The Chicago, Peoria & Southern is a proto-freelanced model of a typical Midwest class 1 railroad. It runs from Chicago to St. Louis and Memphis. In this version, it represents a railroad that is controlled by the Soo Line in 1958. There are also 15 other railroads represented on the layout as trackage rights and live interchanges at various locations. The layout features the mainline from Peoria to Venice, Ill., and is 650 feet long. Four working yards handle the switching requirements. Peoria, the largest, Springfield, and Venice primarily handle the merchandise. Litchifield is a coal marshalling yard which dispatches mine runs and assembles coal trains. Six staging yards feed the layout.
The railroad features steam locomotives and first generation diesel locomotivies. The layout is point-to-point, linear design. Operating sessions are handled by 18–20 operators, including dispatcher, train crews, yard duties, city switchers, and operator. Time table and train orders control train movements with working train-order semaphores.
The layout is in an “L” shaped basement, overall 60 feet by 37 feet on one end, 26 feet on the other and is double decked. Control is NCE DCC, with wireless control. Track is a combination of code 83, 70 and 55. Scenery is about 50 percent complete, with a lot of work being done currently in that area. Subroadbed and scenery contours are foam. Minimum mainline radius is 40 inches. Maximum grade is 1.7 percent. Minimum aisle is 36 inches but generally 60 inches or more. Check out more about the CP&S at cpsrailroad.com
Bill Navigato
South Elgin, IL
