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The GC&E is the name of our garden railway located in our back yard in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Our layout contains about 450 feet of track in a layout area of over 1,000 square feet. The layout has 38 LGB turnouts and a mixture of Aristocraft and LGB track. There are six bridges on the GC&E including truss bridges, a large steel arch, a pair of steel decks and a trestle.
The GC&E is based on the logging and coaling regions of West Virginia in the 1930's era. There are two major towns which contain over 40 scratch built and commercial structures. The buildings are fully illuminated and the towns include working street lights. There is a fish pond with two streams, one which flows over a working scratch built water wheel, and one with a series of waterfalls.
The rail line features a logging operation, sawmill, coal mine, and tannery. There is a large yard and engine service facility located at Spruce which includes a scratch built two stall engine house, a sand house, coaling tower, water tower and an ash pit.
The layout is a loop but is operated as a point to point with westbound trains entering the layout at point A and eastbound entering at point B. The trains operate over the layout to the opposite point and emerge as "new" trains to transverse the layout again.
Plants on the GC&E are predominately evergreens including boxwoods, Dwarf Alberta Spruce and junipers and a variety of miniature evergreens.
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