CHICAGO 1955-1965 LCL / REEFER / REA / US POSTAL SERVICE SWITCHING LAYOUT

N-Scale: 2′ x 8’ (or longer), Straight or ‘L’-Shaped

HO-Scale: 4’ x 16’ (or longer), Straight or ‘L’-Shaped

Switching (expandable)

Freelance, Protolance or Prototype track plan

Here is an idea for a different kind of switching layout. It is inspired by all the trains and railroads going in and out of Chicago during the mid-1950’s to mid-1960’s. This also provides the opportunity for a ton of research on the Chicago-area railroads.

Express and Less-Than-Car-Load (LCL) traffic slowed in the mid-1950’s and early 1960’s due to the new highway system and tractor trailers. RPO service ended in 1967 when the US Mail contracts expired and were not renewed. This is why I opted for the mid-50’s to mid-60’s era of modeling.

Numerous railroads served the Chicago-area. A few include the B&O, C&O, CGW, CB&Q, C&EI, CNW, Erie, EL (after 1960), Grand Trunk, Illinois Central, Milwaukee Road, Monon, Nickel Plate, NYC, PRR, Rock Island, Santa Fe, Soo Line, Union Pacific and Wabash.

This layout design would revolve around the Railway Express Agency, US Postal Service, the various railroad freight houses, meat processing plants and grocers refrigeration warehouses. One could also expand this to include a passenger car coach yard to further switching operations and end-loops for continuous running of run-through freight and passenger trains.

The switching would include express boxcars, express reefers, baggage cars assigned to REA pool service and home roads, RPO / baggage cars, Flexi-Vans and boxcars assigned to the US Postal Service, boxcars destined for the home-road freight houses and road reefers (ART, Armour, FGE, MDT, NPMX, PFE, SFRD, Swift, WFE etc) destined for the numerous meat processing plants and refrigerated grocers warehouses. It also provides a variety of motive power; VO-1000, S-2/4/12, GP-7/9, SW-1/8/900/1200, RS-1/2/3, RSD-4/5 and FM H15/16-44 to name a few. Not to mention the array of cabooses!

This type of layout is ideal for those who enjoy switching operations and like modeling several railroads at once in close proximity to each other.