The Keokuk Secondary

95% of track is now down on the my present day layout and I'm now able to sustain an operating session that takes about 45 minutes. The track diagram above is what I've come up with so far as to what industries go where. Two staging tracks now reside behind the backdrop of the recent bench work alterations. The track plan above is partial fiction. I'd read and re-read about the Keokuk Junction Rwy years ago in MR magazine (July1990). It's always appealed to me because of it's simplicity, one train a day, short freights, etc...but the Keokuk was absorbed by Pioneer Railcorp in 1996, so it no longer exists. Instead I'm assuming there's a parallel line that's owned and operated by CSX and shared by BNSF. Two staging tracks are it's source of freight, in from Chicago (CSX) and St.Louis (BNSF). As one of these trains arrives onto the scene in Peoria, it's left to the switcher to pick up and set out cars.

As I'm trying to stick to a theme for the layout; almost all of the industries served, are in some way related to renewable and sustainable products and alternative energy. I'm able to combine two of my interests into one. If you look at the diagram above, you can see this concept will offer a variety of industries and make for a unique, up to date modeling scenario.

One of my current challenges is where and how to model a large landfill...