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My layout is a freelanced design with three separate, but connected, sections in different rooms.
The first section is loosely based on the Great Northern RR in Minnesota during the late 50s and 60s. The main yard is St. Cloud with additional towns of Clear Lake and Elk River modeled. Minneapolis and Fargo are staging locations. I use the standard car cards and 4 position waybills along with a train instruction card. A slight twist is that the car cards have photos of the car on them - which is very handy when trying to find cars. This section's operating session is laid back and consists of one local job from Minneapolis (staging) to St. Cloud and return to Minneapolis. Other jobs work priority freight, manifest, coal, and ore trains. Operations consist of local and yard switching. Dispatching is timetable and occasional train orders.
Jobs are:
- St Cloud yardmaster: Local pickup and delivery, interchange with BN in the other room, sort arrivals and build departures, and turn locos on turntable.
- A Crew: Mine branch turn, Reefer trains, Manifests, and Ore trains.
- B Crew: Coal turn, Road local turn - (local pickups and drops at two towns)
The second section is loosely based on the Burlington Northern in the same area, but ten years later. It also consists of a helix and three decks. The Superior, WI terminal on the lower deck interchanges with the GN yard in the other room. The terminal requires two crews to work the yard and the local industries (one of which is an eight car barge), plus interchanges with CN and Milwaukee Road. Another crew runs two local turns from Winnipeg thru 5 towns also using 4 step waybills and car cards with pictures. Scenery is now completed on this section of the layout.
The third section is loosely based on the Milwaukee Road in the same area. The third section is still under construction and will not be running this year.
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