[3] The V&O had a shortline railroad on the layout, the KC&B (Kellys Creek & Bradley, named after his children), to provide a source of interchange traffic.
[4] In the mid 1970s, Allen McClelland began a second phase of construction that expanded the railroad from Elm Grove to Kingswood Junction, VA.
A minimal example of this principle was moving the railroad forward one year from 1957 to 1958 so that V&O SD-24s could be modeled using the latest release from Atlas during the mid-70s.
[6] A more drastic example was in 1980 (railroad date August 26, 1958) when the V&O ran its last regular revenue steam service and was completely dieselized.
[7] During this time, Allen McClelland moved the era up a decade from 1958 to 1968, resulting in the loss of some older and minority builder V&O 1st-Generation diesels.
However, construction of this new V&O was cut short in 2008 by yet another move, but this time to a retirement home without space for a layout as detailed in the October 2008 issue of Scale Rails (the official publication of the National Model Railroad Association), and the January 2009 issue of Model Railroader.
This desire to stay up-to-date with real railroading was reflect in Allen McClelland's interest in prototype modeling.
Heavily influenced by repeat visits to Appalachian coal country, and the realization that their three small regional railroads would face challenges surviving the real world economy of the 1970s, Tony Koester suggested that Allen's V&O, his Allegheny Midland [12] and King's Virginia Midland [10] form the Appalachian Lines.