Robert's Layout
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This diagramatic represention of my layout was made on Railroad & Company software.
This program allows selection of areas for copying and pasting to a JPG file within
Photoplus or Photoshop. In this case the entire layout was selected, copied, and pasted
into Photoplus. The arrows and shading were added with Photoplus.
The railroad is intended to capture the essence of railroading in the Winona area.
It has the Mississippi river, tributaries, and shoreline running that is characteristic of the area.
A turn bridge is present as well as a lift bridge. The lift bridge, while not present
anywhere in the immediate vicinity of Winona, can be interpreted as being the lift
bridge in Hastings Minnesota or perhaps the Robert Street bridge in St. Paul.
The dark shaded area is under construction and will represent Altura, Rollingstone,
Bear Creek, and capture some of the Winona and Southwestern Railroad,
which became the Green Bay and Western before being abandoned.
My interest in the Chicago & Northwestern stems from my grandfather having
worked for the C&NW, and the fact that I grew up less than a block from the Winona
C&NW engine facility and car shops! The Milwaukee Road ran right past the front of my
house, and the Green Bay and Western was at the other end of our town.
It seemed only logical to me to try and get it all onto my layout.
The layout is large enough and the runs extensive enough, that one is not immediately aware of a spaghetti bowl affect. It really is more of
a shelf layout, and a series of dioramas. I like being able to put a train into motion and just
let it run, around and around ... and while it is going around , it does not give the
roundy round impression, as it runs such long stretches, and curves into other rooms,
or passes through the wall into another area before turning around. I think you will agree, after
studying the plan, that it offers a whole lot of operational capabilities.
It has essentially two mainlines, many passing tracks, a dock area, two operating bridge crossings,
an operating turntable, a car sorting yard, two long distance cities to travel to, multiple
cab operation, a dispatchers station, and good viewing areas for several persons and a
comfortable lounge area in the center of the lesser circle. There is a trecherous 3% grade to be climbed
into Bear Creek. The Arches at Farmer's Community park, and a wood trestle just up the hill from the "Arches".
The RED arrows indicate the locations of the operators cabs. From top to bottom these
can be called the yard, the DCC or CTC desk, mainline dispatch , and engine terminal or roundhouse.
A word about the history of this layout might be of interest to some. The first layout that I
ever personally owned was a 4 x 4 foot sheet of half inch plywood. Before this I had only
"played with my brother's trains". Upon this base was
laid a circle of Atlas flex track, without cork road bed! This was built as a demonstrator table for a CTC-16
system I had built while living in Modesto Ca. This sytem utilyzed the
Radio Shack 64K, 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive ColorComputer II (the CoCo). I interfaced a Motorola programable
timer and was able to demonstrate the "Learn/Teach mode" of operation on this system.
It was a great personal challenge to accomplish this system and required approximately
two years to accomplish. It required learning machine language, assembler, and BASIC.
Also the construction of a microchip board and power supply. When I finally got it operating, the
NMRA decided to publish standards for a different digital system, DCC, which has since become the
defacto standard for model railroad digital control systems, thus making my CTC-16 system
obsolete. This bothered me for awhile, until I became aware of the much greater capabilities
of the DCC system. That 4 x 4 sheet of plywood is in this layout! It is the northeast 4 x 4
section of the central main circle which offers connection to the new Rollingstone/Bear Creek addition.
I had set this up in that corner of my basement. From there I began to add section after section
as I began to construct a more elaborate railroad. First across the wall, then both walls, then
around the room, then around and back from the other room then out and back to Stockton/Lewiston
turn, and now.... Rollingstone/Bear Creek addition.
It was originally intended that the layout would be "portable" so that I could take it to
train shows, as a demonstrator of my CTC-16 computer controlled system. But, with the obsolescence
of that system, portability became less of a priority. Some sections of the layout can still
be removed fairly easily for transport, but would require additional adaptation of the wiring.
This is not likely to occur anytime soon!
In the early spring of 2001, while away from my home on a business trip, a water pipe broke in the
upstairs area of my house.
The flooding that resulted was catastrophic! The entire house had to be gutted rewired, replumbed, sheetrocked, flooring,
it was absolutely horrible. The railroad suffered severe damage as well, and was not covered by
the house insurance policy. The extent of damage was considerable. All the cork roadbed turned up like wet popsicle sticks,
all the balsa and strathmore board buildings were damaged or destroyed.
All the engines has to be disassembled dried cleaned and lubricated. All the rolling stock was
dissassembled dried and readjusted. After several months of labor in my spare time, while not working on the house, I finally
got the trains running around the layout again, and this was a sort of triumph at the time, as it showed me that
I would recover from the tradgedy, but only by stick-to-it-tive-ness and persistence, coupled with patience.
The mess associated with the destruction, and reconstruction of the upstairs rooms, required "starting over'
at least a half dozen times!
First the initial clean up, then clean up after demolition, then clean up after wiring and plumbing, then clean up after sheet rocking, then
clean up again after flooring was layed upstairs, then clean up again after basement ceiling was
preliminarily scraped and basement ceiling beams cleaned of accumulated debris. Finally clean up and rebuilding
required at the construction of the wall at the engine terminal/roundhouse after the destruction of a shower room in that location,
and the rebuilding of the facia along Stockton Hill.
People wonder why the railroad is not further along, as I began building it almost fifteen years ago.
For the past five years it has been a constant struggle just to keep it in operating condition. For a long time, and still to some extent,
it was difficult to even get a train to run over some sections where the rail joiners had become dirty or fouled from the moisture of the "great flood of 2001".
But then, isn't flooding a characteristic of the Winona area ... I just hope it never happens again! Winona built a dike around the city... I take pains to turn
off the water when I leave the house. Maybe the layout just had to be "baptized" or perhaps my loyalty to model railroading had to be demonstrated to the model
railroad geniis that BE!
During my displacement from my house during reconstruction, I was relocated to an apartment building.
There, I began to research DCC in the evenings. I came
across Micheal Brandt's DCC_MB system, which led to Tillorp's wonderful site and some correspondences with Lars Lundgren,
and Chip Heller's Infrared TV remote system. I used my evening hours in my temporary apartment
dwelling to design and build my DCC system. It went surprizingly
well as I had previous knowledge from building the earlier CTC-16 system.
I guess if I've learned anything from model railroading, it is that many times
greater things come from smaller pieces. The train table was not thrown away after
the CTC-16 system became obsolete, but incorporated into a grander scheme.
My growing understanding of electronics and computers was not lost when CTC-16 became
obsolete, but rather used as a basis for an even more powerful system. The terrible flood of 2001
did not end my model railroading, but resulted in an improved operating system,
better track laying, and an expanded venue.
During all of this, I have also built three other railroads for other people, assisted a
fourth to complete a road that had already been started, and wired a fifth railroad for DCC. The first
was a sizable HO
railroad for a friend in his basement which he operated for hours after many a hard days work.
The second was a G gauge layout in The Ramer Fish Market on
second street that was seen by hundreds of children and adults.
The third complete railroad was a 4 x 8 railroad with passing track, wye, and stub siding I was hired to build for a young
boy of 5 years old and his grandfather, which I believe is still operating today!
My railroad is built upon 1 x 3 box construction. My ground surface level height is 48 inches from the floor. I have two duck
unders, one in the bridge section and one under the docks. It is suspended from my basement walls in a cantilever fashion.
This allows for sweeping and vacuuming of the floor in an unobstructed manner. The 1 x 3 box construction is adequate
for me to simulate creeks and river shorelines by cutting down from the table top. The Stockton hill is built up on
top of the table top. I use wire screen over formers covered with plaster of paris, or Sculpt-a-mold. Sculpt-A-mold is
lighter and I'm using it more and more, but Plaster of Paris is faster and is used exclusively for rock molds.
One aspect of operating that I really did enjoy and found to be wonderfully interesting was to use one
of the new mini Nanny cameras in a gondola at the head end of a train!
If you haven't seen this your missing a real treat! The camera gives you an engineer's
look at your railroad, as though you were looking right through the windshield of the locomotive.
I've seen people
'duck' when watching the train pass by another train on a siding, and it gives you new perspective
on the reality of your railroad. One time, I drove the train up close to a passenger car
and could actually see the interior of the car ... it was amazing ... now I have to detail the
interior of all my observation cars! It really does give you the impression of driving a real train, even more so
than many computer train simulators I've seen. These little cameras are available for under $40, and well worth it, I think.
They run on 9 volt transistor batteries and transmit to a reciever that goes into your TV or a computer
monitor (you need to decide which and get the right one). They are very easy to set up, and can be concealed within a
locomotive or box car, or directed out the rear of the train for an obsevation car type experience.
My dream and goal is to have my railroad operated by a computer. I would like to be able to run several trains under computer
controlled dispatching, speed control, and route selection. While also operating manually a local, a switcher, or mainline extra.
The concept is this... I will use my Tillorp's DCC-MB17 system, which emulates the Lenz DCC system, and interface this to
Railroad & Company's TrainController.
My initial attempts to accomplish this have not been successful. But ... I am not deterred.
I feel as though my hasty, impatient initial attempts were inadequate and should not be considered to
rule out the possibility of eventual success.
It is stated that the Tillorp's system can do route selection,
and scheduled operation should be able to be accomplished from Railroad & Company's system. I will need to implement a few more
items on my railroad before this is fully realized. One is slow-motion switch machines to select mainline routes actuated by DCC commands on the tracks.
Next, several, or at least a few, areas of train detection will be required to stop and start various trains at different locations.
This might require another parallel computer card input to the Railroad & Company system. If all else fails ... I might just have to breakdown and
write my own system ... ooof ... I'd rather not have to go through all that ... again!
Let's see .....
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