The Niles Deport, Railroad Museum and Layouts invited the Norcal Free-Mo group to setup in the newly restored freight house. http://www.nilesdepot.org

The Niles Deport and Freight House have just been restored and placed into a new part next to the tracks. This was the grand re-opening of the buildings. There were all kinds of festivities going both Saturday and Sunday.

The Free-Mo layout was setup in the freight house, the future home of the Tri-City Society of Model Engineers HO layout. They had to remove their old layout so the freight house could be moved. They have plans and will start building soon. http://www.nilesdepot.org/niles/modelrailoads.html

The Free-Mo layout was small but very fun to operate. The yard was in one room and the layout passed through the door. There were 4 or 5 modules and then a Shandin loop. Shandin is a three track balloon.

The operations were a blast. We ran the layout like a yard to passing siding to yard layout. Most of the time we ran with 5 operators. A train was staged on the loop, first operator. It had orders to leave after the arrival of the next train. A train would leave the yard with orders to stop on the loop and wait for the next train, second operator. When the train that started at the loop arrive at the yard it would run down into the arrival track, unhook the power and move forward a half car length. After the train arrived in the yard a waiting train would leave, operator 4. The yard switcher would pull the train off the arrival track and push the cut down into the yard, operator 5. This would allow the engines to escape and move into the yard to pick up a new train. The last job was yard tower operator. The tower operator had to keep track of where the switcher was and what it needed to do, where the power was that had just escaped, keep track of the next train being made up to leave the yard, and where the next train to arrive in the yard was.

This made for a very fun layout to run and see. There was always something happening in the yard. There was always a train traveling between the loop and yard or yard and loop. There was always a train waiting on the loop for the next train to arrive.

Thanks to the people at the Niles Depot and to all my Free-mo Friends, I had a great time.

Bob Schrempp
Free-Mo SLO