Photographs of Narrow Gauge Track Construction

The Narrow Gauge trackwork is constructed on the same L-girder based benchwork as supports the Mainline trackwork.

The narrow gauge railroad portrayed by the layout, the Inland Lumber and Mining Company, is fictitious, but not unlike many narrow gauge railroads that served rural, logging, and mining areas in the Midwest. In Illinois a narrow gauge railroad ran in Fulton county until it was acquired by a larger railroad and regauged to standard gauge. The names of the switching areas on the layout are those of towns in Central Illinois:

Yard	Pawnee
Logging	Palmer
Mine	Raymond

The IL&M railroad also serves the sawmill at Carlinville and a livestock interchange stock yard in Pana. Passengers are carried between Pawnee Station and the passenger station at Pana.

The Narrow Gauge trackwork is Shinohara code 70 HOn3 track laid on top of cork roadbed. Since the narrow gauge trackage is all visible, the roadbed is 3/16" commercially made roadbed.

When the narrow gauge track is all installed it will consist of roughly 52 feet of track constructed in a switchback arrangement between the Narrow Gauge Yard and the junction with the Branchline track.

Click on a photograph to view a larger, higher resolution version of the photo.

2006-01-01 The first portion of the Narrow Gauge trackwork is in place! Starting near the mainline yard, the subroadbed was supported on risers, first on the deck of part of the yard extension, then on the benchwork also supporting part of the mainline and part of the yard switching lead. The subroadbed consists of 3/4" plywood cut into 4" wide strips.	2006-01-30 The narrow gauge track has been extended to the North wall of the room, climbing above and in front of the mainline. A short distance from the end of this construction, the narrow gauge line will enter the narrow gauge yard. Two turnouts on the new trackage will lead into a wye and from there into a set of switchbacks to bring it down the side of the hill to join the standard gauge track which will be located along the front of the benchwork.
2006-03-03 The narrow gauge line is growing. A spur has been created which will become one leg of a wye. The other leg of the wye will come in from the right, then the narrow gauge line will continue, by way of a set of switchbacks, down to the mainline level and access to the Pana passenger station.	2008-05-11 Part of the switchback is now in place. This track is part of the switchback and will also give access to the Raymond Mine to be installed on the hill over the hidden mainline track.
2008-08-23 The control panel for the narrow gauge line is now installed. This control panel will be wired up to all of the switch machines and two killable track sections. It also contains the reversing unit for one segment of the wye.	2008-08-23 The wye and the switch-back track for the narrow gauge line has been constructed. The track at the left, disappearing behind the view-block, goes to the logging spurs at Palmer. Adding feeders to each track segment has begun.
2008-08-23 This is the opposite end of the switch-back trackage. The upper track will continue a short distance into the yet-to-be-built part of the layout between the end of the Taylorville switching area and the work desks in the background. Also visible is the connection of the narrow gauge line to the dual gauge track that comes down the hill from the branch line. Shared trackage carries traffic from this point down to Pana and to the track that interchanges cars between the B&O and the Central Illinois railroads.	2008-09-19 The Narrow Gauge Line has been wired up and switch machines have been installed. This view of the interior of the control panel shows how the switch machine wiring (green and yellow wires) terminates at the control panel on a set of barrier strips. Also inside the control panel is the automatic reverser for the reversing section of the wye. Two of the sidings are intended to be "killable" to allow shutting down an inactive engine, so the wiring for these two tracks is also brought into the control panel.

Last Update: 03/30/2013