Saturday 14 April 2018

A visit to John's Santa Fe Middle Division layout.

A few of us visited John C's Santa Fe Middle Division layout last night to do some test running. Since buying the layout from Rod John has reassembled it in a slightly different configuration that adds staging for the ATSF, and a branchline for the MoPac. The MoPac branch operates between a MoPac yard in Wichita and Belle Plaine, via trackage rights over a section of the SF mainline.

I operated the yard at Wichita (which was formerly the yard at Augusta).
Here, I'm operating the train on the rear-most track to spot three cars on an industry siding.

Paul and Rob operated the MoPac. In this photo they are assembling a local freight at a
small MoPac yard in Wichita, before making a run to Belle Plaine.

(L-R) Vic, Brendan and John C.  Brendan ran the yard at Oklahoma City (which was originally Flynn Yard.)

A general view of the yard at Wichita.

Vic operating a local freight from Wichita yard to Valley Center. Valley Center was previously Augusta East
(or was that Augusta West?) on the previous configuration.

Noel running a train between Oklahoma City and Wichita. The town in front of him
is Ponca City, and Red Rock is behind him.

Paul and Rob have run the MoPac local freight from Wichita to Belle Plaine (formerly Guthrie.)

Back at the Wichita yard again, John is explaining to Rob how to operate the transfer run between the MoPac
and the ATSF. The trackage on the bare plywood is the MoPac yard, and the tracks on the right are the Santa Fe.

Noel doing some switching at Red Rock.
























































































































































































Thanks for inviting us over John. The reconfigured layout has come together very nicely, and added some very interesting new operating concepts.

Regards,
Ron