Dakota Rails

Dakota Rails is a very loosely freelanced S Scale model railroad set in South Dakota. 

The seed for a layout started in 2015 when I decided that I wanted to create a 1/64 farm layout utilizing many of the farm toys that I have been collecting since I was a child. I had an HO train when I was younger, but as that is 1/87 scale it was too small, so I searched for 1/64 trains and found that "S" was the exact scale I was looking for. In fact, it would seem that S is nearly a perfect scale. It is large enough to see details and put in electronics and speakers etc, but yet small enough that you can still have a decent layout in a smaller space if you are limited. For more information on S trains please visit nasg.org

I have lofty goals for this layout, but a lot of the fun for me is tinkering and building, especially the installtation of control systems in the locomotives. I've enjoyed every part of this build (except the mudding/taping/sanding and the installation of laminate flooring - stick to vinyl plank, it's MUCH easier, lighter and seems to be more durable). 

I am not following the guidelines or "rules" that many do when they plan a layout. Because I like steam and diesel I have decided not to model any particular era. In fact I plan to have a section of dual gauge with S/Sn3 to incorporate some narrow gauge railroading as well and get some experience with it. Because of this I'm essentially modeling from the 1880's to current, but each of these areas will be separated on the layout. It will be amusing to see a modern diesel with modern cars going past an 1800's old town, but I did design the track so only the narrow gauge will actually go through the 1800's town. Or is it a tourist destination of an 1800's town where folks can "step back in time!"

The only thing that I am loosely focusing on is a set of related railroad companies. I grew up seeing BN/BNSF primarily where I grew up in South Dakota. Because of that I'm focusing on the following railroads in S scale that originally made up the BNSF:

• Great Northern Railway (secondary focus)

• Northern Pacific Railway

• Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway

• Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (primary focus of older equipment)

• Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway

• Burlington Northern Railroad (co-primary focus of modern equipment)

• Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (co-primary focus with modern equipment)

Of course I'll also have some random cars from other railroads on the layout as well. And maybe even a few locomotives from other railroads that don't "fit" but interest me, such as the Union Pacific Big Boy. 

And in Sn3 I'm focusing on a shortline railroad from the 1800's known as the Deadwood Central which connected Deadwood and Lead, South Dakota in the Black Hills. Both towns will be represented on the layout utilizing the Sn3 portion. 

Layout control is by Ring Engineering's RailPro. Click on the name to go to their website. There are a LOT of choices out there for train control. When I started my research it looked like DCC was the way to go but all of the "programming" involved and the speed matching for consisting locomotives seemed like a HUGE headache. Plus, the DCC signal travels through the rails to the locomotives so any rail issues compound into more control issues. I thought about dead rail, but then I would have to deal with batteries and I still needed train control. That was when I landed on RailPro. It has a fantastic full color controller that is super intuitive to use. You can hand one of these controllers to any kid (or adult) and you wouldn't even have to tell them how to use it. They would likely be running trains in under a minute, that's how easy it is to use. RailPro is radio control, so the controllers "talk" directly to the locomotives bypassing the need to have it picked up through the rails. The only requirement is that the locomotives need 14v of power which is supplied by the rails, but could just as easily be supplied by a battery if one wanted to go dead rail so it is an extremely flexible system. Consisting locomotives is as simple as just tapping the screen and selecting the locomotives in the consist. In addition the locomotives don't have to be next to each other either so you can have some within the cars or near the end acting as a pusher without any issues. The locomotives in a consist actually "talk" to each other in the consist to maintain the same speed. Having used it many times now consisting up to 4 locomotives I can attest that it works extremely well. Even if you are currently running DC, DCC or some other control system, I would highly recommend this for your future locomotives as you can still use this on your existing layout. In fact that's the real beauty of this control system is that you can take your locomotives to any layout that has track power and run them on it. So if your friend in a club has their own control system you can take your locomotives to their layout and run it without affecting the running of their equipment. As long as there is a minimum of 14v on the track you are good to go. I've taken my locomotives to many other layouts and brought my own controller and I was up and running just by putting my locomotive on the rails and turning on the controller. It's really that simple and I can't recommend it enough.