4 Design considerations as influenced by

The design of any model railroad is influenced by a number of things. The most commonly named in the model railroad press are time, space and money. For me skills as well as energy and willpower are equally important as the first three named. There are also others to take into account.

Design consideration may be constrained by:

- time
- money
- skills
- energy and wilpower
- space
- benchwork
- chosen prototype and period
- yard location
- type of operation
- chosen scale

Some design considerations may be more important than others and during the design process it can change as well.

Case in point: my woodworking skills are not great so I opted to go with an Ikea Ivar storage system as my basic benchwork on which modules and segments will rest. However, I'm having problems locating Oskaloosa's South Yard and in particularly the wye at the south end. It's a very big element and doesn't fit into the Ivar directly so I might have to scale back on the way I want to operate the layout. I'm confident I'll find a solution so I can include a functioning wye and with it the operational benefits of including the beginning of the 11 district and the through freights I can then operate. This in contrast to not making the wye functional and then having all freight cars come from North Yard / staging in the shape of transfers. There is drama missing there and what attracted me to the M&StL in the first place where picture of through freights passing the passenger station. I might have to become good enough at woodworking or find another way to include this important part (to me) of the railroad.

3 A list of all the interesting places along the line

It's high time I post a list of all the interesting places on the Oskaloosa to Albia line of the M&StL. I'll use the mileposts as markers. Mileposts were calculated with St. Paul Union Depot as the 0 milepost. Most places are so large and / or diverse that I've subdivided them for better presentation of information.

1 MP 301.1 Oskaloosa
  - 1a Depot and trackage to North Yard including freight customers north of depot but excluding North Yard itself (with enginehouse) and College area
  - 1b Freighthouse, team tracks and related freight customer tracks
  - 1c South Yard
  - 1d Wye including CRI&P and CBQ trackage below wye in cut
 - 1e 11th district to Monmouth and continuing on as 12th district Peoria, both in Illinois, including trackage to freight customers like Clow Valve and interchange with CRI&P
  - 1f ex CBQ trackage taken over in 1934
  - 1g CRI&P trackage

2 MP 302.6 Tracy Junction, since washout of the bridge over the des Moines River at Tracy in 1947: Fosterdale Junction
  - 2a Tracy Junction area but excluding the Beacon area
  - 2b Fosterdale Rutherford coal washer and possibly coal mines nearby
  - 2c Rochester
  - 2d Tracy bridge over Des Moines river and sand and gravel companies
  - 2e Tracy crossing of Wabash RR and Tracy CBQ yard (shared with CBQ)

3 MP 303.2 Beacon
  - 3a Beacon M&StL
  - 3b Beacon CRI&P including spur to coal mines and junction of line to Oskaloosa and K&D mainline to Evansville and Des Moines right near trestle
  - 3c Beacon ex CBQ trestle across CRI&P and possibly coal mines

4 MP 304.9 Excelsior

5 MP 306.7 Givin
  - 5a Givin M&StL including tracks to coal mines east and south of CRI&P crossing
  - 5b Givin bridges over Muchakinnock Creek
  - 5c Givin CRI&P including spur to coal mine west of line

6 MP 311.2 Eddyville
  - 6a Eddyville CRI&P interchange and spur to sand and gravel company
  - 6b Eddyville M&StL depot including spur to sand and gravel company besides Des Moines river in town
  - 6c Eddyville Des Moines river bridge
  - 6d Eddyville CRI&P depot

7 MP 313 Bridgeport including ISU coal fired power plant but not Cargill (too late)

8 MP 315.9 Coalfield
  - 8a Coalfield station sign (depot?)
  - 8b Coalfield spur to coal mines
  - 8c Coalfield multiple bridges over Miller Creek

9 MP 318.8 Lockman
  - 9a Lockman junction to coal mines
  - 9b Lockman coal mines
  - 9c Lockman trestle

10 MP 319.4 Hickory
  - 10a Hickory station sign
  - 10b Hickory hill including big trestles over Miller Creek

11 MP 323.2 Maxon
    Interchange with CB&Q

12 MP 324.6 Albia
  - 12a Albia Depot & freighthouse (joint with Wabash)
  - 12b Albia yard, engine facilities, freight track
  - 12c crossing of Wabash, M&StL and interurban Iowa Southern Utillities (ISU) including facilities, if any, of the latter interurban

13 MP Rizerville
    Junction of line to 1 coal mine and line to Hocking parallel to Wabash and ISU, passing track

14 MP Hocking 
    Coal mines of subsidiary Hocking Coal Company

That's a long list of items to consider for a railroad in a small room and clearly not everything will make it onto the layout but not bad for a railroad line only 23.5 miles long, right? Also, not all places existed at the same time so there is that to consider.

It feels like I'm trying to fit a gallon (of 3,785 liters) of railroad in a liter of train room...