The Jersey Northern was started over 30 years ago. At that time it was planned to be a regional line running from Newark N.J. to Syracuse N.Y. with three branch lines. At that time I was in O scale and a member of the North Jersey Model Engineers in North Haledon. After moving to Florida, I changed back to HO scale (No basements) and began designing the Jersey Northern. At that time, the ordinal layout was a small shelf railroad along one wall of the garage. This bench work for this original section is now a section of the lower level of the existing layout. The layout did not progress much for a number of years as I was heavily involved in the West Pasco Model Railroad Club and was involved with planning designing and wiring their layout.

 

I was invited to operate on Tom Wilson's layout one night, the Pittsburgh and West Virginia. That did it; I was hooked on prototype operation. After that night, I redesigned the Jersey Northern and expanded the design it two levels point to point for prototype operation.