The main focus of club efforts is directed towards the construction of the fourth layout in our 42-year history. The layout is located on the downtown campus of the Milwaukee School of Engineering in Milwaukee, WI. The area that is represented by our modeling efforts is an adaptation of the Wisconsin Central mainline running north south between Chicago, IL and Fond du Lac, WI. Our layout covers the distance between Burlington and Slinger, WI. As with the prototype line, numerous trains ply our rails. Just about any type of modern equipment can be found ranging all the way from general freight to high-speed inter-modal and auto parts traffic. This wide range of equipment allows our members the greatest flexibility in running the types of trains they like and own.

Benchwork for our current layout is an open frame design and has some problems with shrinkage in winter. Unfortunately we have no control over the humidity or temperature in our space, so we have to compensate for layout expansion and contraction with extra feeders and expansion joints.

Our scenery and track base on this layout is 2” extruded foam insulation. (For more information on Foam layout construction, refer to the series of articles by Bill Darnaby in Model Railroader.) Track is laid on cork from Midwest Products. This combined with the ballast helps reduce the noise problems of foam construction.

We decided that increased (but consistent) noise resulting from using the foam for track base was well worth the construction simplicity and scenery options that we have realized.

This time around, we have eliminated any old track and turnouts from our inventory and are using Atlas track products exclusively. We use Atlas code 83 flextrack and use standard #6 custom turnouts where they are needed..

Our layout is currently controlled by a Lenz DCC system. We have subdivided the layout into four main power districts. Each district is supplied by a separate Lenz 4.5 amp power booster. Power is delivered to the track through a combination of 12 AWG stranded bus wires color coded by district. Each locomotive has a receiver called a "decoder" installed in it to receive the signal put out by the control system and increment the motor, lights, and sound appropriately. We also have auxiliary buses that follow the length of the layout for future accessory and turnout power.

Though we use the traditional Lenz LH100 hand held controller, we also employ 7 XPA’s (Xpressnet Phone Adapter) which turn an ordinary cordless phone into a wireless walk-around throttle.

Nearly the entire layout has a base of ground foam greenery. We are slowly enhancing individual scenes and have been making slow progress on the more than 1,000 trees that will be needed to complete the layout. The layout currently has a lot of scenery on the lower deck. Over the last two years we have added two large forests and have even added an area that was recently burned down from a forest fire. Altough this probably doesn't exist in the real area, it adds a point of interest to the layout. The layout base is extruded foam so we can easy build the scenery up, or cut it away to produce realistic looking scenes.

As previously mentioned, our prototype allows us to run virtually any type of equipment, and just about all of it shows up on the layout at some point. All members have their own personal collections, and there is a pool of club-owned equipment available for operation.

Locomotives from every major manufacturer can be found on the layout (Athearn up to Kato). Rolling stock (mostly freight cars) also comes from many different suppliers: Accurail, Athearn, Atlas, E&C Shops & Proto 2000.

We don’t have very strict equipment standards set forth at this point, but all cars need to meet NMRA standards. We use Kayde #5 knuckle couplers almost exclusively and try to have metal wheelsets on all cars

We are currently working on several projects which we hope to have completed by TrainTime 2008. These include:

Rewiring Track & DCC System - We were having lots of problems with track power because the four power districts were interconnected with track wiring over the years. The old layout wiring had 5 sets of bus wires following the same long path making for unnecesary runs and confusion when new track leads were added. Even worse, if a portion of track was shorted the whole layout went dead until the short was found and removed. We have since rewired all the bus wires using the shortest runs possible in the areas the wires are actually used. When new members add track in the future there will only be 1 or 2 sets of wires to connect to instead of 10. The bottom deck is completely rewired while the upper deck still needs some lead resoldering. Now it's much easier to locate shorts by checking to see which booster is offline.

Completing Upper Deck (Fond Du Lac) switchyard tracks - Right after TrainTime 2007 we began rebuilding the entire Fond Du Lac / Chicago switchyard portion of the layout. This was done to better utilize our window space and add a turntable and engine house, but required us to utilize our engineering skills so the upper deck could hang across our long display case window without viewer obstruction. The new and more interesting trackwork for the lower Chicago yard is complete and we're in the process of rebuilding the upper deck and new upper display case. Ballasting work on the lower Chicago yard will begin soon and the yard will look better than ever! We also made the "bridges" across the doorway pernament fixtures as the door is rarely used and the tracks never lined up.

Rebuilding Nestle - In late November we began rebuilding Nestle starting at the foam/cork base. S. Kane St. crosses Nestle's 5 track industrial area and contributed to the areas eyesore. The road was very unrealistic because it was made of loose gravel even though it has heavy 18-wheeler truck traffic. The track ballast in this area was a mix of several types. Since the neighboring Chicago ayrd was being rebuild we decided we'd extend the contruction site to the south a little more. Duing this scenery reconsruction we also realigned some of the industry spur tracks for better switching operations.

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Page Last Updated December 5, 2007