The Mainline Hobby Supply Layout Tour
Members of the Chesapeake Division had a great weekend exploring the 2026 Mainline Hobby Supply Open House / Layout Tour, an annual event centered around Mainline Hobby Supply in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. Co-sponsored by the Susquehanna Division of the NMRA, the tour provided an opportunity to visit an impressive collection of home and club layouts throughout Maryland and Pennsylvania. Many of the layout owners are also a part of the South Mountain Division of the NMRA.
Over the course of Saturday and Sunday, we managed to visit 16 layouts and railroad-related stops, representing an amazing variety of model railroading. We saw layouts in N, HO, S, and O (both 2-rail and 3-rail) scales, ranging from layouts still under construction to highly detailed, nearly complete railroads designed for regular operating sessions.
We started Saturday with Anton Mazza’s Canadian Central Railway, a three-level HO railroad inspired by the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National in the Canadian Rockies. The approximately 45-by-26-foot layout includes a scratchbuilt scene representing Skoonka along the Thompson River and an interpretation of the famous Spiral Tunnels at Kicking Horse Pass.
From there, our travels included several very different approaches to HO-scale model railroading. Jay Voight’s Western Maryland Railway represents territory from Port Covington to Cumberland and was designed with operations in mind, while Larry Thompson’s freelanced Western Maryland takes us back to the 1940s and 1950s with both steam and diesel power. Brian Wolfe’s Western Maryland Railway — Blue Ridge Division represents another era entirely, loosely depicting the railroad from Ridgely, West Virginia, to Baltimore around 1970. The 30-by-45-foot layout is 99 percent scenicked and designed to capture the appearance and operation of the prototype.
The Keystone Southern, built by the Groft family, demonstrated just how much railroad can be incorporated into a relatively compact space. The multilevel HO layout contains nearly 1,500 feet of track, more than 40 industries, and a hand-built four-foot steel trestle containing more than 3,000 rivets. Dave Moltrup’s Beaver Falls & Shenango Railroad, meanwhile, offered a completely different setting with its freelanced late-1960s steel mill theme.
Our stop at the Quincy Village Model Railroad Club gave us a chance to change scales, with G-scale, HO, and 3-rail O-scale railroads all represented. 2026 Open House Layout Tour-V6 … We also visited the Hagerstown Roundhouse Museum, where railroad history and model railroading come together. In addition to its collection of railroad artifacts and full-size equipment, the museum features an HO-scale representation of the former Western Maryland Hagerstown shop complex, an O-scale 2-rail layout under construction, and several O-scale 3-rail layouts.
We finished our Saturday travels with Mike Shockey’s Great Northern Railway: Spokane Division. Set in 1958, this multideck railroad represents eastern Washington and northern Idaho and is designed around operations using timetable and train-order procedures. Long freights, first-generation diesels, passenger trains, and a railroad filling the entire basement made for an impressive way to finish the day.
Sunday began with Bob Morningstar’s Western Maryland Railway, representing the Hagerstown area during the 1978–1983 period. Of particular interest this year is a new 14-by-15-foot addition representing the Hanover Subdivision, where trains are already running and scenery work has begun.
We then visited Joe Goodrich’s Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad — Middle Division, an HO switching-oriented railroad set in the 1940s, followed by David Sullivan’s Allegheny Corridor Railroad. Sullivan’s freelanced 1930s coal-hauling railroad features hand-laid Code 70 track and turnouts and interchanges with the Pennsylvania, Reading, Ma & Pa, and Wheeling & Lake Erie.
The change of scales continued with Steve King’s Virginia Midland Railway, a fully operational N-scale railroad set in 1969. Its roughly ten scale miles of railroad connect staging representing Marion, Virginia, and Welch, West Virginia, with passenger, freight, coal, and mine trains keeping the railroad busy.
One of Sunday’s biggest changes of pace came at David Vaughn’s Canandaigua Southern. This large, multilevel 2-rail O-scale railroad measures approximately 18 by 90 feet and incorporates a significant portion of legendary track planner John Armstrong’s Canandaigua Southern along with portions of two other legacy layouts.
Our weekend concluded with another Western Maryland layout, David Hughes’ Western Maryland Railway. His HO railroad, which appeared in the April 2021 issue of Model Railroader, depicts the WM’s Eastern Division from Baltimore to Hagerstown during roughly 1967–1973. Its two levels include portions of the Tide, East, and Hanover Subdivisions and recognizable locations including Glyndon, Westminster, Highfield, Edgemont, Hanover, and Jack’s Mountain Tunnel.
Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the weekend was seeing just how many different ways there are to enjoy model railroading. We saw everything from N scale to G scale, steam to modern diesels, freelanced railroads to detailed prototype modeling, continuous running to layouts designed specifically for operations. With several layouts depicting different portions and eras of the Western Maryland Railway, it was also fascinating to see how individual modelers interpreted the same prototype in very different ways.
Most importantly, events like the Mainline Hobby Supply Open House Tour demonstrate the value of opening our layouts and sharing the hobby with others. Every stop provided an opportunity to see something new, talk with fellow model railroaders, exchange ideas, and return home with a few more projects in mind.
A huge thank you to Mainline Hobby Supply, the organizers of the tour, and especially all of the layout owners and club members who opened their doors and welcomed visitors into their layouts. Preparing a railroad for an open house takes a tremendous amount of time and effort, and their hospitality made for a fantastic weekend of model railroading.
