Ackerville has to be one of my favourite places on the Waukesha Sub Division so it had to be included in my layout. Its a small interchange yard between the Wisconsin & Southern Railroad (WSOR) Milwaukee Sub Division and the Canadian National (CN) Waukesha Sub Division.

The area in red what will actually be included on the layout. Plans like this are great for trackplanning but pretty rubbish for planning the composition of the scene so we need a photo or ideally a series and the internet is a great source.

This overall view, taken from Slinger road looking south, shows that we have a nice scene boxed in from the front and rear by a tree line. Other than some lineside equipment boxes the only other structures are a communications mast and a highway overpass. As we look at this photo the left hand track is the WSOR Milwaukee Sub Division and the CN is on the right. The left hand tree line will be our backscene and the right hand tree line will be removed as it will be the edge of the layout and we want to be able to see our trains.

Whilst an overhead shot is really nice to have, what we need to see ground level elevation is a shot taken from ground level. So back to the internet to see what we can find.

This photo of WSOR local L249 working the yard shows that whilst most of the forground is flat the WSOR mainline to the rear is actually elevated with two sharp grades used to access the yard. You can see how the tree line dominates from behind the WSOR embankment and will make a fantastic background.

Now this images is in summer and because I am totally colour blind I have decided to set my Layout in January. Therefore we need snow lots of snow so lets try and find a picture of Ackerville in Winter.

Its a WSOR take over, well not quite here you see CN local L510 working the yard with an exEJ&E locomotive still in original paint tied down in the yard. As that local which runs from Fond-du-lac to Waukesha as a turn, i.e. it comes back, is paused the T004 Horicon to Janesville WSOR transfer exercises its trackage rights between Slinger & Grand Ave Waukesha. Hopefully we’ll soon be recreating this ourselves soon in on our own minature version of this busy section of mainline.

Things to note for the scenery are the switch stands in the yard and the tyre tracks from MOW trucks at the side of the CN mainline. Its little details like those that make all the difference.

Join us on Thursday as I start to cut some foam and make a start on laying out the scenery base for Ackerville.