Ceresco & Wolf River HO Scale Model Railroad

The Ceresco ("sĕh-RĔSS-khō") & Wolf River Railroad is under construction in my basement. The HO-scale, standard gauge, point-to-point shelf layout is a freelanced short line based loosely on the historic Ripon & Wolf River RR in Wisconsin. The geography of the layout bears little or no relation to the actual area that the R&WR ran through. That's the joy of freelancing.

I'm building the C&WR on the open L-girder benchwork of an earlier layout, but I'm using insulation foam boards instead of my usual plywood/homasote sandwich. I'm laying track directly on the foam to represent a small, shortline operating on a shoe-string. I'm using Atlas Code 100 flex track and Peco Electrofrog turnouts. The layout is wired for DC block control. So far, I have only one cab but the layout is wired for two. Given the limited space available to me, two operators is all that will fit.

The first section of the layout is "Scots' Landing," a fictional town on the Wolf River. The year is 1943. The track plan is based on the Keg Harbor RR & Navigation Co., an On30 track plan posted by "Anonymous" on cs.trains.com. Here is my version, updated as of Sept 2020: (Click on the image for a larger view.)

 A plywood sheet provides a base for the water areas while the track is on 1"-thick foam board. A partition separates this section from the next section of the layout to the right.

From Scots' Landing, about 20 feet of single-track main winds around the walls to Ceresco, the other terminal. The six-inch turntable and FSM roundhouse at Ceresco will accommodate the line's two 0-6-0 tank engines and its shop-built gas-electric loco. Short trains of four to five cars will be the norm. A 34-ft combine and a couple of homebuilt "critters" will provide passenger and mail service. Both Scots' Landing and Ceresco will have interchange tracks with C&NW or Milwaukee Road, and each town will have a hidden fiddle track.

In between the two towns will be mostly single-track line and scenery, with a couple of whistle-stops and two industry sidings. View blocks will break the layout into four or five distinct vignettes.

Most of the structures will be scratch built or kit-bashed in cardstock. Using kits and photo-realistic building papers from Clever Models, ScaleScenes, and others. one can build very realistic models that hold their own against wood or plastic craftsman kits. These two buildings are made entirely of paper. For the small shed, I modified a paper kit from Paper Creek (no longer in business). I scratch built the small factory, copying a Bar Mills craftsman kit.

I intend to complete Scots' Landing before moving on to the next vignette. I will post more photos as work progresses.