The 40th annual Trainfest© 2011 train show was held in West Allis, Wisconsin on November 12-13, 2011. Trainfest is held every year and recent shows have been held at the 200,000 square foot Wisconsin State Fairgrounds exhibit building. Trainfest is one of the largest train shows in the United States and attendance this year set a record with over 23,000 attendees.
Several N-Scale, N-Trak and T-Trak layouts took part in the show. The largest N-Trak layout was coordinated by Milwaukee N-Trak (MAN Trak) planned by Jerome Schuh. The layout was 82’ x 48 and included N-Trak modules from MAN Trak, Great River Valley System (GRVS), Chippewa Valley N-Trak, Northwest N-Trak, Dayton N-Track, N-Trak of Bloomington-Normal , Heritage N-Trak, and M & M Railroad. Other N-Trak layouts included the Capital City Engineers and the Kettle Moraine Ballast Scorchers.
GRVS had about ten members attend the show. Some members brought n-trak modules and some brought both t-trak and n-trak modules.
The general shape of the MAN Trak layout was a loop with a branch ending in a return loop. The red line, including the branch, was powered with Digitrax DCC with six power districts (three in the branch). The two inner tracks were each divided into six blocks (two support three trains per track) using traditional n-trak DC throttles operated in pairs by three tower operators. [The drawing is only a general approximation.]
Probably the most ‘unusual’ N-Trak module was one from M & M Railroad, Al and JoAnne Fliegel. They took an original Great Northern baggage cart and added the three N-Trak tracks to one side while the opposite side consisted of several small loops of track and a 1950’s Drive-in Theater. The module is essentially a 16-foot module that is transported in its own large trailer.
There were three T-Trak layouts at show. The first T-Trak layout consisted of 36 T-Trak modules from three different clubs, GRVS, MAN-Trak and NTBN. This layout had three running lines and was 29’ x 8’. The second layout was comprised of modules from Northwest N-Trak and MAN-Trak. The tird t-trak layout was a single table of modules from the WISE (Wisconsin South East Division, NMRA) youth program.
Here is the plan for the t-trak layout that contained GRVS modules:
The color coding shows that the layout was about 50-50 GRVS and NTBN with a few MAN-Trak modules. Here are a few pictures of the t-trak layout:
