The idea is to create a fully functional layout including benchwork, trackage, locomotives, rolling stock, scenery and control systems for less than $500. This is, of course, a beginners layout, so nothing fancy.
I bid on and won a LifeLike CB&Q train set that had an SD7 locomotive and a handful of cars. The CB&Q used to run through my little hometown, so that pretty much sealed the deal.
I have operating trackwork and control systems on my benchwork, and now I'm down to scenery. All told so far I have spent about half of the allotted funds.
The track plan is below:
Clockwise from the left we have the brick passenger station, which still exists and will have to be scratchbuilt (the picture would have been taken from across the tracks). Next is Lisle's Tools, an extant company that is currently the town's largest employer. Since the tracks are gone now they ship by truck, but they used to ship materials in and finished product out. Next is a scrapyard that handled the waste from the tool company. The next block is filled with industrial buildings that were never served by the railroad and now are part of the Lisle's complex. Next is the freight station, also still extant (the picture is taken from the south looking north, the tracks would have been on the right side of the station), and the Purina grain elevator, likewise still there and shipping by truck.
After that I've cut a lot of the town out and then I added a stockyard just beyond the meat packing plant, these two industries take the sidings at the far right. The Wilson's meat processing plant is long gone and the stockyard never existed (the meat processing plant took in frozen carcasses and output finished packaged products), but it seemed like a good idea to have them together and gave me a reason to use the stock car that was packaged with the train set.
The prototype entered town on the north side just east of 8th Street, continuing on a south-southwesterly heading in more or less a straight line, exiting across Highway 2/71 bypass about midway between 12th and 8th Streets. You can see on the map how 8th Street runs at a diagonal to follow the right of way between Garfield (just across the street from the freight station) and Cross Street.
The rails also ran along the east side of 8th Street through Miller Oil and the warehouses across the street from the grain elevator down to a furniture store that was in the building now housing Barker Implement. Another spur ran through the middle of the junkyard to a Co-Op grain elevator that used to stand across 5th Street from the auction house.
The layout encompasses the areas between Washington and 8th (where the passenger station still stands) to just beyond Garfield and 8th (the Purina grain elevators). The meat packing plant was south of town near the airport and has long since been shut down, although I believe the building still stands.
The prototype track continued to points south and west, but by the time the CB&Q became part of the Burlington Northern system the tracks were being pulled up. The trackage was still there through little Shambaugh, Iowa when I was in high school, but by the time I left for the Navy the tracks ended just south of town. This branch has been pulled up now all the way back to the mainline in Villisca, Iowa and is no more.
Rolling stock consists of a red and silver CB&Q SD7 locomotive, two stock cars, two reefers, two covered hoppers, two gondolas, two boxcars and a silver CB&Q caboose. Operation is simple, the train with the following consist enters from the north side of town: locomotive, covered hopper, reefer, stock car, gondola and boxcar, trailed by the caboose.
The caboose is dropped at the passenger station and the rest of the train is pulled up through the passing siding. The boxcar is switched out for one on the spur at Lisle's and the full car is pushed back to the caboose. The gondola on the scrapyard spur is likewise switched out and the full car goes back with the caboose. Now the last three cars are spotted on the passing siding while the loco does a run-around.
The covered hopper is switched out with the full car going to the main briefly so the empty can be spotted. The full car is then picked up and left on the passing siding as the loco, reefer and stock car back out to the main. The loco then pushes the stock car and reefer to their respective spurs, picking up the empty stock car and full reefer and leaving them on the main while it drops off the new cars.
The full reefer and empty stock car are then pulled back along the main and pushed up into place behind the full covered hopper that was previously left on the siding. The loco runs around again and pushes these three cars back to connect to the gondola, box car and caboose. This whole consist goes to the mainline while the locomotive runs around the siding, spots the caboose on the siding, then connects and pulls the train back north. Back into the siding to connect to the caboose, and away she goes back to the off-scene mainline connection in Villisca.
I have since put another siding along the back stretch so that the loco and caboose can be switched back for another run through town. This also affords the opportunity to run a passenger consist through town while the freight is out of the picture.
The trackwork is solid and works well, the benchwork consists of two 2x4 foot tables that connect together in the middle. The control system, such as it is, consists of the train set power pack, Atlas slide switches for powering the track sections, and manual turnouts along the front with remote turnouts on the back siding. All track including turnouts is Atlas Code 80. The end curves are snap track 11" radius; if I were to do it all over again I'd use the 19" curves from the turnouts at each end and a 9 1/2" section in the middle to give some easement without having to expand the depth of the layout. At any rate I'm happy with it so far, and it gives me something to run on while I disassemble the large 4x8 that I had set up previously.
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