Indianapolis Layouts
Mike Duncan's Milwaukee Road Southeast Division
Era: 1970’s to 1980’s Size: 25' x 35' Scenery: 95%
Location: West and southern Indiana
Prototype: Milwaukee Road with connections to Penn Central / Conrail
Features: Freelanced prototype with detailed scenery, scratch built and kit-bashed structures, prototype operations using computer programming and Digitrax DCC. Single level with continuous run and point-to-point. Featured in the January 2011 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman.
Jim Munn's Christie Division of the C&NW
Jim's layout is truly impressive, and is a popular stop on Indianapolis-based layout tours.
Tom Cain's Eastern Illinois Santa Fe
This is an HO layout that has been designed from the prototype to represent a section of the pre merger Santa Fe Railroad from Joliet, Illinois to Streator Illinois. Trains runing on the layout are a combination of Intermodal through trains, manifest trains, AMTRAK and local trains that switch cars in and out of local industries. You can see more of Tom's layout on his website:
Jack Simpson's Hoosier Line
Jack Simpson's Monon Line is a beautiful layout, covering an area of 24' x 38' in his basement. The layout height is 42". Track is Atlas Code 83, and the mainline is approximately 120' in length. The layout includes a fully-functional signal system; the mass of wires shown below are part of the miles of wiring to achieve this level of realistic operation.
Many familiar locations and facilities are included on the layout, just like were found on the mainline running from Layafette to Bloomington during the 1950s-1960s. Names of central and southern Indiana locations are noted around the layout.
Baron Simmerman’s Indy to East Saint Louis Conrail
This is a two level layout that covers the territory of Conrail from the Avon yard on the west side of Indianapolis to East Saint Louis. Indiana is featured on the top level and it is connected to the Illinois countryside by a large double track helix that has a 1.13% grade. This is a double track mainline layout with 5,825 linear feet of track on the layout. Mainline track is code 100 with fascia controlled crossovers. Scenery is about 90% complete. The layout has DCC control with Digitrax equipment including 2 20 amp power sources with 4 districts on each layer of the layout.
Click here to see more photos of this large layout designed for operation.
Dan Hinel’s
Rail Xpress Railroad-RxRR
Rail Xpress Railroad (RxRR) is a terminal switching railroad with a CTC controlled double track beltline configuration surrounding a midwestern city of Gotham. RxRR occupies 2700 sq ft room. Track configurations is a figure 8 folded onto itself. The two level 830+ ft double track mainline is CTC dispatcher controlled, utilizing a 3 serial node C/MRI detection and signaling system. Dispatcher panel is a 45” LED TV. RxRR uses NCE wireless system and scenery is 99% complete. RxRR has over 130 customers in 19 switching districts (625 car spots). A typical session will have 12 yard transfers trains, 19 local switching jobs, and 4 units trains (coal, aggregate, grain and petroleum products) plus a lonely Doodlebug passenger train.
Kurt Kruty's
Milwaukee Road – Racine & Southwestern Division (“The Southwestern”)
Based on prototype operations in Southeastern Wisconsin around 1950. Cities included are Milwaukee, Racine, Sturtevant, Burlington, and Beloit including Steam Maintenance Yard. HO layout size is approximately 1000 sq. ft., single level accommodating continuous and point to point running all controlled using Digitrax DCC.
The Milwaukee interchanges with the Chicago Northwestern (CNW). The CNW also serves various industries throughout the layout.
Track work complete and 100% operational. Scenery, turnout control panels, and structures in progress.
For more pictures of Kurt's layout, click here
Jeff Carter
Dave Petty
Steve Poe
Jon Silverberg
Esteban Martinez
Tim Gravenstreeter
Naptown and White River Model Railroad Club