I suppose it's time to finally introduce my freelanced model railroad, the Ironton Northern, to Big Blue.

The "prototype" runs north from the Ohio River at Ironton to Lake Erie at Cleveland visiting Galipolis, Athens, Zanesville, Coshocton, Wooster, Cuyahoga Falls, and Aurora along the way. Through line acquisitions in the later part of the twentieth century the Ironton Northern also now owns the former Erie from Aurora to Cleveland, the former B&O from Midland City to Parkersburg and then Zanesville, and the former DT&I from Ironton to Springfield.

The layout shown here represents the fictional town of Frick, Ohio where the Ironton Northern still operates an isolated switching district in the city's waning industrial zone. Frick is loosely based on the southern Ohio towns of Circleville and Chillicothe and elements of both towns can be seen on the layout:


Ironton Northern at Frick, Ohio c. 1978 by railohio, on Flickr

Although I haven't plotted Frick on an Ohio map just yet it is somewhere in the neighborhood of Athens, presumably where an old Ironton Northern branch crossed the Chessie's former B&O line across southern Ohio. At some point the balance of the branch was abandoned but a small portion of the line was kept active in the city to serve the remaining customers shortline-style via an interchange with the Chessie.

I've tried to subvert the conventions of model railroading and model railroad design by creating Frick. Half of the trackage on the layout is abandoned or non-operational and many of the typical "must-have" elements for a model railroad are absent. Additionally, the layout's setting, a declining Rust Belt city in the late 1970s, is largely ignored by the "Golden Era" model railroad crowd.

I've had the benchwork for Frick finished for some time and have cobbled together some of the structures for it over the past year. This week, finally, I'm going to get to laying out the track and hopefully soon have another operational model railroad. I'll post photos as the process unfolds.

Today I've pulled the layout out and set up the track and structures. When I designed the plan I had Atlas code 80 track on hand to build it. Since then I've started to acquire Atlas code 55 track to build it with and that has required a little wiggling of my plan.

The layout measures 68" by 42" and the shelves are approximately 15 1/2" deep. I forgot to include dimensions in my original post.


LayoutOverview by railohio, on Flickr


FrickLightCo by railohio, on Flickr


LayoutEnd by railohio, on Flickr


ChessieLines by railohio, on Flickr

Unfortunately none of my local shops carry Atlas code 55 track so I will be ordering the rest from an online merchant this week. I plan to finish the majority of the layout with Atlas code 55 but am also inclined to try some Micro Engineering code 40 on industrial spurs and code 70 on the dummy Chessie mainline if I can find a dealer who will sell individual pieces. I also plan to use Caboose Industries ground throws with electrical contacts to power the isolated frogs on the Atlas turnouts.

Looks like you're off to a great start. I hope that you'll get it operating soon. LOL at "Craggenhead" canning...I wonder if Alex appreciates an entirely new butchering of his last name, even if it's on purpose.

The one thing that really stands out in this plan is the extensive amount of abandoned trackage, this is pretty neat, and if scenicked well should prove to be pretty awesome looking.