South End of Wausau Yard

Over the weekend I finally worked out how I wanted the south (timetable east) end of Wausau Yard to be laid out. The real yard has nine through tracks and I decided to emphasize this by having the bypass track (far right) and two 4-yard sections. Here's the eastern four tracks' final alignment:

For the last two days I just haven't been happy with all the ways I planned to have the western four tracks come off the first switch. I tried a lot of different arrangements and none of them seemed right. Then this afternoon it all clicked. Since the westernmost track will be the one trains headed through the yard towards the viewer will use, I decided to keep it straight and curve the others inward. Here's the result:

The space between the two 4-yard groupings will allow me to have some yard buildings, scenes, and general junk. On the real yard, this material is on the west side of the yard tracks, but I'm using a little modeler's license.

The westernmost track will have the programming track and an engine track/lumber loadout coming off it. If I have the space, I might make these three separate spurs, splitting the engine track and the lumber loadout. The programming track will have to be isolated because it can only be used to program my DCC engines.

Finally, here's a closup of theyard throat:

I tested all the tracks with a boxcar with my 0-5-0 switcher for power and the boxcar seemed to move through the switches with no problems.

That's it for this update. Next I have to make sure that I can make the north end of the yard line up with what I've done so far-- until I accomplish this, everything is tentative. It's a bit more complicated because there needs to be a crossover and a branch (the old C&NW main to Marshfield) diverging on that end. That should keep my brain busy this week in its spare moments.

The Story So Far

I am building an N Scale layout of Wausau and northern Wisconsin in my basement. I am modeling the period 2002-present. Here is what has happened so far:

August 13-14, 2010: Benchwork

Two friends, George and Nate, came up from Madison to help me get started. The main layout is in a 10' x 19' room. The first section of benchwork we built was on the wall where the Wausau yard near Kraft Foods will be. Here's what it looked like when we started:

And here's what it looked like when we finished:

The pink foam will allow me to carve out features like culverts and rivers later.

On the other side of the wall is a staging yard. Again, here are a before and after photo:

Here's a shot of Nate (left) and George (right) working on the layout:



Nate models the Milwaukee Road and paints and weathers a lot of his own engines. Here's a few (!) he brought along that weekend:

It was a great weekend. I couldn't have done it without them.

September 11: First Piece of Track Laid

I spent the next couple of weeks getting ready for school to start. When I had a few spare minutes, I worked out some of the key decisions about how the yards had to be set up so that they could do what I want. Eventually, I realized that the first switch at the south end of the Kraft yard was critical to where everything else went. By Sept. 11, I was ready to put it in place:

The mainline through the yard will take the diverging route to the right, while straight will take a train to the yard ladder.

Later that day, I began laying the mainline through the yard:

Here's a final shot that shows the switch that will represent the Kelly spur (old C&NW mainline to Green Bay). Today, the CN holds cars on this track, which ends before it reaches Camp Phillips Road. This spur on the layout will eventually curve through trees and through the wall onto the back side of the staging yard to allow for more storage. Further away on that track, you can also barely make out the switch that will lead to the spur for Kraft Foods. I may need to move this switch closer to the viewer to make the far end of the yard work properly.

That's it so far. I'm currently fiddling with the yard throat at the south end of the Kraft yard. When I work out how the tracks and switches can best be arranged, I'll post photos in my next update.