Good evening everyone. I've read this forum for more than a decade and decided to share my efforts for building a layout for the last 2 decades.
As the subject says, my project has been to build a layout that represents the 43 miles of track that once existed between Sheboygan and Fondulac Wisconsin. It is the original 43 miles of the Sheboygan and Mississippi Railroad that was built in the 1860's between the 2 cities which became the Sheboygan and Fondulac Railroad and eventually part of the Chicago and Northwestern Lakeshore Division. Also known as the Eastline, running east from Fondulac, the line reached it's height during the early 1920's with 4 passenger trains and 2 freight trains a day in each direction. Road construction and the Depression eliminated the passenger trains in the 1930's reducing the line to one passenger carrying all day way freight in each direction. A map from 1938 show the Eastline as the 3rd Subdivision of the Lakeshore Division so that's the name that I have adopted. Even the way freight was anulled in 1946 after the war was over. Without a source of traffic, the line was finally partially abandoned between Peebles and Glenbulah WI in the Winter and Spring of 1952/1953.
My favorite period is the the transition period between 1949 and 1954 when the Northwestern eliminated all of it 3 car local trains so I had to figure out a way to make the line viable into the 1950. Reasearch found in articles from the Chicago and Northwestern Historical Societies publication Northwesten Line gave me some answers.
An issue of the Northwestern Lines that focussed on Sheboygan mentioned that the city of Sheboygan had contemplated create a car ferry dock in it's Lake Michigan harbor in 1898. This would have provided a direct route for eastbound traffic from the paper mills in Wisconsin Rapids without having to go north or south. Along with this, the Northwestern already had a through freight, dedicated to move traffic to the Lakeshore. Train 170 - ToLake ran from Superior to Merrilan, to Marshfield to Green Bay to Sheboygan bringing cars for the Lake Michigan Ferries. If I created a second section of ToLake that ran directly to Sheboygan through Fondulac, there would be more traffic to keep the line alive. My last change to history was to create a direct connect from Marshfield to Altona WI which would bypass running through Merrillan, creating a direct route to Sheboygan.
During the decade that I was researching the line, we moved into a 100 year old Craftsman 4 square with a poured concreate basement and 8ft to the joists. The one space that was not claimed in the basement was the cistern that had an inside dimesion of 8' X 19' and walls 66 inches tall and 13" thick. The problem was that the water piping, pressure tank, wooden cover and 22" of silt on the bottom were all still in place. Over the next year everything was removed and 1300 lbs of concreate removed from the corner of one wall to create an entrance. A new electical line with an outside on/off switch was added with plenty of outlets went in quickly. Furring strips and insulation with hardboard wall for a backdrop complete the basics of the room.
More later, with plan and pictures.
Thanks for reading.
Scott Sonntag
Welcome to the MR forums, Scott.
This sounds like an interesting project. I'm looking forward to seeing more.
Mike.
My You Tube
Thanks Mike.
Here are some pictures as promised.
Working the passing siding at Glenbulah.
The Chippewa arrives in Plymouth
The Sheboygan Bullring yard.
And a couple of overall views of the train room.
Here are a couple of other stations.
Peebles:
and St Cloud.
More on the layout design and construction later.
Looks good. Your under tabe accuterments rival those of the LION.
If you are going to control switches and signals from the fascia like thqat, then you need to LOCK the hnadles so that they can not be tampered with. It will aslo simulate the time needed for the conductor ro brake man to get down on the ground, unlock and throw the switch.
As a mater of protocol, the pushed-in position is the normal alignment for the mane lion, and the pulled position of the lever reverses said points or signal.
Here is switch machine of LION
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Nice work Scott, and I thought you were just getting started!
I didn't expect to see an up and running, sceniced, lay out. Looks nice!
Nice looking layout Scott! I look forward to seeing more! Thanks for sharing!
Regards, Isaac
I model my railroad and you model yours! I model my way and you model yours!
Thanks for the suggestion Lion. The hard part of creating a locking mechanism is that it is on the second level of the layout which only gives me 6" on the valance. Not much room to use the cool looking levers that you have.
Scott
Thanks for the comments Mike and Issac. Mike sorry that I disappointed you by doing the work before posting the story.
Alot of the work may be done but I thought I would go through the sequence of what I did to get to this point. Made alot of mistakes and learned an awful lot so I thought that I would share the experience.
I mentioned in the last post that I took out a corner of the cistern to gain access. Here are a couple of pictures of the hole that I created. Remember the walls are 13" thick so we had to use an electric jack hammer suspended from the ceiling and pushed into the concrete to break it up.
After almost a year of work I had a room ready to go but I wasn't sure of what I wanted the layout to look like so I went searching for track plans from the prototype. With a prototype that is contained in 2 Wisconsin counties, I figured that it would be to hard to find what I was looking for. Turns out that my father had a gazetteer from 1911 for Sheboygan County which got me the railroad layout for Sheboygan, Sheboygan Falls, Plymouth(with the interchange with the Miwaukee Road) and Glenbulah. Searching the web for Fondulac County brought me a map of St. Cloud and Fondulac. I had enough from the prototype to start working on the plan.
Next time: A single level layout plan based on maps that I had found.
Here are a couple more pictures of the layout in it's current state
Thanks again for the comments.