An 0-4-2T Forney leads a mixed freight from Wayward Junction toward East End portal.

WAYWARD JUNCTION IS A SMALL TOWN in the northwestern US at around 1930 AD. The short line railroad that runs through town is 30-inch gauge, dating to "narrow gauge fever" in the 1870s and '80s. In addition to being a junction - where the main line splits - the line services an interactive sawmill a small coal dealer.

The entire layout, which is designed for Trainz Railroad Simulator 2006 with service pack SP1, fits on four baseboards. A download package is available at the VR Downloads page and includes a starter session to give you an idea of how operations have been envisioned. As with most of my layouts, this one has been designed to accommodate operation rather than the other way round. You should find yourself quite busy keeping the trains moving and the industries serviced.

Overview of Operations

The map shows the general scheme of things. The west end, beyond the portal, represents the largest city (and principal end users) the line serves. The east and southeast ends, beyond the respective portals, represent resources and relatively unpopulated areas.




Portals. The West End portal is set up to emit trains at 20-minute intervals and receive but not redistribute trains whenever they enter the portal. The consist of an emitted train is selected randomly from a list of 10 trains. You can add more if you like.

The East End portal is not set up to emit new trains. Rather it receives trains, holds them for four minutes and returns them with cars in opposite load/unload condition to when they were received. In other words, a loaded gondola will return empty and an empty flatcar will return with a load of logs.

The Southeast Portal is set up exactly like the East End portal except that the wait time is eight minutes instead of four.

In all cases, when a train emerges from a portal it stops and awaits your commands. You can, of course, play with and alter the portal settings. Refer to "Automating the M-Line" and "Operations on the Rockbottom & Beatte 2007 Railroad" articles at the VR Reading Room for instructions on how to modify portals and industries.

Passenger Traffic. Some trains will include combination passenger/baggage cars and be pulled by small 0-4-2T steam locos. These trains, in order to work dynamically with the depot, must use the depot track and, logically, serve the East and West portals only.

Interchange Traffic. Boxcars and tank cars are not intended to work dynamically on this layout, so they make good candidates for interchange traffic. This is traffic that moves from one branch line to the other rather than going into or out of the East Portal.


A 2-8-2 Mikado leads a mixed freight from Wayward Junction toward SouthEast Portal.

Sawmill Traffic. The sawmill gets logs from the mill pond and from logs brought in by rail on flatcars. These cars, when loaded with logs, will come from the East and Southeast portals after empty flatcars are sent to these portals.


Whitcomb diesel loading lumber onto flats at the sawmill.

The sawmill also ships lumber via flatcars. These cars can be the ones bringing in logs or empties that arrive from elsewhere. If you send flatcars loaded with lumber to the West Portal, the cars will not return. If you send the loaded cars to the other two portals they will return empty.

Coal Yard Traffic. The coal dealer at Wayward can handle about two loaded gondolas at a time. They normally come from the East Portal but will come from the other two if you send empty gons to those portals.


A 2-4-2T unloading coal at the trestle.

Rolling Stock

I've limited the rolling stock specified by the Starter session to North American style since there is now a good supply of this equipment in 30-inch gauge available at the Trainz Download Station (DLS). I've included the Whitcomb diesel, which pushes the layout's time frame to 1930 and beyond. If you omit the diesel, you can consider the layout to be much earlier. I've omitted motorized vehicles from the scenery in order to provide this flexibility in time period.

Downloads

The Wayward Juction route and associated Starter session are available in a single zip file at the VR Downloads page. I believe all dependent assets are at the DLS with the exception of the animated people by Neoklai75, which are available at the Russian Railroad Club site. See John D'Angelo's "Amazing Animated People for Your Route" (Amazing Animated People for Your Route!) at the VR Reading Room. for information on how to get them. In case the rolling stock isn't all at the DLS, check Curtis Reid's Carson Car Shops site and Ben Neal's Sub Par Productions site. In last resort, email me with any missing KUIDs and I will try to provide them. Please note that two items of rolling stock give broken asset error messages. Trust me, they work fine. Don't ask me for replacements. I don't have any.

For those new to the process of adding new items, do the following:

1. Unzip the downloaded file. My download package will unzip to its own folder. (I can't say about anyone else's package.) When in doubt, place the zip file in a temporary folder and unzip to that folder.
2. Launch Trainz and select Manage Content. This will open Content Manager Plus.
3. Select File > Import CDPs and select the unzipped files.
4. Select Open
5. Select View in main list
6. Select the items, hold down the right mouse button and select Edit > Commit from the pop-up menu.