HI.. I'm looking to build a 2 level N Scale layout based on the UP railway, but have not decided on waht area to do, I'm looking for a main yard with interchange. A few small towns that I can do some switching aswell as have main line trains. Any ideas or help would be great. Auzze
What size are you looking at. El Paso may be a good area. The old SP yard mainly handles through trains. There is a loco maintenance facility and sanding tower that supports through traffic. Believet they do light maintenance and locomotive inspection. Most of the yard tracks have been pulled but there are a few that handle local traffic and iterchange with BNSF (ex ATSF) Traffic comes in from the west and then either heads east or northeast on the sunset route. There is a fair amount of switching that could be represented in El Paso. You could also put in a little BNSF if you wanted.
Do you have any particular portion of the UP System that is a favorite? That might help narrow the decision making process. Boxcab E50
Roper Yard is a favorite of mine, it's an interchange yard between the UP and ex DRGW. http://www.drgw.org/data/facilities/roper.jpg It can be shrunk down to fit about any size and still retain the feeling of the original. There are precious few yards that are this small and still do interchange. The map is also very good for a reference on the working parts of a yard no matter where you choose to model. http://www.drgw.org/data/facilities/roper_e.jpg http://www.drgw.org/data/facilities/roper_w.jpg
If what you want is to run ton of trains, switch a little, and interchange, Cheyenne, WY is for you. I can say so, since I live there! UP runs 60-80 trains per day thru Cheyene. The weekends are busiest, and on weekdays, the count only reaches 45-60 trains per day... The usual is intermodals, manifests, coal empties and loads, and autoracks. Cheyenne Yard is now the main facility to switch 'racks. They recently took that from North Platte, Bailey Yard (largest in US). Modern, you need tons of SD70M's, AC4400's, SD90MACs, and the occasional C60AC. Run thru power is huge here, rare are solid consists of UP power; CSX, CN, CP, BNSF, NS, IC, etc all are found in trains thru here. The Cheyenne depot is a neat, mid 1800's structure, with a museum inside. It is also a crew change point. 2 track enter town at the east, and split to 4 tracks. All 4 are usually busy. The 4 tracks split west of town, for the original #1 and #2 track on the original transcon route over Sherman Hill. The 1.5% ruling grade restricts this route to EB trains, and light, or well-powered WB's. #3 track takes a more southerly route, at a .8% grade for all heavy WB trains. #4 track leaves town and continues west for a few miles, then peels off south towards Speer, and then to Denver. BNSF interchanges with UP on an infrequent basis, but routinely sends trains of empty ballast hoppers west to load at Granite, WY, at the quarry there. The power is a UP unit leading,and any imaginiable road power mix from BNSF assisting. Cheyenne is also home to the 2 famous steamers, 844 and 3985. Stea excursions, and trips leave here west and eastbound nearly year-round. Summer is busiest for steam trips, but winter trips have happened. Along with that is the roundhouse, and Steam Crew machine shop in the yard. A (small) busy diesel pit services engines, and a small car shop does its duties.Trains routinely cut off the power on the main, leave the train, refuel, recouple, and contine west or east. 2 large refineries contribute lots of switching. A park within a couple hundred yards of the main features a restored Big Boy steam loco. I have dozens of pics of the area, if you wanna know more!
1. I was about to post the same as Hemi. It's pretty impressive. You could model hermosa tunnel to the east and also model Sherman hill. 2. The other area worth exploring is Kansas city. You are saying you want UP, but Kansas City has all the railroads yards. It's amazing. Great model railroads magazine had a Layout based around interchange operations between all the yards in KC. Everything was compressed, but it had the look and feel of KC railroading. 3. Then there is also the joint line running south out of Denver. Scenically, I think this would be a very impressive mountainous and woods area to model. 4. My all time favorite line to railfan is the Ex D&RGW line west of Denver. Perhaps you could model UP's Denver yard and then the line west from Denver. It also features Amtraks zephyr so you could add a nice touch with that. Of course if you're going to do that line , you should also model Big Ten Curves. It's a single track S shaped curve climbing the front of the rockies. Also Rainbow gap is very colorful.
