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The Waterside Railway
Dennis Grigassy's HO Scale Model Railroad 


The HO Scale Waterside Railway is being constructed in an air-conditioned room at the rear of my garage. The layout consists the main line with several hundred feet of track, and numerous turnouts, spurs, sidings, and yards. 
The railroad uses Digital Command Control with wireless throttles from CVP Products/EasyDCC. Waybills and switchlists are generated by computer using RailOp software. 

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Engine 4213 switches the town of Werner as truck traffic rumbles past overhead, while engine 8607 emerges from Tunnel No.1 with a double-stack container train bound for the west coast.
(Click on photos to see a larger view)

The railroad has about 80 freight cars, three passenger cars, seven diesel locomotives, and three steam locomotives. Trains operate from the six-track main freight yard in the town of Rayville, through three towns, around a helix, through three more towns, and terminate at the town of Westridge on the upper level.

There are three "interchange" tracks and a two-track "staging" area. Color light signals are being installed at several locations along the right-of-way. 

Running the model railroad through a typical "day" in prototype fashion, with setting out and picking up freight cars at the various industries in the towns as dictated by the waybills, will keep three or four serious "operators" busy for several hours. The railroad can also be run in a round-and-round mode to just show it off to non-model railroad visitors. 

The three-turn "helix" was constructed in the un-air-conditioned garage adjacent to the railroad room. (A helix is a stacked spiral of track that allows trains to ascend or decend vertical heights within a minimal space.) My helix is not meant to be part of the "visible" railroad, and has enabled me to build a complete "second level" within the railroad room about 12"-14" above the original layout. Below is a photo taken as the first train enters the lower portion of the helix on its way to the upper level. 


Train 122 with two locomotives and twenty cars of mixed freight enters the helix from the town of Werner. It will travel three times around spiraling upward gaining about 14" in height while traversing the approximately one scale mile of the helix. The track leaves the helix and re-enters the train room at the upper-level town of Schmiedekind.

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Rayville - Engine House and Ray Yard, the east end of the railroad

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Thompson - with its Intermodal Facility and Amerine (above Werner's depot)

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A view of Werner, and the town of Schmiedeknd

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Blalock - on the upper level.

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Westridge - showing Ray Yard below, and the turntable at Westridge

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George Werner, David Ray, and Frolin Marek

No scenery yet, but soon ... I hope!.


Last updated - March 23, 2006