weaverton

weaverton Miller, West Virginia...
Miller is not really a town in West Virginia. It is a name given to the area by the B&O Railroad. The nearby town is called Cherry Run. Because it was so remote, Miller was one of the last mechanical interlockings in the country. It was controlled from Miller Tower located in the map by it's call letter "R" tower. Miller was the western end of the No. 4 low line, which split here from the No. 1 and No. 2 main lines. The No. 4 Low Grade Main Line gave heavy trains a way around North Mountain. The No. 4 joined back up with the other mains in Cumbo. Operationally, even more important in the Chessie Era was the cross river connection to the Western Maryland (WM) main line. This is particularly important, since much of the WM west of this point, to Cumberland, MD, was deemed as redundant and abandoned after 1976. That meant that all the old WM traffic that used to run on the WM mains to Cumberland was rerouted via this interchange and run over the B&O track to Cumberland. Personally, this was critical to my choice of the East End, as I've always been a WM and B&O fan. This section of the line saw both trains during the Chessie Era, which was perfect for me.

There are no local industries in Miller, and the tower really just routed trains to the WM or No. 4 Low Grade.

The tower still exists today, but it has been relocated to the Martinsbug Roundhouse Complex.

Below is the map of Miller.

Below is my graph paper plan of Miller.

Below is the current status of Miller. I've built the track, but need to ballast and scenic the area next. The left photo shows the area by Miller Tower. The two trains are on the mains. The tracks to the left of them are the No. 4 Low Grade, the No. 1 and 2 Yard Tracks and the extreme left one is the WM Main connection. On the right photo, the two mains are higher on the left, the No. 4 low grade is the brown tied Code 83 track and the right three tracks, still being built, are the WM Main staging tracks.

After the shots above were taken, I took the two Miller sections down off the wall. I installed the backdrop, which I should have done first. The backdrop at Miller is sheet styrene that I bought at a plastics company. It is glued to the wall with Liquid Nails. The backdrops themselves are from eBay, but can also be found at railroadbackdrops.com. They are printed on a sort of glossy paper. They are adhered to the styrene sheets with 3Ms "90" spray adhesive. Note the corner Miller section is sitting on the helix platform temporarily, bottom right of the second photo.