The History of the
AMHERST BELT LINES

Amherst Belt Lines: A Fictional History

The Amherst Belt Lines (ABEL) was organized November 1978 as a cooperative venture between several New England regional railroads and shortlines in order to compete in an ever tightening rail market. The owners of these railroads had observed the rise and fall of many railroad giants over the years, from the formation of Penn Central out of the Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads in 1968, Conrail from Penn Central and others in 1976, and more recently the organization of Guilford Transportation Industries in 1977 from four prominent New England railroads. Realizing that their ability to survive in this time of mega-mergers would be to work together rather than compete against one another, an agreement was drafted among these smaller lines that would permit them to retain their independence, typical of New Englanders, yet consolidate their business operations to offer customers a viable alternative to Conrail and Guilford.

The success of this umbrella corporation resulted in the connection of the various shortlines through the acquisition of abandoned rights of way and trackage rights on other New England lines, in a roughly east-west route through Massachusetts with branches far into Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The east-west trunk formed a belt that tied the lines together, and thus the Amherst Belt Lines came to be. Each of the associated railroads contributed to the motive power and rolling stock pool and were granted rights to use the name and logo. As the cooperative became more profitable, new motive power was purchased for ‘pool’ use to replace the ever aging fleet.

The headquarters for the Belt Lines became the new Conn River Yard, constructed in Hadley, MA along the former Boston and Maine R.R. Wheelwright Branch. The Belt Lines interchanges with Guilford (now Pan Am Railways) in East Deerfield Yard through trackage rights along Guilford’s Connecticut River Line. The railroad continues east toward Lowell passing through its namesake town of Amherst as it goes. The success of the Belt Lines concept has generated interest from shortlines outside of the New England region with many shortlines and regional carriers in the mid-west and southeast joining the cooperative, permitting the Belt Lines to both originate and terminate some of the traffic it contributes to the North American rail network.

The Factual History of the Amherst Belt Lines

First Amherst Belt Lines layout, UMass Student Union Ballroom, February 1979 Photo from Amherst Belt Lines Archives

The Amherst Railway Society’s HO Scale Modular Layout (The Amherst Belt Lines) was organized on November 25, 1978 as a Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Amherst Railway Society, Inc. The original specifications were modified from those of the Mount Clare Division of the NMRA® and have been further revised over the past 30 plus years. There were twelve members of the Society that built the 12 original modules, including a three module yard set, to assemble the first 11’ x 19’ layout. The first layout was displayed at what was then the Amherst Railway Society’s “Big Railroad Hobby Show” in the Student Union Ballroom at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, on February 18, 1979.

Lowell Junction module, 1998 layout

The Mount Clare Division specifications were based on a standard 2’ x 4’ module for both straight and corner pieces. The corner had a 1’ x 2’ extension giving it a 3’ x 4’ ‘L’ shape. Two mainline tracks were placed 5” and 9” from the front of the module to the centerline of the track and the top of the railhead was to be 36” from the floor. The original specifications were modified as construction began, to move the mainline tracks closer together to a then more typical 2-1/2” between centerlines with the tracks 5” and 7-1/2” from the front edge of the module. The wiring standards were changed to use readily available Cinch-Jones plugs and sockets. Each mainline was a single independent DC block capable of operating only one train at a time.

The standard specifications have evolved over the past 30 years. First the corners were changed to a more symmetrical 4’ square footprint in the elongated hexagon shape used today. Variations in module length soon followed with a minimum module length of 2’, increasing in size in two foot increments. For a short time a 3’ narrow gauge line (HOn3) was added at the back of the module, elevated above the standard gauge mainlines. To bring the specification in line with NMRA® recommendations for HO scale modules, the railhead height was raised to 40” from the floor and the mainline track centers were changed to 2” with the mainlines 5” and 7” from the front edge of the module, in the mid-1990’s.

The 1998 ABEL layout

The Modular Group was quick to jump on the Command Control bandwagon in the mid-1980’s by investing in Power Systems Inc. DYNATROL®. Command Control permitted the operation of multiple trains under independent control on the same mainline (even in opposite directions) without the need for extensive block wiring. The club worked closely with the developer of the system to work out the bugs of using Command Control on a large portable, and variable, layout that by this time was composed of 70 to 80 modules and several scale miles of mainlines. Modifications were made to the wiring specifications in particular, so that the delicate wiring of the locomotives and internal receivers would be protected from the higher currents of the Command Control system. In 1996, wireless operation was introduced through the use of the DYNATROL® IR (infra-red) system and Leap Frog radio transmitters. In 2000 the move was made to Digital Command Control (DCC) after testing North Coast Engineering’s system on some local home layouts. The club continues to use the NCE DCC system today.

The Amherst Belt Lines is a modular layout, not a sectional layout. The difference here is that a sectional layout has a common theme that holds it together – scenery, era, purpose, etc. – and gives it the look of a completed layout. A sectional layout almost always goes together the same way all the time, with exceptions only for pieces that are missing or added during the life of the layout. A modular layout can have a common theme, but relies solely on a standard interface between different modules for assembly. This means that a modular layout can be assembled in any sequence to present a new layout at different shows – the Belt Lines has rarely, if ever, been assembled the same way twice. It also means that if a piece is missing or added, there is little planning required to make the piece transition into the existing modules. The Amherst Belt Lines has no specifications or requirements for scenery, era or track arrangement (other than where the modules meet) permitting the module owner to exercise his or her own creativity and modeling interests. Some of the modules in the layout represent real locations in New England or the United States; other modules are the creation of the module owner. This allows the layout to take on a unique look, while still allowing it to operate as a miniature railroad system.

The modular format has also permitted the Belt Lines to host other modular clubs within infrastructure of the layout. As long as the track and wiring standards are similar or adaptable between the Belt Lines and other modular groups, a module, or another whole layout, could be made a part of the Amherst Belt Lines display. Over the years the Belt Lines has played host to modules or layouts from the Pepperell Siding Model Railroad Club, the Bedford Boomers, the Dry Hill Model Railroad Club, the Cape Cod Model Railroad Club, Valley HO Trak and others. Many of these modular clubs are represented today at the Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show.

Amherst Belt Lines layout at the Hartford NMRA Show, July 2009 Gary Munsey photo

Operation

Like any business, railroads were created to earn money by moving freight or passengers from one point to another. The customer pays a fee to the railroad based on the type of commodity carried, its weight, and the distance traveled. Generally, a shipper will call the railroad to request a car to load and negotiate a price. The railroad will then dispatch the appropriate type of car to the shipper, who loads it and notifies the railroad that it is ready to be picked up for delivery. The railroad will then pick up the loaded car and assign it to the appropriate train(s) for shipment.

More often than not, a freight car loaded on one railroad is passed to one or more other railroads before reaching its destination. The loaded freight car is usually picked up by a 'local' train and delivered to a freight yard where it will be classified and assigned to a ‘through’ or ‘road’ train. Locals, sometimes called ‘Turns’, usually leave a yard in the morning with cars to 'set out' and return to the same yard in the evening with the cars it has 'picked up'. Through or road trains pick up blocks of cars from one yard and deliver them to another. Locals are usually fairly short; while road trains may be pulling 100 cars or more. The Amherst Belt Lines is unlike many modular layout groups in that the associates run, or operate, the layout with the idea that it is simulating a miniature rail transportation system. Trains do not just circle the layout endlessly, but rather are assigned specific jobs as they would on the prototype railroads. Through Freights run from yard to yard dropping and picking up cuts of cars to be reclassified and delivered by local crews. Locals and Turns work from a yard switching industries at various towns along the layout, eventually returning to their ‘home’ yard or terminating at another yard along the line. Passenger trains make stops at the various stations on the layout. Yard switchers work to classify incoming cars into new ‘blocks’ to be handled by the Through Freights and Turns, or work local industries in specific towns.

Real railroads use switch lists to instruct train and yard crews how to handle and move a car. These lists are generated by the railroad’s business office based on the car’s origin and destination. To simulate the process of ordering and shipping a car on the layout, the Belt Lines uses a car card and waybill system to determine routing. Each car on the layout has a car card, which is an envelope that has a written description of the car including the car type, the reporting marks – initials and car number - and a physical description of the car to help in identification. The envelope holds several slips of paper which are the waybills for that car. The waybill tells the operators where the car is going and where it needs to be ‘spotted’ or placed when it reaches its destination. Some waybills describe what the car is carrying, which helps the operator to assign the correct waybill to the correct car type.

The typical movement of a car on the layout starts at the yard, which is a collection of tracks that can be used to sort cars for various destinations. The yard crew uses a switch engine, or switcher, to sort the cars in the yard for the same destinations, which is called ‘blocking.’ The yard crew uses the waybills to block the cars, first by town and then, sometimes, by industry. Once the cars are blocked, they can be assembled into a train and sent out to the town in a Turn or Local Freight.

The operator of the Turn will run the train to its destination and prepare to make setouts and pick ups at the town. Each module that has sidings to be worked by a Local Freight has a box for holding the car cards. The operator will take the cards out of the box and look for waybills that indicate a new destination for the cars that are on the sidings; those cars will be picked up by the Local. The operator will set out the cars in the train placing each car on the appropriate siding according to the destinations on the waybill. When the operator has completed the work in the town and has reassembled the train, he or she will take the top waybill out of the car card and place it at the back of the stack, revealing a new destination for the car when the next local comes to work the town. The operator will do this for all the car cards left at the module. When the work is done, the operator will return the train to the yard and the yard crew will break up the train, blocking the arriving cars for their new destinations.

If a car is destined for a module that is not on the layout, or has a waybill that says “Off Line” then the car is put into a block for a Through Freight. We use our Through Freights as a rolling staging yard to keep the classification yards fluid during the Show. The Through Freight will drop and pick up cuts of cars at the yards periodically during its run. When the operator is done with running the Through Freight, the whole train will be terminated in the yard. When the yard crew gets a cut of cars from a Through Freight, or the whole train, they cycle the waybills in the car cards so the top card is at the back of the stack. When all the cars have new destinations, the cut or train is broken up and sorted so the process can begin all over again!