Pratt Island

A couple of  months ago I wrote a simplified description of my ideas provided to a friend who wants to build a switching layout, and asked me for some input. Not being a layout design guy, I really just stole some ideas from the Model Railroader articles about their Beer Line project layout (see that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/03/designing-switching-layout.html ). 

But while writing that post, it came back to me that I’d undertaken something similar, some years ago, for an acquaintance (who’s now deceased) about a different switching layout. Sure enough, digging through old file folders, I found some of the material I generated at that time. His idea was to model a switching district on an island, to make its compactness logical, and provide a marine theme. He wanted to call it Pratt Island.  

Much of his inspiration for these ideas had come from the excellent Andy Sperandeo article  in Model Railroad Planning 2014, pages 24–29, about Santa Fe’s Alice Street Yard in Oakland, Calif. (That issue, incidentally, contained quite a few insights for switching layouts.) Alice Street was on the mainland, not an island, but the compactly arranged trackage and industries were things he liked. Below is the prototype area, adopted by MR from a map by John Signor. 

You may note that there is no continuous running in this track arrangement, and only a single interchange (with the SP), so that most traffic in and out is via the ferry slip at bottom.

My acquaintance realized that one valuable aspect of the island format is that arriving and departing freight cars would come by ferry or bridge, eliminating the need for any mainline trackage. Obviously a ferry “cassette” to bring cars to and from the island could work, though that implied a ferry slip, which he didn’t find interesting. He leaned toward a bridge, of which he might only need to model the extreme end.

A one point in our discussion, I asked him, “Why the name ‘Pratt’ for the location?”  He got a mischievous grin on his face, and said that an industry he wanted to model was a steel fabricator, and naturally wanted to name it, “Pratt Fabrication and Truss.” I tried not to say I was sorry I asked. Actually, I think his real reason is that it was a short name, making waybills easier to fill out.

 On the topic of industries, I had given him the same list I used in my other switching layout design (see the link in the first paragraph at the top of this post). That list includes a fuel dealer, a wholesale grocer, a freight house, perhaps a cannery of some kind, very versatile industries such as warehouses, and the great  “universal industry,” the team track. Each can receive a wide variety of cargoes and freight car types.

He mentioned that he had a lot of models of a car type he liked, 50-foot double-door automobile cars, and I suggested he include a dock for unloading such cars (and 40-foot double-door cars as well). I’ve discussed that option before (at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/01/auto-industry-traffic-part-4-model-cars.html ), and below I reproduce a photo from that post. It shows 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air sedans being unloaded in Portland, an Allen DeLay photo from the Portland Oregonian newspaper. Obviously all that is really needed is a timber platform, level with the car doors. 

So I know he considered the ideas I suggested, and sketched some long, narrow track plans (recognizing that the primary element necessary in a switching layout is a run-around,so pencil that in first). I urged him to include streets throughout the layout area, and reminded him that you can label them on the fascia, as on the view below looking up Bromela Road in Ballard on my layout.

So those are some of the suggestions I made (as well as I can tell from my surviving notes and sketches). I suppose most of them are really points that could apply to any layout design, not just for a switching layout.

Tony Thompson 

Designing a switching layout

Recently a long-time friend, someone even older than me, asked advice about designing a switching layout he could build. He had limited space, didn’t want to do too much carpentry, but wanted some scope to do switching operations.

Now I’m really not a layout design guy, having only limited talent for visualizing how something would work. I admit my first thought, therefore, was to recollect one of the small layouts that I admired when it was first published, and which I’ve thought about it many times since. It is Model Railroader’s Beer Line layout, published as a layout construction article in the magazine issues from January to April 2009, with a follow-up article in May 2009 about operating schemes for the layout. 

An interesting aspect of this layout is that it was designed so it could be configured in several ways. As a layout with an oval of “mainline” track, it was 4 x 12 feet in size. But it was effectively made up of individual 2 x 4-foot sections, designed so they could be arranged in a variety of ways, such as a “J” shape or simply linear. As I recalled, some of the sections were able to be used in several ways. 

I went back to the MR articles and scanned in the track plan, then rearranged four of the two-foot-wide sections in what seemed like it would have a lot of switching. It’s shown below; you can click on the image to enlarge it, if you wish. (All MR images in this post used with permission.)

The industries shown on the drawing are the Milwaukee ones of the original design, but of course these can be changed to whatever is desired. The layout also has the Milwaukee River along the lower edge of the drawing, which can of course be omitted. Roads need not be located as shown, but could be relocated as desired. A nice feature is that there is a yard at one end. 

I have taken advantage of something in the original articles, tail tracks that can be removed, or hinged to fold down. These allow staging in those tracks, or in one case (at left edge in the drawing above), enough tail track to constitute a run-around. Below is a photo from the fifth article showing one of these in use. They could of course be as long as desired. 

Another point to recognize is that the original MR design was made so that the layout sections, however arranged, could be accessed from both sides. But a layout based on these ideas could well be located against a wall, making building flats on that side an attractive option to save space. If the upper edge of the drawing above were against the wall, several building flats could be served by an added track along the back.

The original MR article described building conventional legs and braces as support for the sections, as show roughly below. But my friend had two bookcases that he could put the layout on top of, each a little more than six feet long, so my 16-foot design shown above could simply by screwed or clamped to the top of the bookcases.  

My friend had also asked for some ideas of industries he should have. I promptly sent him the kind of list I personally have found effective, starting with the “universal industry,” the team track. Other very versatile industries are a wholesale grocer, a freight house, or a warehouse. Each can receive a wide variety of cargoes and freight car types. Freight houses can be long and narrow, as was the case on the Beer Line layout (below), or even as flats on the backdrop.

Beyond those choices, a beer and wine distributor is a possibility, along with a printer, a fuel dealer, and perhaps a cannery (fruit and/or vegetable). A chemical or pharmaceutical repackager could also be considered. Of course, any kind of manufacturing building, modeled only as a flat against the backdrop, could easily be added. These make possible a wide variety of car types to be switched to and from the industries. 

Tony Thompson