Operation The

ON OPERATION THE ABOVE: This view of Verryl Fosnight’s Union Pacific, Wyoming Division gives a good idea of the size of the railroad. This shows down the Evanston aisle; Sherman Hill far left; crowded Laramie upper level on left; Sinclair Oil and Rawlins on right, more of Wyoming to far right beyond hanging mezzanine (no posts); and the Cheyenne steam yard across extreme distant end of room. VERRYL FOSNIGHT his article describes the Wyoming by Verryl Fosnight bench at the end of the Oregon Short Division, a very large HO layout Line, and it can be seen in Fig. 3. The Tnear Sedona, Ariz. The layout is are connected by a three-turn, main OSL is hidden track from its junction designed and built specifically to have helix of 7 x 11-foot double-track ovals with the UP main at Granger, Wyo., to operating sessions that simulate pro- with minimum radii of 36 inches in the the Portland staging yard and is the totypical movements of the 485 miles center of the layout. Another 7 x 9-foot hidden orange track of fig. 3. from Cheyenne, Wyo., to Ogden, Utah, oval helix of five turns connects the The first three drawings show the on the Union Pacific in 1957. other two ends of the string of nine track plan for the two levels plus the The layout is housed in a 50 x 75-foot benches. hidden level for the OSL. building built especially for the layout. The two ends of the layout connected The layout has over 100 classic The building has no internal posts. As by the smaller helix are Cheyenne on UP locomotives with eight Big Boys, of yet there are about half the struc- the upper level and staging on the eleven Challengers, two 2-12-4s, and tures completed, but little scenery. The lower level. Ogden is on the other end numerous FEF 4-8-4s and other late benchwork is a mushroom, two-level of staging opposite the small helix on steam engines, as well as many early design on nine connected benches that the lower bench between aisles 8 and diesels and the gas-turbine-electrics. are not attached to the walls, so the 9 (see figs. 1 and 2). Thus beyond both There are nearly 2,300 cars, and we design is a true mushroom with access Cheyenne to the east and Ogden to the run long trains of 25 to 30 freight cars to all sides of all benches. west, the large staging yard imitates or 12 passenger cars including the City The double-track main line is 859 east of Cheyenne (Chicago, Kansas trains—City of St. Louis, City of Port- feet long and, including the main, City, St. Louis, and beyond) and west land, City of Los Angeles, and City of through staging, and the staging helix, of Ogden (Los Angeles and Oakland). San Francisco, plus the heavyweight the length is 1,006 feet for each main or There is also a separate staging yard Challenger, and mail-and-express 2,012 feet total. Nine two-level benches for Portland, Ore., under the lower level mixed trains. 6 October 2015 • The Dispatcher’s Office • www.opsig.org WYOMING DIVISION Operations on this impressive layout in Arizona bring operators back to the 1950s on Union Pacific’s Overland Route main line in western Wyoming ABOVE: Union Pacific gas-turbine No. 70, along with a GP9B, lead a train from Cheyenne, Wyo., in August 1959. Verryl Fosnight captures this look on his 1957-era UP Wyoming Division layout. DON SWANSON, MIKE SCHAFER COLLECTION Staging Design The OSL from Granger, Wyo., runs of code 83 flex track counting all yards, Referring to fig. 2, on the lower level to a separate staging yard which rep- staging, and leads. The nine two-level of the bench between aisles 8 and 9— resents Portland. It is shown in fig. 3 benches were built in three phases and bench 8/9—is the main staging yard. It as the orange tracks, a 168-foot branch connected to the main helix at the end has about 680 feet of track in 15 tracks. line that leaves the sceniced part of the of the then current benches following It also has a center through-track. The layout through a mouse hole and makes each phase of construction. half near the wall has one section for a broad 180-degree turn as hidden These two locations were first at the classification—left half—and one sec- track at the edge of several benches to left end of bench 2/3, and later at the tion for passenger train storage—right the nine-track Portland staging. left end of 4/5. At the end of each phase half. There is a turning loop under the we invited modelers from all of Arizona The other half are for arrival/de- main helix and back into the yard from to run many trains simultaneously as parture—bottom right—and the stub the far side. This arrangement allows a test of track and the DCC system. tracks on the bottom left are for stor- whole passenger trains to turn so they At the end of phase II we held three age. A fifth part is 5 tracks under the may return back east without being initial formal operating sessions with Cheyenne bench—0/10—which repre- uncoupled. 28 to 36 operators to test the layout at sents North Platte, Neb., our code name There are also two turning passen- that point and the operating system. for all points east of Cheyenne. ger train loops as a third track on the Those test sessions were remarkably After westbound trains are made up upper and lower turns of the small helix successful. in classification, they may be stored in for passenger trains. The upper loop Finally, phase III was completed NP for later transport up the smaller connects to a three-track staging area with the rest of the benches connected helix to Cheyenne by the Nebraska on the upper bench behind the Chey- to the main helix in its final position. Job crew. Eastbound trains arriving enne classification yard on the bench That helix was built on a sturdy 4 x in Cheyenne are taken down to NP by between aisles 8 and 9—bench 8/9. 4-inch dolly with casters, so it could be this crew also. Altogether there are about 5,300 feet jacked up and set down on the casters Operation on the Wyoming Division 7 LEFT: Fig. 1—This track plan shows the upper level of Verryl’s Union Pacific Wyoming Division layout, located in a 50 x 75-foot building in Sedona, Ariz. 8 October 2015 • The Dispatcher’s Office • www.opsig.org LEFT: Fig. 2—The track plan of the middle level of the Wyoming Division. 9 ABOVE: Fig. 3—This track plan shows the lowest level of the Wyoming Division, which is primarily staging. Note that all tracks are kept close to the bench edges so trains may be monitored. Only at wide turns to maximize radius is it necessary to crawl under a bench if a train is derailed or stalled. 10 October 2015 • The Dispatcher’s Office • www.opsig.org for the two moves. In position the helix down the smaller helix—which repre- tions—head end switching and block is permanently blocked up firmly with sents North Plate, Neb., Council Bluffs, switching with split destinations at the casters about ¼-inch off the floor to Iowa, Chicago or through Marysville, each end of the layout—plus the addi- be immovable. Kan., to Kansas City or St. Louis. tional UP locals, unit soda, gravel, and A second direction beyond Cheyenne, coal trains, and, of course, passenger Prototype UP coast- but not through it, is east out of Lara- trains—it is 1957—must be provided to-coast operations in mie bypassing Cheyenne to its south by the car-forwarding system. We also Wyoming to Denver. This route leaves Laramie have a switching puzzle area and even With a layout this large, I was able and goes east on the Harriman Cutoff occasionally run a work train. to plan operations with a lot of features at Dale Junction. This is track 3 to and Two coal trains require their crews not normally seen on other layouts. The from Cheyenne, but if a train takes the to start the job as coal agents to plan Wyoming Division models real railroad- wye at Speer, Wyo., directly to Denver, how many coal hopper loads to deliver ing on a coast to coast main line with it bypasses Cheyenne to go to the small from the number of empty hoppers out a balance of passenger trains, locals, helix and directly to staging which then on the layout. In other words, we have drags, and long runs on the main. I mimics Denver. a little of everything to manage with a also have block switching, and a lot of The bypassing track on the model car-forwarding system. switching on many freight trains, lo- should be hidden from Speer to the cals, less-than-carload operations, unit helix, but because of space and other General consideration for trains, and some on passenger trains. constraints we had to hide it as the model operations All of the operations described below track nearest the riser aisle along My two primary tasks in support of are prototypical for UP. Cheyenne to sneak trains to the small making a good operating layout were Wyoming is sparsely populated and helix (see fig.

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