Modular Railroading in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago
The Northwest Trainmasters is a model railroad club that assembles HO scale layouts using modules. We display them at several places during the course of our season, mostly in the Chicago area. Our layouts are different than many because we build them to look and operate like the real thing. We build our layouts with modules of two styles. One style is the traditional double track NMRA format module. The second style we use is Free-Mo, which is a newer format that is predominantly single-track. By using the two module formats together, we get a lot of flexibility in what our layouts look like each time we set them up.
When we participate in public shows we try to demonstrate to the audience different aspects of model railroading. Because of our use of two module styles, we have single track sections and double track sections that trains need to coordinate movement through. Traffic is sometimes managed by radio between engineers and dispatcher, and this communication is made audible to the audience. During dedicated portions of our appearances we 'operate' our trains. Engineers set out and pick up cars at different industries, using instructions via waybills and card cards to know what goes where. We occasionally set up a display of a 'how-to-do-it'. One of our modules is deliberately blank. On it we can perform decal clinics, figure painting methods, and other similar demonstrations. The rest of the the time we simply run trains.

last update: 05 Mar 2010

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