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The Soo Twin Cities Lines is an HO layout set in 1959 and
focusing on the traffic that moved between the Soo's main yard at
Shoreham (Minneapolis) and the industries, freight house, and
transfer to other RRs located in the reciprocal switch district of
St. Paul, MN. The 25'-long 7th St. yard is an actual 1:87 version of
the Soo's now-defunct property (flipped E/W so it will fit naturally
in my space). Mine is a small layout, but we therefore incorporate
some aspects of yard operations usually not included on most larger
layouts. I have devised a system using prototype-facsimile waybills
that relies on the Yardmaster to make a lot of car-by-car routing
decisions based on car service rules. I have also incorporated
operations at a small city freight house, handling 30-40 cars per
day.
The layout is a 2-level, around the wall configuration with a helix.
In the yard, the Yardmaster handles the prototypical waybills
(baseball card sleeve style) and writes switch lists for two
separate yard jobs. The YM also makes decisions about handling and
routing of empties to fill customer orders or to route as
appropriate. A fourth crew member handles the waybills and trains
for the Shoreham-St. Paul transfer runs. 2013 will be the first time
this layout has been part of Minn-Rail. Scenery is underway.
All functioning trackage is within yard limits and no fast clock is
used, but we time events loosely through the evening as directed by
the Superintendent.

Superintendent |
Bob Sterner |
Division or Location: |
The Soo, Twin Cities, MN |
Interchange Railroads: |
NP, GN, CMO, MNNR and
several others via trackage rights |
Size of Railroad: |
300 Square feet, 2-level |
Scale: |
HO |
Era: |
Summer, 1959 |
Control System: |
Digitrax duplex wireless |
Scale Clock Speed: |
no clock in use |
Length of Session: |
3 hours |
Number of Crew: |
4-5 |
Train Control: |
The layout is entirely
within yard limits |
Are Radios Required: |
No |
Listed Jobs: |
Yard Master, 2 yard jobs and the Shoreham transfers |

Layout photos (click to enlarge):
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