The Stone Lake Line
The Stone Lake Line Railroad (SLL) is a freelanced/prototype N scale railroad set in northern Wisconsin in the early 1960’s. It is based on the Chicago St. Paul Minneapolis and Omaha’s (CMO) former line from Tuscobia, Wisconsin to Park Falls, Wisconsin as well as the line from Altoona to Superior. The SLL also includes a combination of trackage rights agreements and interchange traffic with the Soo Line as well as interchange traffic with the Milwaukee Road, the Lake Superior Terminal and Transfer Railway, the Minneapolis Transfer Railway and a private lumber company railroad. For more information, see the History of the Stone Lake Line.
The layout is a combination of double deck and around the walls design in five different rooms. Construction is homasote over plywood roadbed on open grid bench work with approximately 350’ of main line and 30’ of branch line. The minimum radius is 12” and the maximum grade is 2%. There are two traditional staging yards representing Superior, Wisconsin and Minneapolis, Minnesota as well as one combination staging/active yard representing Altoona yard in Eau Claire. There is also a small staging yard representing “west” Eau Claire and the CMO line to Minneapolis as well as a “racked” staging yard of removable “racks” that represent everything east of Park Falls, Wisconsin.
Peco code 55 rail and turnouts are used throughout the layout and all turnouts are hand thrown. The layout is DCC controlled with NCE tethered throttles. Car forwarding is by custom designed car cards and single use waybills that indicate instructions for empty cars, loaded cars and cars ordered empty for loading. The layout is designed for verbal train order dispatching with radios and a dispatcher operating from a separate office.
The goal of The Stone Lake Line Railroad is to provide interesting and enjoyable model railroad operation by servicing on line and off line customers with simulated prototype railroad operations that represent the era and geography with reasonable accuracy.
Duncan Geddes
President
