Soeobo Pacific Model Railroad

The area around the Chicago River just south of CUS was home to a wide variety of industries, ranging from grocers and grain elevators to foundries and asphalt plants to lumber yards and glass manufacturers. A spiderweb of spurs served these businesses from a street-running branch that extended from the PRR/B&OCT/CB&Q rail corridor along Western Ave. eastward along Cermak Rd. and Lumber St. to a connection with the PRR mainline south of CUS. Another connection to the branch extended south from Burlington’s Western Avenue Yard and joined the branch at Cermak and Canalport. As recently as 2010, some of the track along Cermak road was still active, but it has since been abandoned.   The modern satellite view above shows the corridor highlighted in yellow. I worked from historic  Sanborn maps  of the area to get a general idea of the businesses and track arrangement. A “faithful” depiction of the entire district would take up the entire room, so I tried to focus on a ...

Over the last few months, I began construction on my home layout, the Burlington Route Chicago Terminal (BRCT). I’m setting the layout in 1948 and depicting the CB&Q roughly from Chicago Union Station (CUS) to the suburb of Downers Grove, IL. My goals for the layout are: Mainline run that accommodates full size passenger trains and the largest steam engines run by the CB&Q (4-8-4s and 2-10-4s) Depict passenger train switching of mail and express cars around CUS Run suburban service operations with trains terminating in Downers Grove Model freight switching and interchange within the Chicago terminal area. The layout will occupy a basement room roughly 23’x14’. The track plan is a loop-to-loop design that wraps around the walls and onto a central peninsula. The main level will have the main line between CUS and Downers Grove. There will be a partial lower level modeling the Burlington’s industrial trackage serving factories on Cermak Road and Lumber Street along the South Branch...