And Now, Freight Comes to Town

 In conversations with other model railroaders recently, the topic of designing and building a new layout came up a few times.  These conversations provoke reflection on how to design a layout, and how I probably would have done things differently if I had it to do all over again knowing what I know now.  The first principle of designing a layout is its concept and operation, starting with the question 'is the layout a journey or a destination?' How one answers this question determines the rest of the design.  A 'journey layout,' as the label says, models the route trains take to get from point to point, usually emphasizing mainline operations.  A 'destination layout' models a particular place - a city, a branch, a function such as a yard or a terminal - and emphasizes switching as is primary operation.

Mine, a freelanced two-hub operation on two levels is a destination layout. 

It centers on two endpoints: California and Oregon, each with a passenger terminal and local freight handling.  It's all about switching, and its reputation is a passenger switching layout.  Yes passenger switching. This operation allows operators to experience all the unique aspects of passenger trains in a compact space and is an aspect of passenger service that seldom, if ever, gets the attention of model railroaders. Upon seeing this operation most visitors pick up on its uniqueness, noting that they have never seen or thought of passenger switching as an operation.  They say that they're used to 'passenger trains just going around the layout' doing not much of anything but get in the way of the freight operation. 

But there is freight operation, and plenty of it.  That's the beauty of a destination layout concept: it provides the best of passenger and freight operations all together in one place, making the best use of the compact space of a typical room-sized layout.  And now the layout has freight operations completed on the entire main level (track, industry spots and job assignments at least).  

It's a busy day at Cascadia Union Station, where 7 railroads interchange mail, express, sleeping car, and general passenger service.  

Here are the vital stats of freight operations:

• Downtown Cascadia: The largest freight operation, Downtown Cascadia serves 12 freight customers, including a large freight house, with 40 car spots. A stubbed freight yard serves this operation with 3 freight trains (SP, WP, GN) providing its mainline feeder service.

• Northern Pacific Branch:  Including a small town and unincorporated area, this local takes half the main peninsula and serves a brewery, produce market, light manufacturing in town, while the unincorporated area in the foothills serves a lumber yard, cement distributor and small local mill/grain dealer. This town has a small holding yard on the marshy wetlands and a freight house for handing LCL (less than carload) and express freight.
  
  
• Studerville Local/Cascadia Transfer: Served by Great Northern, this freelanced small agricultural town in Southern Washington centers on a fruit packing house (apples primarily) with a furniture maker and brewery filling out its complement of industries.  Having a depot house track for setting out express refrigerator cars bound for California and an occasional through sleeper, this line transfers freight through Cascadia to points south and to the Washington staging yard.

• Washington Staging Yard: Mirroring the Cascadia Yard (see picture below) on the opposite end of the layout, this 3 track yard classifies and stages freight for the Washington and Northern Oregon Districts of the Hill Lines (Great Northern, Northern Pacific Spokane Portland & Seattle and, via trackage rights, Union Pacific and Milwaukee Road).  Each local train has a dedicated track, with the third track providing overflow and the SP&S passenger local, 'Columbia River Express.'

Summary and Observations:

With a destination concept layout, the modeler can concentrate multiple jobs - both passenger and freight switching - in a relatively small space to provide plenty of variety for its operators' enjoyment. A particular advantage to the destination approach is that it allows for multiple concepts to coexist, organized around a common principle - here, for example, the Pacific Northwest in 1955-56.  For me as a modeler it is next to impossible to settle on 'The One' layout concept I want to model.  I love cities and passenger terminals.  I love dense urban switching.  I love locals in small towns and unincorporated areas.  I love fruit packing operations.  I love harbors and their operations.  I love big industries, small local industries and warehouses, major retailers and small stores.  I love street running and mainline scenes.  

The beauty of a destination layout theme is that I can have it all!  Each of these concepts within a concept can be modeled as if each is its own layout, but it all ties together along the mainline and branchline tracks that serve them.  Each of these destinations is its own concept with clear boundaries to make modeling really build out its theme and unique operational aspects - all in a defined space to give the modeler just enough to create the scene but not too much that risks getting boring or overwhelming.  This is how I approached the building of this layout, and it has proven itself as a viable concept that adds interest for operators and variety to the scenes and their modeling.  

Now, with all the freight operations and their supporting infrastructure in place, the upper level of the Overland Terminal Railway - specifically, the northern end of the operation set in Oregon and Washington destinations - is complete and ready for modeling.  It comfortably holds 10 operators in a full session with the greatest variety of jobs from small freight local to transfer job to mainline pool jobs to the passenger depot with its 5 operators handling every detail of the unique, and now long-gone nuances of passenger operations.  This destination layout approach offers something for everyone, where each job is fully-defined and built to provide an engaging learning experience for its operators.  It's fun too - especially for giving visitors a flavor of passenger operation, which, sadly, never seems to get much attention from model railroaders.  

That's the main comment I hear from operators, that one can run freight jobs on every other layouts, but this is the only one offering passenger operations as the main attraction.  Now it has a lot of freight operation up and running for variety - something for everyone.  

Photo Album

Panorama of Downtown Cascadia showing its freight operation taking shape with freight yard at right, which serves the 12 industries distributed on this end of town.  Across the aisle to the left is Downtown proper with future site of the local Coca Cola bottler, Cascadia Woolen Mills (now modeled), and Frozen Food District along the back wall. 

West Sellios, the small town on the joint GN/NP mainline has a yard and 8 local industries.

Looking in the other direction from the spot of the previous photo, one sees the local freight yard for holding cars to be switched in the local industries and the industries on the unincorporated outskirts: lumber yard, grain dealer/mill, and cement provider.  The foundation for its hilly scenery is being laid out here, as it is around the end of the peninsula into Studerville on the other side.

Future road leading into the outskirts of the small town crosses the Northern Pacific mainline and continues with cement plant and grain mill in the distance.

Panorama of main peninsula with attached fascia and its freight operations laid out.  At left is Studerville, a local agricultural town served by Great Northern, and the West Sellios District, served by Northern Pacific.  The terrain will be hilly and forested along the banks of the Columbia River and its tributaries.