Wyandotte Siding, Southern Pacific

Owner: Ken Smith
Scale : HO
Location: Shepton Mallet, Somerset (UK)
Wyandotte Siding is a fictional location set in the early 1950s somewhere on the Southern Pacific’s East Valley line between Chico and Marysville, CA. It has been built for exhibition at train shows and its first public appearance, in 2008, was as a 15-foot-long switching layout, 10’ of which was scenic, with a 4-foot train-traverser at one end and a short engine-traverser at the other.
For 2009, the layout was extended to create a complete passing siding with industries on both sides of the line (silos and elevator, packing sheds and a beet loader) and 5-foot traversers at each end.
The scenic section in this version is 15’ 6’’ long.
Layout control is Digitrax DCC with Tortoise motors and Hare decoders operating the switches.
Signaling is yet to be installed, but I have some BLMA H2 searchlight signals ready to put in place when I have worked out which train detection and signal driver system I am going to use.
Track is Peco code 83 for the main and the switches, with Micro Engineering code 75 on the siding and code 55 on the spurs.