Guy Cantwell

The Willoughby Line - HO scale

Freelanced layout depicting West Coast California Mountains and Central valley. Trains run from the valley out to points east in the mountains. Prototypes represented include: Southern Pacific, Sierra, Hetch Hetchy, Yosemite Valley, Western Pacific, Modesto Empire and Traction and West Side Lumber. Traffic includes peddler freights, locals, through freights and passenger service. Industries served or represented include canneries, lumber, cattle, mining, petroleum and passenger service.

Layout is in a 13’ X 22’ room. The layout is double deck design with a helix and a lower staging deck. Track is 100% complete, scenery is 80% complete and most of the rolling stock is high detail kit built or scratch built. Motive power includes sound equipped brass and plastic. The layout features many scratch-built structures. DCC is CVP wireless.

Fast clock with TT & TO. Car card system is commodity based on a design by Jim Vail. Manual uncoupling with picks.

Basic concept of this railroad is to run beat up trains to and from the woods while dodging mainline traffic. Operators may find themselves running a variety of equipment ranging from Cab forwards hauling reefer blocks to shays pulling log bunks from the woods. Some trains are switching intensive while others are promenade trains running across the layout.

Crew size is five road crews plus a yardmaster and a dispatcher

Willoughby Line Website

You can download the Employee Timetable here

You can download the Train Descriptions here

You can download the Track Plan here

Video of Layout locations – The staging and hidden track can be confusing – here is a short video explanation:

Here's a TSG Multimedia tour of the Willoughby Line:

Explanation of car card system – The Willoughby Line uses a commodity-based car card system developed by Jim Vail:

modified November 11, 2024