Wishram

Wishram was an exhibition layout built by the club around 2009. It gave excellent service for a number of years.

The layout was modelled on an actual division point yard on the northern BNSF route from Vancouver, Washington to Chicago. The town of Wishram is on the Columbia River, and has a rail bridge over the river just to the west of the yard that connects to lines south to California. As a result, locomotives from Southern Pacific and Union Pacific were also seen at Wishram.

A key aspect to the layout was that the main yard, and the control panel for the yard, was at the front of the layout, allowing visitors to see the yard operator in action. Thus, the operation was of trains arriving in the yard where arriving power was taken off and moved to the loco servicing facility for servicing. The train was then marshalled by the local switcher depending on the final destination, and then the new trains headed out to their destinations (actually the fiddle yard at the rear of the layout).

The layout had the ability to be operated automatically through computer control, for just run through operations, although generally the local panel was enabled allowing switching to be performed.

The track was Micro Engineering code 55 flex track. Mainline points were hand built code 55 #8 turnouts, yard points were Atlas code 55 #5 turnouts. The layout was operated under DCC using Digitrax equipment. All signals on the layout were operational, and were manufactured by Hand Made Accessories of Tasmania to a specification that the club set for this layout.

The layout was dismantled before the club moved to Rockdale.