The Panhandle and Santa Fe is a stop-along-the-way on the ATSF’s secondary mainilne through Texas, set in the post war period of 1st generation diesels and steam locos.
Essential Details:
- Scale: N
- Size 11′ x 7′
- Control Method: DCC
- Track: Peco Code 55
Trackplan:
The town is a real-life layout design element taken from West Oklahoma.
The layout starts in the left hand corner, the mainline having just left the double-track CTC area southwest of Amarillo. The town is called Black and existed in real life, although the plan itself is tranposed from Woodward, Oklahoma. In the Woodward plan the interchange is a regional carrier, in my plan it is a branch of the Rock Island.
Operations:
As a diametric opposite to my previous layout Black River, PSF focuses on mainline freight. There are several scheduled fast-freight and passenger trains through the town (taken directly from the 1955 ATSF timetable for the Panhandle Subdivision) and both Rock Island and ATSF local freights powered by typical locomotives.
The layout is operated using manual switchlists.
Positives:
N gauge provides for far more scope for variety in the design of a layout in a similar space to H0, and my eyes being relatively healthy I found very little to complain about for the switch. DCC made consisting of A+B+B+A matched sets very easy which would’ve required alot of fiddling in DC. Expansive staging made a the suspension of disbelief easier (although there was a drawback, see below) and the live interchange (where the RI had it’s own staging track and loco that operated) was a favorite feature of mine.
Negatives:
Because the staging was so huge (providing for four trains in either direction plus locals, plus RI trains, plus passenger trains) it created a situation where half of my layout room was off-scene in staging, and made the layout less an exercise in modelling the mainline and more an exercise in shoehorning as much operation in a town with no terminating or originating trains and twenty times the through-trains compared to those that stopped. Despite my best efforts I was unable to shake the feeling that I was compromising too much again, this time in the layout/staging ratio and the incredible lengths I was going to, to operate the layout like a switching plank.
Lessons Learnt:
- This layout would have been perfect as part of a larger whole with a yard or two and mainline stretches, with multiple operators. As the sole LDE however it’s design precluded lots of local operations and a number of through-trains that I couldn’t afford or operate.
- A balance is required between layout and staging space
- As a layout builder, operator and collector I simply cannot support mainline operations.
