Visiting Kevin Surman's Layout...by Don Janes

This large yard scene is the first thing you see when entering the layout

A 1950's New Jersey Based Layout 

     George and I recently attended the Model Railroad Expo in Albany NY.  On the Sunday there were several layouts open in the nearby area.  One such layout was owned by Kevin Surman in Saratoga Springs NY.  After a stop at the Amtrak Station there to watch a passenger train we headed over to Kevin's house.  Once in the basement we saw a large double deck railroad that filled the basement utilizing several rooms. 

    Kevin explained that he is modelling mainline railroad operations in the 1950's in New Jersey which include steam, diesel and electric trains from the Pennsylvania, Central RR of New Jersey and other northeastern railroads.  The layout features a fully operational CTC signalling system. .Kevin is the main electrical maintenance man at RPI and says wiring up signal systems is one of his favourite aspects of the hobby and believe me there is a ton of wiring on this layout.  Kevin proudly displays his "Model Railroad Engineer-Electrical" Certificate of Achievement on the wall as you enter the basement. Kevin is also a master at building structures and scenes for the layout.

Kevin's NMRA certificate

     Rather than going on with a lot of text I will share with you some of the great looking structures and scenes that we saw on Kevin's layout. Kevin was a gracious host and told us he was going to tear out a large section of his layout and rebuild it so I am looking forward to seeing it again once he has the new sections finished.

Here we see the Newark, NJ passenger station (above) and a set of electric MU passenger cars running under the overhead catenary wires.

Kevin has done  great job of depicting scenes along the Jersey shoreline, typical of what you would actually see there. 

The above three photos show the extent of the detail Kevin has added to some of the many urban scenes on the layout.

There are a lot of rail served scenes on the layout with many of the structures scratchbuilt or kitbashed by Kevin.

One scene that caught my eye was this wooden road bridge.  It turns out I built ascratchbuilt a model of this bridge using the same plans Kevin did from an old copy of a model railroad magazine.  It really hides the entrance in to another room very well.

One more industrial scene wit a backdrop of now out of business Sceniking backdrop photos.