Great Northern Railroad 
Roger Ruschmeyer, owner
The Great Northern Railroad and other roads operating in the Twin Ports area of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin provide the bases of this layout set in the late 1950’s. Operations of the Great Northern along its northern Minnesota route to the Dakotas and the West Coast include Cloquet, Gunn Junction (Kelly Lake and HiGrade yard), Grand Rapids, Cohasset and Deer River, Minnesota. Traffic also arrives from and departs to the Twin Cities to the South.
The Duluth Missabe and Iron Range Railroad operates on its Spirit Lake / Interstate Branch servicing United States Steel Duluth Works and it’s Atlas Cement plants at Steelton (Gary, Minnesota) The DM&IR interchanges with the GN at Saunders, the Soo Line at Ambridge and the C&NW at South Itasca, all on the Interstate Branch South of Superior, Wisconsin. The DW&P enters the Interstate Branch at Pokagama Yard near Steelton and runs to South Itasca and returns to Pokagama.
The Great Northern 28th Street yard in Superior Wisconsin sees the most traffic with trains arriving from and departing for the Dakotas and the Twin Cities. Industrial switching in Superior is handled by the LST&T. The GN interchanges with the D&NE in Cloquet, Minnesota which handles all of the switching here. The GN and the DM&IR also run daily ore trains from Kelly Lake and HiGrade yard. Grain from the Dakotas and Minnesota, coal from the Powder River, iron ore from the Missabe Iron Range and forest products provide the majority of traffic.
The layout is located in a room 32 X 24 with over 400 feet of main line trackage on two levels operated as a point to point system with Digitrax control. Train movements are handled with a car card order system.
