Milwaukee Road Mathewsville Subdivision

Joined: 17 May 2005 Posts: 54

Prototype

This is one of my two home layouts and the one that is furthest along. It has its roots in, of all things, 1980s Canadian Pacific grain branches visited by Chuck Bohi in the August 1992 issue of Railfan & Railroad magazine. What caught my eye were the wide open spaces and relatively small trains of 40' boxcars hauled by Alco switchers. Unfortunately, finding suitable engines in N scale proved to be a bridge too far so I modified my prototype to be Burlington Northern in eastern Washington as seen in Rob Leachman's Northwest Passage (Hundman, 1998). Construction progressed with track laying and the assembly of some Walthers grain elevator kits, but I still hadn't purchased any BN equipment yet. That idea got shelved when a friend sent me a new Atlas Trainman 40' boxcar painted for the Milwaukee Road. Overnight my layout changed yet again from a 1970s Burlington Northern operation to a 1960s Milwaukee Road line. Certainly the entire Milwaukee Road system was known for light-density branchline railroading, especially the Iowa, Minnesota & Dakota and Aberdeen Divisions in the upper Midwest, but there was still something alluring about the operations on the Coast Division. Fred Hyde's Milwaukee Road (Hyrail, 1990) presents the perfect inspiration for a light density grain line, eastern Washington's Marcellus Branch. From these inspirations the Mathewsville Subdivision presented here was born.

The layout is loosely set in east central Washington state in the grain-growing region east of the Columbia River. It measures roughly 16" by 34" in keeping with the small-scale nature of grain branch railroading. It's operated like two separate lines that join at Reid Junction. The Mathewsville Subdivison, a secondary mainline, runs from off the layout to Mathewsville. At Reid Junction the Wehbyrn Branch breaks off to its namesake town. With no runaround tracks there are a lot of shoving moves, much like on the real grain branches. Right now it operates with a borrowed Life-Like SW1200 painted for my freelanced railroad, but plans include acquisition of a pair of Kato NW2s (whenever they get around to released them in Milwaukee Road). Rolling stock is mostly from Atlas with 40' Trainman boxcars and new two-bay open hoppers for stone service. In the future I might invest in some Walthers log cars to test them on the curves. Maybe someday down the road I might have to squeeze a log loadout on there somewhere!

Model

I drug my layout outside a few days ago for an impromptu photo session. The Geeps pictures, great as they look, don't really operate around the curves. I really can't wait to get a hold of those Kato switchers! Both of the grain elevators are Walthers kits; the grey elevator in the process of being stripped for repainting. I plan to add some Rix grain bins to at least one of the elevators to further act as a view block. The base is just a 2" piece of foam that I've painted and built a layout on. Someday soon I'll get around to adding a fascia, probably Masonite since it's thin and stiff, and finishing the scenery. It's wired as one block with two sets of feeders; someday I'll hook my DCC system up to it but for now I just use an MRC Tech II.

Bibliography

Bohi, Charles. "Changes on CP Rail's Radville Sub." Railfan & Railroad. August 1992, 50-55.

Hyde, Frederick W. Milwaukee Road. Denver: Hyrail Publications, 1990.

Leachman, Rob. Northwest Passage. Mukilteko, Washington: Hundman Publishing, 1998.

Joined: 17 May 2005 Posts: 54

I drew an expansion of the layout to fill a generic bedroom commonly used by Model Railroad Planning magazine. I don't think you'll have any trouble adjusting this to fit if your room is slightly smaller.

Joined: 26 Sep 2008 Posts: 7 Location: St. Paul, MN

I tried to do something like that as a teen in my bedroom but didn't appreciate the nuances of operation so my planning wasn't so good. I like this plan. It would have suited my room nicely.
Ralph

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 11:35 am

Nice simple room plan Brian,I just happen to have a 10'6" x8'6" room to to try it in.

So how is the little layout coming along,are you done yet?

Joined: 17 May 2005 Posts: 54

The layout itself still looks like the one in the picture. Lately I've been focusing on the structures to go on it. In addition to the two elevators pictured I also have a wood-framed store from Walthers to use as a scale house an office. I need to get to Rix grain bins sooner rather than later and hopefully the structures will all be in place. After that I'll probably track down the hoppers I need and work on getting them renumbered as needed and weathered. I'll need a lot more boxcars, too!