotive. Check the wheel gauge on every piece of rolling stock that comes in the door, and check your track gauge everywhere you lay rail. Cars that are in gauge running on track that is in gauge simply do not derail much, and everyone will ask you your secret.
- Weight your cars to the NMRA recommended practice. One ounce plus half an ounce per inch of car length, in HO. Light cars ride up and over the rail on curves and give the whole train a bad name. A few flat washers hidden in a load will settle a car right down.
- Start small and finish it. A 4x8 or a shelf switching layout that gets scenery, weathering, and trains actually running will teach you more and please you longer than a basement full of bare plywood ever will. The giant layout can come later. Mine did.
Links
Sites I visit with my coffee. If a link has gone dead, please let me know. The web is not as permanent as people think, which is why I keep paying for this domain.
- The Keystone Crossings PRR Pages - Jim Delaney's prototype photo archive. If you model the Pennsy and you have not lost an afternoon here, you have not tried.
- Bob's DCC Decoder Corner - Bob explains CV programming in plain English. The man is a saint.
- The Allegheny Ridge Runners Model RR Club - my club, meets second and fourth Tuesdays. The layout tour page is worth your time.
- Walt's Weathering Workshop - chalk and airbrush techniques. Walt weathers a boxcar the way some men restore violins.
- The HO Interchange Classifieds - where old brass goes to find new homes. I have bought more than I have sold, which Carol pointed out annually.
- Juniata Valley Rail History Pages - old timetables, employee rosters, and track charts for the real railroads my imaginary one leans on.
- Marge and Bill's Ohio Basement Empire - friends from a convention in 1998. Their double garage layout puts my trackwork to shame and I say so freely.
- The Scratchbuilder's Sketchbook - drawings and dimensions for depots, tipples, and interlocking towers. The Glen Hollow tipple started as a sketch from here.
The Operations Department
UNDER CONSTRUCTION. This page will cover the timetable, the car-card and waybill system, and how a three-man crew keeps the JV&W honest on operating nights. Check back soon. I have been saying that since 2011, but this time Danny says he will help, so the odds have improved considerably.
About Ed
Yours truly at the throttle, Christmas 2025.
Ed Kowalski. Born 1944 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, within earshot of the shops, which explains everything that followed. Hired out on the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1960, promoted to engineer in 1969, retired off Conrail in 1998 with 38 years of service and my hearing mostly intact. Married Carol in 1967, two daughters, five grandchildren, two of whom show real promise at the throttle. When I am not in the basement I am at the Ridge Runners club, at church, or arguing about ballast color with Walt, who is wrong.
Guestbook
Please do sign the guestbook, it makes my day. There are 312 entries going back to 2004, including one from a fellow in Finland who models the Pennsy, which I still think about.
Sign my Guestbook | View the Guestbook
You can also write me directly at ed(at)edstrains(dot)net, spelled out that way to foil the spam robots. Replace the words with the usual symbols. I answer every message, though sometimes the railroad comes first and it takes a few days.