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Track plans for a

4 x 8-foot plywood
sheet
MRPDF048 www.ModelRailroader.com

4 x 8 feet
on the water
East and West Coast railroads in waterfront settings
Someday you hope to build a model
railroad empire that fills a spare room,
garage, or basement, but for now you’d
settle for an interesting layout that fits
on a 4 x 8-foot sheet of plywood. Sound
familiar?
That’s what I thought, so I chal-
lenged several hobbyists who enjoy
designing small layouts to meet that
need. In the next several pages, you’ll
find plans of various scales and scopes.
We hope one of them inspires you to
start building a model railroad. – Tony
Koester, editor
S
o many of us like layouts with plenty
of water. The life and sparkle from
the surface reflections make small
layouts, which all of mine are, seem
more spacious. That’s why, when the
call came to explore the possibilities of
4 x 8 layout schemes, my thoughts
turned to waterfront railroads. Dock-
sides and harbors in a small space offer
a lot of modeling opportunities.
Think motive power first
On a 4 x 8-foot layout, chances are
you’re not going to have a lot of
engines. The one or two locomotives
that can be accommodated need to be
darn good models in both appearance
and performance. You’ll need to focus
on one key model, then design the rail-
road to make best use of that type of
engine and let it operate properly.
This means careful attention to
curve radius, overhangs, and clear-
ances, not to mention switching leads,
engine tracks, turntables, and run-
around tracks. Most four-axle diesels
are quite flexible in this regard, and
steam switchers and geared steamers
© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.ModelRailroader.com
Flexible 4x8: 1
By Iain Rice
such as Shays also work well. For the
two HO plans presented here I imagine
using Bachmann’s 70-ton Shay and
Life-Like’s United States Railroad Admi-
nistration (USRA) 0-8-0.
Practical considerations
A limiting factor of the traditional
4 x 8 is that you need a lot more space
than that to build and operate it if you
want access to three or four of its
sides. Allowing only a meager two-foot
aisle on all sides increases the area
requirements to 8 x 12 feet. A site of
that size offers a whole range of mod-
eling possibilities, and sticking a 4 x 8
island layout in the center of it proba-
bly isn’t the most efficient or exciting.
If you’re content with access on
only two sides and stick the 4 x 8 in a
corner, the required area drops to
about 6 x 10 feet. The two plans shown
here could be built in that space.
Moreover, if you build these layouts
reasonably high off the floor, say 45" to
48" or even a tad more so you’re look-
ing across and not down on them, it’s
much easier to achieve the illusion of a
more spacious scene. It’s also harder
to judge the sharpness of a curve. Even
small structures placed in the fore-
ground can interrupt the view of pass-
ing trains, divide the scene, and give
the impression of greater distance.
High-level layouts have other prac-
tical advantages. There’s a lot of space
under them for storage and a work-
bench, for example – even a TV or bed
if the room has to serve other func-
tions. The downside is that very high
layouts can be pigs to work on.
There are three ways around this:
Build the layout at a convenient height
and raise it to final display level once
it’s finished, use a step stool to work
on it at the final level, or – more radi-
cally – design the layout so the track
and scenery are tackled separately.
That is, finish and ballast the track,
then lift the layout to the desired level.
You can build the various scenic ele-
ments at the workbench on their own
mini-bases of Styrofoam insulation
board, then install them like pieces of a
giant jigsaw puzzle.
Harbor-based layouts
Crowded waterside locations typi-
cal of older ports have a lot going for
them as subjects for a small layout.
The unavoidable tight curves are right
in keeping with such prototypes, as are
short spurs, short trains, and struc-
tures crammed closely together.
Harborsides have other advantages
too. While they aren’t quite a “univer-
sal industry” like an interchange track,
most car types can be loaded or
unloaded at a port. Switching opportu-
nities abound. And if you enjoy build-
ing atmosphere-laden structures and
ship models, you’ll have a field day.
There’s also variety in harbors, as
these two plans demonstrate. Save for
their 4 x 8 footprints, they differ in
almost every way. One features the
wide-open airiness of a Pacific North-
west lumber port in the pre-Depression
era, the other the grittiness of a run-
down Eastern waterfront in the 1950s.
Plan 1:
Loleta & Mad River
A rough, raw, storm-wracked har-
bor on the rocky coast of northern Cal-
ifornia – anything farther removed
from the cramped and grimy confines
of an East Coast coal port would be
hard to imagine. And as such it offers a
different set of modeling challenges
and operational opportunities.
Logging and mining are by nature
ephemeral, so very little of their infra-
structure was built to last. This is
reflected in the limited and crude facil-
ities at Port Loleta. Grouped around a
narrow, rocky, deep-water inlet, the
buildings are all shack-like affairs
thrown up using the local product,
rough-sawn softwood.
There are three main commercial
activities at Port Loleta: fishing, min-
ing, and lumber export. The fish,
mostly Pacific salmon, goes through
the cannery and winds up in tins for
export. Some of this traffic reaches
Southern Pacific rails via its inter-
change with the Loleta & Mad River,
the railroad of our immediate interest.
The mines produce limited quantities
of a high-grade ore, “unobtainium” per-
haps, which is loaded raw directly into
coastal steamers for transport to dis-
tant smelters. The lumber is exported
as boards, sawn and finished in the
Van Duren Lumber Co.’s mill at
Bridgeville a few miles up the Mad
River valley east of Loleta.
Model railroads based on the min-
ing and lumber industries have lots of
advantages for minimum-space lay-
outs. Grades and curves that would be
impractical for a mainline railroad are
normal on logging and mining roads,
thanks to their short rolling stock and
articulated or geared steam power.
Features like the 270-degree curve on a
4 percent grade that forms the exit
from Port Loleta isn’t far-fetched in this
context and will let the three-truck
Shay work for its keep. A Model Die
Casting two-truck Shay or Rivarossi
Heisler would also be at home here.
The harbor at Port Loleta is built
around the edges of the steep-sided
rocky inlet. Ore is loaded into ships or
barges by chute from a short spur off
the high line, while lumber is handled
at a timber-faced quay (wharf) built on
pilings. The hefty timber derrick,
which could be pinched from the
Walthers Midstate Marble kit, hoists
the stacks of lumber onto a schooner.
Other spurs serve the fish cannery
and a general merchandise pier.
Sundry fishermen’s shacks, a general
store, and a couple of small ware-
houses round out the scene. A light-
house guards the harbor entrance.
Practical features
The actual table top forms the har-
bor water level, and the rest of the lay-
out is elevated above this. I’d make the
surface of the quay about 11⁄4" above
mean sea level, and the grades marked
on the plan are based on this reference
elevation. This gives about a 5" or 36-
scale-foot clearance beneath the high
bridge – enough for the small boats
that can get into the inner harbor.
The slight curve along the front
edge both softens the look of the lay-
out and provides better access to the
rear areas, especially the hidden stag-
ing, which lurks behind a row of
removable structures between the can-
nery and the harbor bridge. An extra
train can be stabled in this area.
Trains going off the layout actually
end up not in that staging track but in a
removable train “cassette” concealed
behind structures and rock outcrop-
pings at the right end of the layout. It’s
designed to slip in and out, drawer
fashion, thus allowing trains to be
Model Railroad Planning 2002 17

Salmon cannery
0"
1"
Net store
and chandler
Lighthouse
2"
Harbor
entrance
channel
PLAN 1: LOLETA Mine spur
& MAD RIVER
HO scale Mad River
Logging
turned or for the cassette to be stored
beneath the layout and replaced with
another one holding a different train.
The variety of rolling stock is therefore
only as limited as the space allotted to
storing extra cassettes.
This layout is intended to form the
nucleus of a larger system that might
be built at a later date in a single-car
garage or spare room. The smaller dia-
gram above shows one possible
scheme for expansion.
For an authentic logging layout,
handlaid track is preferred, but you
can make flexible track look less uni-
form by removing every fourth tie or
so and respacing, at odd angles, those
ties that are left. Micro Engineering
code 55 track would be a good choice,
but you’d still have to handlay the
turnouts. Code 70 is therefore more
practical for those who don’t want to
handlay, although many modelers find
it an enjoyable diversion.
Operation
In the pre-Depression era of the
teens or twenties, a place like Port
Loleta would have been quite busy –
bustling, even. Trains of ore and sawn
18 Model Railroad Planning 2002
Start of Ore bins Top of
4 percent grade and chutes 4 percent grade
Fishing harbor 3.5"
3"
Main harbor
Rock fill
PORT LOLETA
lumber would come cautiously down-
grade into the yard. Ore cars would be
cut out and shoved back up the grade
to the loading chute, and loads of lum-
ber placed quayside for unloading.
Outbound traffic could include emp-
ties plus coal and oil, general supplies,
logging and mining equipment, and
some agricultural necessities. The
locomotive would typically be placed
on the downhill side of the train in
both directions for increased safety.
Plan 2:
Chesapeake Harbor Belt
The town of Chesapeake, Va., is not
that important a place. It was the ports
nearby – Norfolk, Portsmouth, and
Newport News – that grew to become
major export harbors for the mighty
Appalachian coal fields. Modeling one
of these ports is an undertaking far
beyond the scope of a 4 x 8 layout.
[But see page 52! – Ed.]
Coal piers aren’t the entire story of
port activity around Hampton Roads,
however. A number of smaller facilities
were scattered around the estuary and
up the narrower reaches of the Eliza-
beth River. A railroad map of the area
Wood
truss bridge Firehouse
Office
Pole Engine
derrick house
looks as though it were drawn by a
moonshine-swilling spider with a pen
on each leg, so I figured that one more
railroad would go unnoticed.
Enter, then, the imaginary but not
too implausible Chesapeake Harbor
Belt Line, connecting these minor port
installations with the major railroad
yards and the main lines of the Norfolk
& Western, Chesapeake & Ohio, Nor-
folk Southern (the original one), the
Virginian, and the Tidewater & West-
ern, plus indirect connections to the
many other railroads of that region.
Belt lines handle a good range of
traffic over short hauls and work in
some very cramped locations. Many,
such as the Indiana Harbor Belt, relied
entirely on hefty steam switchers such
as the IHB’s well-known three-cylinder
0-8-0s. The USRA 0-8-0 thus drops right
into this scheme, or you could substi-
tute a diesel switcher of your choice.
A cramped backwater location
The layout represents one of the
many minor facilities the CHB serves,
a collection of run-down wharves and a
small repair yard that maintains tugs,
lighters (barges), and other harbor
craft. A compact engine terminal tends
to the one assigned switcher.
The format is the usual continuous
run with harbor operations arranged
on each side of the waterway and a
short staging siding on the “off-stage”
part of the circuit, hidden by a remov-
able block of structures. If the layout is
built near eye level, these structures
don’t need to be overly large to con-
ceal trains and tracks.
To aid access and get away from
the boxy look that characterizes many
4 x 8s, the front of the baseboard fol-
lows a flowing line that produces a
concave curve in the center while los-
ing an angular corner.
The focal point is the central water-
way, crossed by the railroad on low
timber trestles patterned on those of
the N&W and VGN over the Elizabeth
River. At one end, a swing span allows
small ships, tugs, and lighters to enter
the confines of this side creek of the
river. In addition to the small repair
yard with its slipway, gantry crane, and
fabrication shops, there are two gen-
eral wharves, a bunker fuel dealer, a
steel yard, and a warehouse.
Walthers’ waterside-series struc-
tures, notably the Front Street Ware-
house, offer excellent opportunities for
the kitbasher. And don’t overlook the
potential of Design Preservation Mod-
els modular kits.
The track is almost all curved with a
minimum radius of 20". I envisioned
Warehouse Tug berth
Engine
facility
Mobile
Gantry
crane
crane
PLAN 2: CHESAPEAKE HARBOR BELT
using Walthers code 83 flextrack for
most of the layout along with the
matching turnouts: no. 5, no. 61⁄2
curved, and wye. Lighter rail would
look nice, especially on the spurs.
Don’t overdo it on the ballast; cinders
would suffice. This ain’t the high iron!
Ships and cranes
Here’s where you get two hobbies
for the price of one, thanks to some
nice kits that let even a novice enjoy
the challenges of a little ship modeling.
Walthers’ tugboat is an obvious
choice, but spend time looking at the
model boat section of your favorite
hobby shop and at ship model catalogs
for other ideas.
I’ve featured a number of cranes,
with Walthers’ chunky overhead trav-
eling crane an ideal choice to serve the
shipyard. Piko’s neat little no. 61102
gantry would work fine for the steel
yard. Check Model Power’s no. 424
traveling crane or Walthers’ no. 933-
3067 pier with crane for the main
wharf. That’s Alexander Scale Models’
no. 7519 Brownhoist Little Hook
mounted on a gantry or tall pillar on
the lighterage quay across from the
foreground wharf.
Harbor Belt operation
Switching and transfer runs are the
business of the Chesapeake Harbor
Belt. Routing cars to their individual
destinations within the complex is the
Bunker Brownhoist
fuel depot “Little Hook” Office
Switchman’s Dockside
crane
shanty
Learning points
• You get two hobbies for the price
of one when a layout combines rail-
road and harbor facilities.
• Be sure you can acquire, and enjoy
building or detailing and running,
the required type of motive power
for a given type of layout design.
• A watercourse down the center of
a table-type layout divides the area
in half and can be used to create
two or more distinct scenes.
• Building the layout closer to eye
level adds to the illusion of depth
and helps disguise sharp curves.
main challenge. The various industries
allow an interesting mix of car types:
flats and mill gons for the steel fabrica-
tor and the ship repair yard, tank cars
to the oil depot, and boxcars to the
warehouses. The repair yard also
might get boxcars or flats carrying lum-
ber. And the general wharf can accept
a wide variety of car types. MRP
Iain Rice is a regular contributor to
MRP and Model Railroader, and the
author of Small, Smart, and Practical
Track Plans from Kalmbach Books. His
flowing British-style layout plans stand
in sharp contrast to the typically tight
geometrical alignments conceived on
this side of the Atlantic.
Fabrication Heavy
shed overhead crane
Shipyard
Swing
bridge
U. S.
Customs
office
Diner
Yard office
HO scale
12" grid
Model Railroad Planning 2002 19

three options
An oval, I-, or L-shaped HO layout using the same basic plan
L
et’s say you’re just dipping into
model railroading for the first time,
and you think you’d like to try this
“operation” that you’ve read people do
with their layouts. You might be look-
ing for a simple, quick-starting
approach that would let you try build-
ing and running a layout to see how
you like it. Of course, your leisure time
is all too short, so you don’t want to
waste any effort on something that
wouldn’t be expandable if the bug
really bites. If that sounds like you,
you’ve come to the right place.
Planning for the future
You may have heard of modelers
who incorporated their first layout into
later, and larger, model railroads.
Here’s a way you can do that:
Start by cutting a slot down the mid-
dle of a sheet of plywood, stopping 6"
from each end. Make the slot just wide
enough to slip in a length of 18"-high
hardboard to serve as a backdrop.
Give the base a coat of brown paint
and the backdrop a coat of sky blue to
seal the material and to give your new
layout a finished look.
These plans are designed with Atlas
code 83 (the rail is .083" high) HO track
in mind, though other brands and rail
heights would be just as good. The
drawings show no. 6 turnouts and 22"-
radius curves. For such tight curves, I’d
stick to short 40-foot cars and small
engines – an Alco, Baldwin, or Electro-
Motive diesel switcher would be ideal,
or you could go even smaller with a
General Electric 44- or 70-tonner.
Most of the tracks are curved,
which means the structures alongside
the sidings, or at least their loading
20 Model Railroad Planning 2002
Flexible 4x8: 2
One plan,
By Linda Sand
platforms, must be curved to match.
Since these are tricky to build, I chose
industries that don’t require trackside
buildings: a stockyard, scrap dealer,
and team track. The latter is a good
“industry” to model in that it can hold
a wide variety of cars. A ramp at one
end of the track allows farm imple-
ments to be rolled off flatcars.
My choices for industries give the
railroad little vertical height, which
makes folding it up against a wall for
storage easier. If you want to use taller
structures, make them removable.
These industries also require a vari-
ety of cars, which
adds to the
visual
and
© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.ModelRailroader.com
operational interest. You will need flat-
cars, stockcars, and gondolas as well
as ubiquitous boxcars.
Two spurs are truncated “inter-
change tracks” or connections with
other railroads. Almost any type of car
can be interchanged between railroads,
making these “universal industries.”
Expanding the empire
When a larger space becomes avail-
able, you can easily convert this layout
into a single town on the new linear
railroad. Remove the curved tracks at
either end, take out the backdrop, and
extend its slot to cut the base in half.
Placing the halves end-to-end will
create a 2 x 16-foot town, which might
fit along one long wall. It may be easier
to find two shorter walls, in which case
an L-shape might be more advanta-
geous. I’ve added a new con-
necting piece in the
corner, and with its
two-foot sides it
makes the L-
shaped 10 x 10-
foot plan on page 22.
Only minor track realign-
ment is required for either
of these adaptations.
Illustration by Rick Johnson
 A flexible 4 x 8
Scale: 1⁄2" = 1'-0"
12" grid
HO scale
East interchange – 2 cars Runaround track – 3 cars
Yard lead
Road and
loading ramp
Team track – 3 cars Stockyard – 4 cars
Austin
Beginning operations
On the 4 x 8-foot plan, there is room
at the industries for ten cars. If you
want to be able to deliver different cars
at different times, use 20 cars: a mix of
six flatcars and boxcars for the team
track, eight stockcars for the stockyard,
and six gondolas for the scrapyard. Buy
cars that are evenly divided for rail-
roads east and west, or north and
south, of where you’ve located your
railroad geographically. This will help
simulate traffic movement across North
America.
Using 3 x 5 index cards, make out
one card for each car you own, as
shown on page 22. It needs to tell you
that it’s for a certain type of car (flat,
box, and so forth), what its reporting
marks (initials) and number are, such
as “UP 45682,” and whether it heads
east or west to go back to home rails.
Divide the resulting stack of cards into
two piles, one for return-east, the other
for return-west. Then shuffle each
stack so the car types are mixed up.
Begin operating by drawing two
cards from each pile and placing the
cars they describe on the east and
west interchange tracks as though con-
necting railroads left them there for
your railroad. (If you do this before a
session, it’s called “staging.” If you con-
tinue to do this as the session pro-
gresses, it’s called “fiddling.”)
Now use a locomotive to pull the
cars from both interchanges and
deliver them to the industries. No need
to get fancy here with destination infor-
mation on the cards, as you can tell
where they go by the car type.
Draw another set of cards and
deliver those cars from interchanges
Beeville Yard West interchange – 2 cars
Road with ramp
Team track – 3 cars
Backdrop
Stockyard – 4 cars
Runaround track – 4 cars Road Scrap dealer – 3 cars Austin
Road
to industries as well. You now have the
railroad populated with enough cars to
make it seem as though some work
actually gets done there.
The next time you draw cards and
move cars to the industries, pick up Scrap dealer – 3 cars
cars already spotted there before you
set out new cars. Move them to the
small yard and later to the interchange
tracks where you can remove them to
simulate off-line movement. Furniture factory – 2 cars
Any inbound cars that won’t fit in
already-filled industry tracks can be
held in the yard until you decide the
outbound cars already at industries
are ready to be picked up. The yard Fuel oil
can also be used to sort the in- and out- dealer – 3 cars
bound and east- and westbound cars
before making switching moves or
working the interchange tracks.
Expanding operations Beeville
When you rearrange the 4 x 8 into a
linear design, you may be able to build
an expanded yard and more inter-
change tracks elsewhere in the room.
This will allow you to convert the exist-
ing yard and interchange tracks into
additional industrial tracks, thus pro-
viding more destinations for cars.
For these new industries I chose a
furniture factory, printing plant, fuel oil Food processing
dealer, and food processing plant. plant – 3-4 cars
Choose businesses that reflect the
industrial base of the region your rail-
road depicts. Since there isn’t room to Printing
model large industries on the short plant – 2 cars
tracks, I depicted the furniture factory
and printing plant as “flats,” walls
placed against the backdrop to suggest
that the other walls are behind them.
Illustrations by Kellie Jaeger
The food-processing plant area, how-
ever, is large enough to allow a
Model Railroad Planning 2002 21
 Road with ramp
Bills of lading and car cards
Car card made from
3 x 5 index card
Gondola
CNJ
8000
Empty
Return West
Transparent pocket taped to
card using 3M BookTape
Walthers Car Shops kit (don’t get hung
up on a kit’s name) to be used as a ship-
ping/receiving building next to a Golden
Valley Cannery processing plant.
Waybills
With these new industries, you no
longer have just one destination for
each car type, so you need to expand
your paperwork to suit your expanded
empire. This is where waybills come in.
Each bill of lading lists the type of com-
modity the car contains, the type of
car that lading requires – it wouldn’t
do to load corn syrup in a stock-
car – and who gets the loaded car. A
bill might therefore say “Gondola,
empty, Austin, scrap dealer” or “Flat-
car, machinery, Austin, team track.”
Just for labels I used town names
beginning with “A” and “B.” Have fun
choosing regionally descriptive names
for your towns and industries.
I like the information in list format
with blank lines between the car type,
load/empty line, and destination lines.
Having the car type at the top makes it
easier to match the bill of lading to a
22 Model Railroad Planning 2002
Stockyard – 4 cars
Team track – 3 cars Runaround track – 4 cars
Austin
Bills of lading and car cards
Two bills of lading can be quickly handmade or
made from one 3 x 5 card formatted on a personal computer.
Gondola Flatcar
empty machinery
Austin Austin
Scrap dealer Team track
Cut line
Top of
pocket
car card. Combining the two makes the
equivalent of a railroad’s waybill. A
space in front of the destination makes
it easier to see where it’s going, just as
having the town on a separate line
from the industry makes it easier to
look at just town names when sorting
cars into trains in a freight yard.
Make the bills a little smaller than
the car cards, since you need to be
able to read the reporting marks and
road number of the car cards when the
bills and cards are combined.
I recommend a selection of bills,
typically four for each industry spot.
This means you can send four cars of
one type, four different types, or some
combination thereof to each spot.
More bills mean even more variety.
Start switching
Now that you have bills of lading
and car cards, draw enough bills to
make up a train that doesn’t over-
whelm the railroad. Then dig out cars
appropriate for those bills and place
them on the interchange or staging/fid-
dle tracks so trains can be made up to
Scrap dealer – 3 cars
Furniture
factory – 4 cars
Road
Fuel oil
dealer – 3 cars
Beeville
Food processing
plant – 3-4 cars
Printing
plant – 2 cars
Learning points
• Start small, but smart, so your
original layout can become part of
an expanded empire later on.
• Modest track realignment allows
this oval plan to be converted to a
linear design as a stand-alone layout
or as part of a larger layout.
• Match industrial choices to car
types to ensure visual and opera-
tional variety, and choose them to fit
the era and region you’re modeling.
give your growing empire the prompt
rail service it deserves. MRP
Linda Sand is a frequent contributor
to MRP and an active member of both
the Layout Design and Operations Spe-
cial Interest Groups of the National
Model Railroad Association. More
information on these SIGs is available
at www.nmra.org, or you can check out
the chat lists of each of these groups at
www.yahoogroups.com.

Houston’s Port
Terminal Railroad in N scale
An urban switching “association” that handles half a million cars a year
A
4 x 8-foot layout, often a beginner’s
first foray into model railroading,
offers opportunities for experi-
enced modelers as well. That’s true
even when you want to model an actual
prototype railroad. Long mainline runs
aren’t practical, even in the smaller
scales, but an industrial or switching
railroad in N scale is within reach.
Four key characteristics
Most successful model railroads
share four important characteristics:
staging, major industries, interchange
between railroads, and prototype inspi-
ration. Incorporating all of them into a
4 x 8 space is challenging, but carefully
selecting a prototype helps, which
brings us to Houston’s Port Terminal
Railroad Association, the PTRA.
The PTRA is a switching line formed
in 1924 by a number of railroads that
served the port area. In the 1980s, the
era this plan depicts, member rail-
roads included the Burlington North-
ern; Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe;
Southern Pacific; and Union Pacific
(including the former Missouri Pacific).
These roads provided locomotives
for use by the PTRA, and much of the
140 miles it operated was over trackage
rights on its member roads, primarily
SP. The PTRA then handled about
500,000 cars annually to serve numer-
ous grain elevators, docks, manufactur-
ing and chemical plants, and refineries.
Today’s PTRA members include
Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Texas
Mexican RR (part of Kansas City South-
ern), and UP. It serves about 150 indus-
tries and the public docks, has more
than 350 employees, and handles half a
million cars each year. Instead of leas-
© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.ModelRailroader.com
Flexible 4x8: 3
By Byron Henderson
ing power, it operates 24 MK1500D
locomotives delivered in 1996. For
more information, visit www.ptra.com.
Squeezing a huge operation like this
into the confines of a 4 x 8 may seem
foolhardy, but it can be done by cap-
turing the flavor of the line rather than
modeling it scene by scene. I focused
on a few miles of the PTRA’s “South
Side” where it runs over SP rails. It
leaves the Espee at Deer Park Junction
(operated remotely by Centralized
Traffic Control or “CTC”) and passes
under the Jesse H. Jones Highway
bridge over Houston’s Ship Channel to
serve a large industrial area near the
Equity grain elevator.
Hidden staging
Staging is hidden behind and
beneath “backdrop boxes” made from
sheet styrene, thin plywood, or even
foam core (see page 25). The boxes
support industry flats on their sides or
on “air rights” above. Building the sup-
ports as boxes with openings for the
trains to pass through allows them to
Learning points
• You can get more operation in a
small space by focusing on an
industrial switching layout.
• Structure flats and photographic
backdrops make it possible to model
large industries in a small space.
• Trackage rights and joint staging
allow two railroads to be modeled in
the space of one.
• A 4 x 8-foot layout can be devel-
oped beyond a beginner’s project.
be thinner and easier to lift off the lay-
out for track maintenance or rerailing
equipment. Curved turnouts increase
the usable length of the staging tracks.
As the PTRA and SP emerge from
staging into a visible scene in the
lower-right corner of the plan, they
share a single track. The first industry
they encounter is a massive Shell Oil
refinery. This facility is actually served
by Shell Oil’s own crews, but we’ll let
both PTRA and SP crews switch it on
this layout. Multi-track tank car racks
and a small spur for equipment deliv-
eries are located here.
Deer Park Junction is at the lower
left. That the SP and PRTA diverge
here is underscored by operating or
even dummy CTC signals. The PTRA
then serves the large Lubrizoil (STP)
plant in the foreground to the right of
the junction.
Lubrizoil: “fascia flats”
Lubrizoil is represented by thin
“fascia flats” – the fascia rises up to
form the silhouette of the building. The
modeled front of the building is
inserted between the fascia and the
siding. The flats are relatively low in N
scale, so reaching over them to uncou-
ple cars or clean track is no problem.
Chemicals arrive at Lubrizoil on one
track in tank cars and are then blended
into gas and oil treatments. Boxcars of
packaged products are shipped from
the other track.
Beyond the backdrop
To the left of the junction both rail-
roads pass under the highway bridge
as they parallel the Houston Ship Chan-
nel. The SP then disappears back into
HOUSTON'S PORT TERMINAL RR IN N SCALE
Scale: N (1:160)
10" minumum radius Rollins-Pearle track 1 (tank rack)
5⁄8" = 1'-0"; 5⁄8" grid
Peco code 55
medium-radius turnouts
Rohm & Haas
interchange behind
chain-link fence
and gate
Storage tanks
and piping
Houston
Ship Channel
PTRA
Jesse H. Jones Highway Bridge
Equipment delivery track
staging, while the PTRA continues on
to serve another industrial area from a
small yard shown along the top of the
plan. This area represents the storage
yard at the Equity grain elevator, and
building flats are used to depict the
towering structures in this area.
Nearby industries include Empak, a
car cleaning and repair service for tank
cars and hoppers. One Empak track
represents an open-air cleaning area
under a high awning. Viewers can actu-
ally look into the truncated repair
building served by the second track.
Rollins-Pearle, an environmental-
services firm, receives tank cars and
boxcars filled with 50-gallon drums of
waste for treatment. It’s represented
by a tank rack and photographic back-
drop or thin flat. Nearby Rohm & Haas
does its own switching, so the PTRA
simply shoves cars onto R&H tracks
behind a chain-link fence.
The giant Equity elevator can load
300 cars a day, so our model of it
needs to convey a sense of size. This is
accomplished by positioning a small
mirror in the lower right-hand corner
of the layout to extend its apparent
length. The large silos are modeled
over the staging tracks.
Two-railroad operation
Both the SP and the Port Terminal
RR serve the refinery, and each brings
cars to the small yard from staging
with some interchange between the
two railroads occurring there. A PTRA
road job would serve Lubrizol and
some other industries from staging,
Rollins-Pearle (industrial flat)
Empak cleaning track (open air under awning) Track 2
Empak repair track
(open to aisle to
show interior and cars)
View blocks
(in blue)
Access road
Shell Oil
Tank car docks
Shed with dock
Equity Grain (built on
“air rights” over staging)
Deer Park Junction (with CTC signals) Lubrizoil loading dock (boxcars) Mirror
Lubrizoil (STP) tank rack with “fascia flat”
Joint SP/PTRA Refinery pipe bridge (to staging)
Cross sections
Flat
Single-sided backdrops
Double-sided backdrop
Tracks Tracks
Illustrations by Terri Field
Building a backdrop box to support lightweight structures is an easy way to hide tracks. Attach building flats, tanks,
silos, and other background elements to the basic boxes. Additional view blocks or structures hide “portals” at the box
ends. The box can be easily removed to clean track or reach equipment.
while a dedicated switcher could work stock would include tank cars, box-
Equity and other nearby industries. cars, and hoppers.
One challenge is that switching the By focusing on industrial switching
refinery would usually require using a rather than a main line [an increasingly
staging track as a lead, but this seems popular approach, as Chuck Hitchcock
like a reasonable trade-off. explains on page 68 – Ed.] we can get a
On the prototype, the Santa Fe and lot from the humble 4 x 8: an authentic
Katy (Missouri-Kansas-Texas) had mix of liveries and equipment, large
trackage rights to bring their grain industries, and varied operations. MRP
trains bound for Equity into nearby
Manchester Yard and to pick up emp- Byron Henderson has been “between
ties there. Transplanting this operation layouts” for 29 years but is working hard
to the storage yard seems reasonable. to rectify that. He, wife Marian, and
This traffic could be staged on the stag- daughter Claire live in San Jose, Calif.,
ing yard’s single-ended siding. where he works in marketing for a large
Equipment could be quite varied. In networking company. Byron recently
the late 1980s PTRA locomotives served as the editor of the Layout Design
included units from all parent railroads SIG’s highly informative Journal (contact
and ranged from ’50s-era AT&SF and Bob Knoll, 7788 E. Whileaway Pl., Tuc-
SP GP7s and 9s to UP GP38-2s. Rolling son, AZ 85750).
Model Railroad Planning 2002 25
 Flexible 4x8: 4

O scale railroading using

HO gauge track
Enjoy large-scale modeling in a small-scale area

By Chris Webster

R. H. Kindig

B
achmann’s introduction of afford-
able and highly detailed O scale
narrow gauge cars and locomotives
built to run on HO gauge track rekin-
dled my interest in narrow gauge mod-
eling. This scale/gauge combination,
designated On212⁄ , puts 1:48-proportion
models on track laid to HO gauge, with
16.5mm (5⁄8") between the rails. That
allows a reasonably authentic model
railroad to be built within a relatively
small space – even on a 4 x 8-foot sheet
of the building material of your choice.
I say “reasonably authentic,” since
the proper gauge for the Colorado pro-
totypes Bachmann offers is three feet.
But a six-scale-inch compromise – 5⁄8"
instead of 3⁄4" – isn’t much if it allows
you to get there from here painlessly.
Moreover, as baby boomers age
they may begin to wonder if N or HO
isn’t getting a bit too small. Then the
ability to model in O scale in the space
normally associated with an HO layout
can be mighty appealing.
Setting priorities
My goals in designing this layout
were multi-train operation, Colorado
scenery, a continuous run, and a little
bit of switching to keep things inter-
esting. To accommodate Bachmann’s
2-6-0 Mogul and passenger cars, I used
18" minimum-radius curves – about the
Colorado & Southern 2-8-0 no. 65 crosses the high bridge
of the Georgetown Loop in May 1938, with a “4 x 8-size”
train of short boxcars trailed by a four-wheel caboose.
same radius that an HO modeler would
use on a 4 x 8 layout.
I designed the layout so it could be
split into two 2 x 8-foot sections. This
both ensures that it remains portable
and provides an easy way to mount a
backdrop: Just wedge it between the
two halves.
For the beginner
Since this is unabashedly a begin-
ner’s layout, the plan features Atlas HO
sectional track. Although Peco offers

© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.ModelRailroader.com
 Water Water Standard gauge hopper Coal prep plant
Depot column tower under prep plant (loads in/empties out)

22" R 6" LH 3" 22" R

22" R 1- ⁄ " 6"
12 ⁄ -18
13 6" 6" 22" R
RH RH
Team
⁄ -18
12 track

RH LH ⁄ -18
12
Road 13 ⁄ -18
overpass 1⁄ 3-18
Industry no. 2
2-1⁄ 2" Shed 6" 22" R
6" 3"
Road
Backdrop

⁄ -18
12
3" 6"
Industry no. 1 15
2-1⁄ 2"
RH
12 ⁄ -18
6" RH
Road 1"
3" RH
22" R
13 ⁄ -18 22" R
Creek LH
22" R 22" R
Scale: 3 ⁄4" = 1'-0" Road Loading Coal tipple Depot Water tower
12" grid overpass chute (empties in/loads out)
Unmarked track sections are 9" straights or 18" curves.
All turnouts are Custom-Line no. 4’s. Illustrations by Kellie Jaeger

Benchwork cross-section Track list

Atlas Model RR Co. Inc. HO track

Foam backdrop 510 9" straight, 16

511 15" radius, 1
512 18" radius, 10
Four pieces 513 22" radius, 9
of 2" foam 521 6" straight, 2
522 3" straight, 1
523 11⁄2" straight, 1
524 Snap-Track assortment, 1
533 1⁄2 18" radius curve, 4
534 1⁄3 18" radius curve, 4
543 manual Snap-Switch, right, 1
561 no. 4 Custom-Line turnout, left, 3
Bolt
562 no. 4 Custom-Line turnout,
right, 5
1 x 3s 1 x 3s

correctly scaled On21⁄2 flextrack and
turnouts, I believe a beginner is more
likely to use HO sectional track for his
first layout, perhaps burying the under-
sized ties under the ballast.
There are no grades, and all the
turnouts are within a foot of the edge
of the table. With the turnouts so
accessible, it’s handy to use inexpen-
sive and easy-to-install ground throws
to operate the switch points.
If a 4 x 8 space is not available, it’s
possible to build only half of the lay-
out and replace the other half with a
loop of track mounted on a drop-leaf
section, so the layout could be shoved
back against a wall when not in use.
Operations tween a coal mine and a coal prepara-
Both passing sidings are long tion plant, thus eliminating the need to
enough to hold a passenger train con- load and unload gondolas. Despite my
sisting of a 2-6-0, combine, and coach, intentions to have Rocky Mountain
or a freight train headed by the Mogul scenery, the mine/prep plant scheme
with three freight cars and a caboose. has an East Broad Top (Pennsylvania)
Two mainline operators can thus be flavor. If that bothers you, simply set
kept busy running on the mainline the railroad in the Appalachians, but
loop, meeting each other at the sid- Colorado narrow gauge railroads also
ings, and taking on water. Frankly, served coal mines.
however, this layout would do a better One town has a team track on
job of keeping just one operator which boxcars and flatcars can be
engaged switching the freight and mov- spotted for wagons drawn by teams of
ing it out of the way of the occasional horses (hence the name) to load or
passenger train. unload. Both towns have an “industry,”
Switching opportunities include a perhaps a freight house or lumberyard,
loads-in/empties-out connection be- where cars can be spotted.

Model Railroad Planning 2002 27


Comparison of standard HO track and Peco HO gauge track made for On21⁄2 shows the more realistic tie length and spacing.
Here HO (1:87), left, and On21⁄2 (1:48 narrow gauge) steam engines show the size comparison between models made in
different scales that nevertheless run on the same gauge of track.
Construction and scenery
This layout could be built on a sand-
wich of two pieces of 2" foam insula-
tion board. This sandwich would sit on
a benchwork frame of 1 x 3 boards.
This wood framing is required to keep
the joint between the two halves
aligned and to prevent longitudinal
sagging. Cutting some of the foam
away to allow for water courses won’t
compromise the structure, thanks to
the wood underpinnings.
Although the layout is only 4 x 8
feet, there are several interesting
scenic highlights. On the mine side of
the layout, the tipple itself is bound to
be an eye-catcher, and there are kits
offered for Western mines. There are
28 Model Railroad Planning 2002
Both photos by Jim Forbes
also a short trestle over a creek, two
tunnel portals, and several opportuni-
ties for small, close-up scenes where
detailers could go to town.
For example, the small depot could
be populated with folks waiting for the
next train to the big city. Teams of
horses could be tied adjacent to the
team track awaiting the local freight.
On the other side, a coal prepara-
tion plant, where raw or “cleaner” coal
from the tipple is cleaned and sized,
provides a destination for loaded gon-
dolas. Coal comes in over the narrow
gauge, is processed, and is then loaded
in standard gauge hoppers for the trip
to market. The visual contrast between
narrow and standard gauge gons and
Learning points
• On21⁄2 offers the size advantages
of O scale with the more modest
space needs of HO, an ideal combi-
nation for baby boomers giving
model railroading a try.
• Adding extensions to the basic
4 x 8 plan can accommodate a
yard, engine terminal, more indus-
tries, and staging to simulate the
rest of the rail network.
• A Colorado setting is logical, given
the choice of equipment, but model-
ing a three-footer in the Midwest or
on the East or West Coast is feasible.
• Adding a bit of standard gauge
track underscores the diminutive
size of the slim-gauge equipment.
hoppers will be a visual highlight of
this layout.
Industries to consider are sug-
gested by the available freight cars: a
lumberyard that receives boxcars and
flats, a scrap-metal dealer loading gon-
dolas, a stock pen where cattle, hogs,
or sheep are loaded, or a place for tank
cars to deliver petroleum products.
Compromises
If you’re new to model railroading,
this is as good a time as any to dis-
cover that the hobby is all about mak-
ing choices and compromises. In this
case, there isn’t room to build scale-
size industries, the passing sidings and
spurs are short, and curves are tight. I
couldn’t even fit in a small yard or
engine terminal, although an extension
off one end of the layout would accom-
modate either or both.
Speaking of choices: The track into
“industry 1” could instead head into an
enginehouse, with the engines being
coaled right at the tipple loading chute.
Staging tracks could similarly be added
to one side, perhaps on a roll-away or
drop-down section, to provide a con-
nection with the outside world.
As a starter layout, this one offers
just enough action to challenge a new-
comer to the hobby. It can also let vet-
eran modelers try their hand in a
larger scale in a modest area. MRP
Chris Webster, a registered profes-
sional engineer who lives in Maryland,
began modeling at age 13 when he was
welcomed into the Central New York
Division of the National Model Railroad
Association. Although primarily an HO
modeler, Chris controls occasional out-
breaks of narrow gauge fever with 1:20.3
and On21⁄2 projects.
 REALISTIC TRACK PLANS

Illustrations by Theo Cobb

Three track plans for

one sheet of plywood
Cutting a 4 x 8 sheet into three pieces yields creative layouts in HO and N
By Steven Otte

M
any model railroaders base their scale, a plywood sheet restricts you to a together the odd shapes resulting from
first layouts on 4 x 8 sheets of few variations on an oval or figure our jigsaw-puzzle technique will re-
plywood, for obvious reasons. A eight. And being able to see your entire quire a bit more involved benchwork
flat tabletop is a lot easier to build than layout from a single vantage point lim- than a 4 x 8 table does, but it pays off in
L-girder benchwork, and almost any its the realism. much greater visual and operating in-
home has room for a 4 x 8 table at one But what happens if we cut that ply- terest. MR
side of a bedroom or den. wood into three pieces, and reassemble
Great things have been done on a them in a different shape? These three
single sheet of plywood. However, that track plans use a few cuts of a saber
shape does impose certain limitations. saw to open up the possibilities locked
Though the tighter curves usable in N in a 4 x 8, while keeping the benefits of
scale open up more possibilities, in HO compact size. Supporting and splicing
© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
46 Model Railroader • www.ModelRailroader.com
without permission from the publisher. www.ModelRailroader.com
Oklahoma & Western RR
The simplest of these three track
plans uses one straight and one
diagonal cut to add a branch line and Oil pumps
an interchange track to an HO scale
oval. The double-ended track allows
for runaround operations needed to
switch the three industrial sidings Oklahoma & Western RR Oil tanks
inside the loop, but it’s the eight-foot- Scale: HO (1:87.1)
long, tapered peninsula that breaks Size: 6 x 12 feet
this layout out of the box. Scale of plan: 1/2" = 1'-0", 12" grid
Oil loading
Wrapping the lead for the branch platform
line around the outside of the loop
maximizes its length, while a variety
of facing-point and trailing-point
turnouts makes switching challenging.
Note that the second track in front Cattle pens
of the O&W depot can’t be used as
a passing track for the loop without a
backing maneuver.
The track that crosses the main
and the branch represents the
Interchange track
Missouri-Kansas-Texas Ry., a real Cutting diagram
railroad with which the O&W inter- M-K-T main
changes. This doesn’t just add visual 45-degree
Interlocking tower
interest, but also allows the O&W to Okie Pride Meat crossing
ship any kind of car on and off the Packing No. 6 wye turnout
layout via the interchange track. Cars Diesel fueling 90-degree crossing
due for delivery to the O&W can be Global Tire
factory
staged in front of the M-K-T depot
O&W depot
before the operating session, and
shifted to the interchange for pickup
by a road switcher. Likewise, cars
from online industries slated for M-K-T depot
destinations off the layout can be Electricorp Supply
dropped off on the interchange track
to be picked up by the Katy. Mammoth Deep cut
The locale is the foothills of western Tool and Die
Oklahoma, represented on the model
Downtown
railroad by hills on two corners of the buildings
layout. The deep cut on the larger hill
also serves to visually break up the Hill with cut
main line, disguising the oval.
The major industries and resources Tom’s Diner 90-degree crossings
of the region – cattle, meatpacking,
tire manufacturing, and oil – are ▸▸ The track plan at a glance ▸▸ Suggested structures
represented, helping to reinforce the
layout’s sense of place. A couple
smaller industrial spurs branching off Name: Oklahoma & Western RR Okie Pride Meat Packing:
the main loop add options. Scale: HO (1:87.1) Atlas 721 Middlesex Manu-
Setting the railroad in the transition Size: 6 x 12 feet facturing Co.
era means that either early diesels or Prototype: freelanced Mammoth Tool & Die: Design
oil-fired steam locomotives would be Locale: Western Oklahoma Preservation Models 103
at home on this layout. A Vanderbilt- Era: 1950s Cutting’s Scissor Co.
tender 2-8-2 Mikado or an F unit could Style: tabletop with shelf Electricorp Supply: Wm. K.
handle motive power duties on the Mainline run: 29 feet Walthers 933-3611
O&W. For the M-K-T, an Alco RS-3 Minimum radius: 19" Tom’s Diner: City Classics 110
would be a good choice. Minimum turnout: no. 5 Route 22 Diner
If you wanted to expand this layout Maximum grade: none Global Tire factory: Wm. K.
later, the line at the end of the penin- Walthers 933-3172 Arm-
sula could be connected to a staging strong Electric Motors
yard, or maybe a big city like Tulsa. (background building) and
You could also extend the Katy track 933-3514 industrial tank set
into a new area.

o8/o8 • Model Railroader 47

 Housatonic Valley Ry.
For this N scale plan, one straight Freight
and one S-shaped cut yields three Houses General store house Depot Concealed staging tracks
long pieces of plywood that assemble
into an 8 x 9-foot, U-shaped, walk-in
layout. Using 91 ⁄2" and 11" curves lets
us plan loops at the end of the two
Grain elevator Middleboro
peninsulas for a basic dogbone
design. Setting the railroad in the Housatonic River Gravel pit
rolling terrain of New England gives us Dam
a rationale to conceal the return track,
and even a couple of staging tracks, Hidden track
Covered bridge
under forested hills along the outer exposed between
edges of the layout. (If you build this buildings
layout along the walls, be sure to
make your hills removable for access.) Interchange Herbert
track Mills
Rather than attaching the track and Cutting diagram
roadbed directly to the plywood, this
45-degree
plan calls for a layer of rigid extruded Farm houses
foam insulation on top of the plywood.
crossing
Housatonic Station
The foam can then be cut away to Patriot Valley Ry.
model water features below the level Ironworks Scale: N (1:160)
of the track, like the Housatonic River Size: 8 x 9 feet Eastport
and the docks at Eastport. Scale of plan: 1/2" = 1'-0", 12" grid
This design is for a steam-era road
linking an industrial seaport to an
Depot
inland agricultural town. Using the
Sunnydale Creamery
hidden track, you can run the layout
as a continuous loop, or as a point-to- Norwick
point road with the staging represent-
Hotel
ing outside connections at both ends.
A cutoff connecting to a section of
track exposed between two tunnels Aardmore Coal & Lumber
stands in for an interchange track with Eastport
a second railroad. Just as on the Warehouse
Northern Stone Products Seagold Cannery
previous plan, this track lets the home
road ship in or out any kind of cars
desired. The cutoff can also be used
as a reversing loop to turn a consist.
As on the previous track plan, ▸▸ The track plan at a glance ▸▸ Suggested structures
industries on the Housatonic Valley
help to establish a sense of place. The
seaport in Eastport features a fishing Name: Housatonic Valley Ry. Fishing boat: Sea Port Model
boat docked at a cannery, a ware- Scale: N (1:160) Works H114N 83-foot sardine
house, and a team track. A linen mill, a Size: 8 x 9 feet carrier
gravel quarry, an iron foundry, and a Prototype: freelanced Seagold Cannery: GC Laser
creamery represent industries Locale: New England 507 Brennon Seed Co.
common to the area, while autumn Era: 1930s Eastport Warehouse: Ameri-
foliage, Cape Cod-style houses, and Style: walk-in can Model Builders 604
a covered bridge over the tracks near Mainline run: 43 feet transfer building
Middleboro evoke well-known New Minimum radius: 9.5" Herbert Mills: Wm. K. Walthers
England sights. Minimum turnout: no. 5 Modulars sets 933-3295 and
One corner of the layout includes Maximum grade: none 933-3283
another common New England Gravel tipple: Wm. K. Walthers
landmark, a small hydroelectric dam. 933-3241 Glacier Gravel Co.
The trick here is that the upper Covered bridge: GC Laser 418
reservoir’s water level is actually Patriot Ironworks: Model Power
above the hidden track. The easiest 1546 Holland Iron & Steel,
way to model this water would be with 1573 National Casket, and
commercial plastic water sheet. Just 2608 General Electric Co.
be sure to paint the bottom or back it Aardmore Coal & Lumber:
with opaque material, so your guests Branchline Trains 893 Valley
don’t see trains moving through Davy Fuel & Supply
Jones’ Locker!

48 Model Railroader • www.ModelRailroader.com

Indiana & Aurora RR
This layout represents a diesel-era
short line serving a Midwestern city Indiana & Aurora RR
and the surrounding farmlands. Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Sliding apart the sections on either Size: 6 x 7 feet
Scale of plan: 1⁄2" = 1'-0", 12" grid
side of the S-shaped cut yields a
layout table that is still compact but
has room for 24" curves needed by
larger, more modern equipment.
Although the cutoff track leading
past the grain elevator provides for
continuous running, the staging tracks
hidden behind the backdrop allow it to
be operated as a point-to-point. A Cutting diagram
train could originate either in the
staging yard (Chicago/Gary) or in the Seed and feed dealer Station
yard in front of the Rockland station. Apartment
As it travels around the layout to the building
other end, the train would pass backs
through the same urban scenery
twice, but since the track is not
Optional
connected at this point, for operating Gibson extra staging
purposes it can be treated as two Implements
separate cities. Waynesboro
While Rockland has a couple of Arrowsmith
Depot
industry spurs, three station tracks Rockland
Brewing
and a team track, Fort Garth’s two No. 6 wye
lineside industries share one double- Team track Fort Garth
ended siding. Switching these will No. 6 turnout Hoosier
require some careful planning by the Rockland Oil Mills
yardmaster. On the other side of the 30-degree crossing
layout, a farm, a couple of agricultural View block
industries, and the flag stop station at Farm field
Waynesboro represent Indiana’s rural
countryside. No. 8 curved turnout Chicago/Gary
Fort Garth’s flour mill and brewery, (staging)
both modeled as low-profile back-
ground buildings, and the businesses
on the agricultural side of the layout, a
grain elevator and a feed mill/farm
supply dealer, represent the line’s
agricultural theme. The industries in Grain elevator Downtown buildings
Rockland – a bulk oil dealer, a small
agricultural implement factory, and a
team track – provide operating variety.
Though there are two depots on ▸▸ The track plan at a glance ▸▸ Suggested structures
the layout, a line set in the 1970s like
this one would see little demand for
local passenger service. A short line Name: Indiana & Aurora RR Hoosier Mills: Wm. K. Walthers
like this might not have rated an Scale: HO (1:87.1) 933-3160 Centennial Mills
Amtrak route, but you can increase Size: 6 x 7 feet Arrowsmith Brewing:
operating interest by adding a coach Prototype: freelanced Wm. K. Walthers 933-3193
or combine to turn a daily local freight Locale: Northern Indiana Arrowhead Ale,
into a mixed train. Era: 1970s George A. Nickels Milling &
This layout is a natural for future Style: doughnut Feed: Branchline Trains 692
expansion. Simply cut the track plan Mainline run: 40 feet Waynesboro depot: Woodland
apart at the top and bottom of the Minimum radius: 24" Scenics 239 flag depot
D-shaped operating pit, pull the Minimum turnout: no. 5 Gibson Implements: Design
halves apart, and add new sections of Maximum grade: none Preservation Models 106
benchwork and track in between to Laube Linen Mill
extend the main line. The tracks Rockland station:
leading past the grain elevator and the Wm. K. Walthers 933-2841
seed and feed dealer could also be Clarkesville Depot
the connections for new branch lines.

o8/o8 • Model Railroader 49