Badgerland S Gaugers Module Program

OWNER: Ray Puls
LAYOUT TYPE: Single Level with Single main walk around consisting of two loops. The outer loop is a modified oval with about 70 to 80 feet of track. The inner loop is a dogbone laid over itself with about 130 to 149 ft of track.

RAIL CODE: Code 215 American Flyer rail on all mains and sidings and using AF rubber roadbed
ORIGINALLY POWERED BY: AC mains with TMCC controls using one 22090, and one 22035 American Flyer transformers. The mains also include blocks powered through Lionel Powermasters to allow the operation of conventional locomotives with the TMCC wireless remote.

I have been interested in model railroading and trains as far back as I can recall. We received an American Flyer train for Christmas in 1952 and my brother and I played with it for endless hours. I saw the end of Gilbert in the sixties and when my interest in trains was reawakened I moved to HO because I thought S gauge was dead. It was a visit to a hobby shop on the north side of Milwaukee in the early 90s where I found some used American Flyer equipment that my interest in S was re-ignited; I bought everything in Flyer S that was in the store. Shortly after that I discovered the Badgerland S gauge swap meet and John Heck and his array of American Flyer trains. The accumulation of Flyer has also been augmented the addition of some S Helper and American Models rolling stock along with K-Line and the Lionel Flyer. It has been great to be involved with the people who love S gauge and the hobby of trains whether its collecting or operating or just playing with these wonderful toys.

In the basement of this country home is a layout that Ray calls his It's My Rail Road division. The layout is intended to allow for operation as well as being a layout on which you can just run trains for fun. The layout will have groupings of buildings representing towns or villages with names as yet to be determined; and these will also define the names of the blocks. A number of the sidings will have operating accessories, some original Gilbert and some made by Lionel and MTH.

The IMRR, N. P. Division table is approximately 8 feet wide by 35 feet long with consideration to a reasonable walk around space. The bench work is built using framing lumber with buss wires running around the table under each set of rails. All buss wiring is minimum 14 ga to provide sufficient power for the trains. There are accessory wires under the table as well powered by their own 30B transformer which allows the speed of the accessories to be throttled. The layout can run multiple trains at the same time each having their own remote throttles. The buttons for the turnouts and accessories surround the outside within easy reach of the operators.

This is my third layout, my first was an HO scale layout and was torn down when we moved to our present home, the second layout was built using modules that were also used on our club layout. This being my third is built as a modular layout so if we were to move it will not have to be destroyed but rather revamped to fit the new location.

With the TMCC that was recently added, Ray enjoys the operation very much. As each of the locos is converted it adds more excitement to his operation.

I have also removed the control buttons, around the layout, that were used to operate the AF switches, the switches are now operated from the Cab 1-L remote using the Lionel SC-2 switch and accessory controllers.

I have also modified the switches by moving the motors to below the switches, thus being able to move the tracks closer together for a more realistic look, this also allows for yard tracks to be closer and increased the number of sidings in the yard.

I am at present also adding operating crossing signals at several locations around the layout.

I have also added three of the Flyer Chief locomotives to my roster, Flyer Chief is a system of Walk-Around wireless control. One of these locomotives being of course the Polar Express along with the accompanying passenger cars.

I have built a number of car haulers using the Lionel O-27 car hauler chassis. These chassis’ are the ideal size for S gauge, if you measure the width of the car it is very close to the width of other S gauge rolling stock.

These are not very hard to find, the first one that I acquired was given to me by a friend of a friend in S, and others were purchased at swap meets or on the internet auction site all for $20.00 or less. This first chassis arrived with the Lionel trucks already removed so I measured the distance from the end of the coupler on an American Flyer box car and proceeded to place an AF truck with the same coupler end distance on the Lionel chassis. I found that I would have to make an adapter to fasten each AF truck to the chassis because I wanted to use the same mounting holes already on the car. I made the adapter out of some scrap .060” aluminum sheet. This piece I made 15/16” wide and 1 5/16” long and drilled an 11/64” hole 7/16” from one end of the adapter, I then drilled a second 11/64” hole in the adapter spaced ½” from the first hole, this hole will be used to mount the AF truck to the adapter. Since the adapter will swing on the Lionel chassis the second hole is countersunk to allow a flathead screw to fit flush with the surface of the adapter and the AF truck mounted tight to the adapter. The adapters with the AF trucks attached than were mounted to the to the chassis and the car was complete other than adding the autos for a load. This is an easy project and can be done for a very reasonable cost.

As I have had a number of these cars on my layout for some time and have acquired several more I have made a minor change in the manner of mounting the American Flyer trucks. The trucks and adaptors were removed from the car. Four pieces of 1/8” x ¼” Styrene were cut and cemented, one on each side of the rib at the ends of the car. With the Styrene blocks mounted it was then necessary to file down the mounting boss for the Lionel trucks to the level of the Styrene. A hole was drilled for a #2 x1/4” pan head self-tapping screw centered on the car and 1 1/8” from the very end of the chassis, and the trucks were remounted. I put a drop of acrylic paint on the screw to act as a locking agent to keep the screw from backing out. This modification lowered the car by 1/16” and greatly improved the appearance of the car.

This being the very start of my layout, I am not very good at planning a layout on paper. I started by building the bench work for the space available and laid out the track to get the result I wanted.
Current State reflecting Before and After
I wanted to do a dog bone laid over itself so I built the layout with a 1 1/2% grade, these are the overpasses before the scenery went on.	The results after some of the landscaping.
I wanted to also create two reversing loops, shown here while under construction.	Here again the same area with some of the scenery in place but before revising the trackage.
This is a view of the same area but a different angle	And that angle with some of the scenery in place
Before scenery the upper reversing loop	The upper loop with the scenery added
The mainline at the front of the layout with some of the yard storage	This is the same area with scenery and a backdrop that runs down the center of the layout to break the effect of trains going in circles
My mountain as it was framed up, this was to be used to separate the winter scene.	Here the mountain is painted, snow added tunnel portals in place, getting closer to completion.
The mountain formed and the first thoughts of the buildings in place.	Winter scene buildings places and roads are now started. To be continued.....................
Below are pictures of the layout under construction:

Rays Operating Session in 2016 on You-Tube : Courtesy of Fred Vergenz
Layout Construction over the years on You-Tube: Courtesy of Fred Vergenz
Running Trains from engineers perspective: Courtesy of Ray Puls on 5/24/2020