Background

The Lake Country Railroad is based on the LaCrosse and River Division - First District, First Subdivision of the Milwaukee Road.  The First Subdivision stretches west from Milwaukee, WI to Portage, WI approximately 90 miles away.  The area that I am focusing on is about 25 - 40 miles west of Milwaukee and includes the towns of Pewaukee, Hartland, Oconomowoc, and Watertown.  This area is known as "Lake Country" to the residents of Southeastern Wisconsin and is how I decided on the name of my railroad.  This layout will be "proto-lanced", taking inspiration from the actual track diagrams, and other research materials, but adapting them to the space I have available.

About the layout space

The layout will be located in the basement of my house.  Originally, I was planning on using the entire basement which was approximately 19' x 50' with two additional crawlspaces that were going to contain turn-around loops/helices.  I have two young children who have just had birthdays, and my wife decided that there really should be a rec room in the basement.  I tried unsuccessfully to convince her that I would leave the center of the room open and she could have a nice large 13' x 35' rec room.  That didn't fly and we split the basement in half.  I am in the process of finishing the layout room at 18' x 20' and there will also be a 18' x 17' rec room at some point in the future.  The electric box is located in one corner of the room and the sump pump is in the opposite corner.  I also need to deal with the pressure tank for my well that stands 46" tall on one of the walls.

About the layout

This layout will be in HO scale layout based in the early fall of the mid 1950s.  The whole layout will be single track (the prototype was double track at the time in this era).  Minimum radius will be 36" and the mainline turnouts will be #8, #6 turnouts will be used in yards and industry sidings not on the main line.  The track will be code 83 ME rail on Central Valley tie strips on the mainline and code 70 ME rail on the sidings.  I am calling the layout a double deck, but in reality it is a triple deck.  The lowest deck will be staging at 30".  Staging will be through staging and represent eastern (Milwaukee) and western (Portage, WI) destinations.  The mid deck will consist of yard operations and heavier industrial switching all located in Watertown and be 40" high.  This area will be heavily freelanced.  The upper deck will be 56" high and have three smaller towns (Pewaukee, Hartland, Oconomowoc).  Each town will have one or two industries to switch and passenger service.  The flow of the layout is Staging -> Upper Deck -> Lower Deck -> Staging.  There will be a helix connecting the various levels in one corner of the room.

The average train length will be 10' or less.  Through trains can be up to 20' in length.  The mainline will be fully automated using JMRI and detection.  I will normally be operating this layout alone or in "museum" mode for guests.

Research

Here are some of the tools that I used for researching the track plan:

• Track Diagrams
• Sanborn Fire Maps
• Shippers Guide
• Employee Timetables
• Local Historical Societies
• Onsite Visits
• GIS pictures from the time frame