Layout Guide to the NEB&W: Lake George

Last Update: 2008-11-16

More about Lake George in the Lake George Photo Gallery.

Lake George

Lake George, NY, was a branch on the Delaware & Hudson RR, but is modeled on our layout as a part of our NEB&W mainline. In 1922, it had a population of 900. A D&H video, originally filmed by Charles Allen Elston in 1947, has some views of Lake George, including train action at the station, then a few seconds of bathers and even a shot of people on horse- back, from some local dude ranch. Each time we watch this, it reminds us of what Lake George was really about - an extremely popular summer vacation land. The exceptionally clear blue waters of Lake George have always been a tourist attraction, providing for boating, bathing and water skiing. Vacationers could enjoy golf, miniature golf and tennis.

The D&H at its peak owned both the Lake George and Lake Champlain steamboat companies. At the station, the D&H ran a track out on a steamboat pier so passengers could easily transfer to go up-lake. This was built in the era before automobiles, when the only practical way to reach the grand resorts along the lake was by steamboat. However, although the D&H sold the steamboat companies during the Depression and eventually abandoned the Lake George branch in 1958, the pier still stands today and still serves steamboats, modern-day replicas of Victorian boats, which you can ride.

The station was the second one on the site, built in 1911 in the popular "Spanish Colonial" style of the time. Above it was the Fort William-Henry, a 1950's reconstruction of a fort dating back to the French-and-Indian Wars. The capture and burning of original Fort William Henry was described in James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. The reconstructed fort is today a museum and popular tourist attraction. Next to it the D&H built the Fort William-Henry Hotel, overlooking its "Pergola" (a combination boat house, promenade, cafe and changing rooms) on the shore. The pergola no longer stands, and only the kitchen wing of the hotel survives, part of the Fort William-Henry Motel.

The creamery is modeled after the one at Shelburne, VT, on the Rutland RR. Its half-timbered stucco finish recalls the Elizabethan period, a revival especially popular for suburban homes in the 1920's (called "Stockbroker Tudor").

Marine Track

At the far end of the station area, the D&H built a track which ran out under the water for about 200 feet. This so-called "marine track" was used at Lake George to launch small pleasure boats brought in on flat cars. A locomotive, with idler flat cars between, would push the flat car out onto this siding, which ran under water. This allowed the boat to be floated off the railroad car.

Million Dollar Beach

Most of the shore of Lake George, including along the tracks and by the hotel, was rocky. Sometime in the early or mid- 1950's, the village trucked in at great expense enough sand to build a large beach. This earned the name "Million Dollar Beach." This was located just south of where the D&H branch came in from Glens Falls, but it wasn't in sight of the tracks.

The sand on our layout was made from diatomaceous earth (swimming pool filter material), colored a buff color by mixing in powdered dry colors. The water is just blue-painted wood, but eventually we hope to pour the whole lake here, some thirty feet long, in polyester casting resin. The figures are from Presier and Merten. They include both turn-of-the-century figures and modern day ones, since no one makes 1940's figures. Some figures have been repainted by club members to represent mid-century dress, but we have a long way go. (While 1950 bathing suits might be considered conservative by today's standards, back then they were too revealing for anywhere other than the beach. Back then, signs were posted all over Lake George prohibiting people from coming in to town in just a bathing suit.) We have also been unable to find horse-back riders who are sitting there sedately as the horses bob along (think Grand Canyon Suite).