Davin Heinbuck's Texas Based ATSF Layout.....by Don Janes
Back in Sept. I was invited to an operating session on Davin Heinbuck's ATSF Slaton Sub layout in St.Marys, Ont. I had never been to one of Davin's operating sessions and was a little anxious that I would do OK but upon arriving I was greeted by Davin and introduced to the rest of the crew and was immediately put at ease by their friendliness and willingness to show me how things worked. After a short social period I was assigned to a through freight with operating mate Jordan McCallum. Jordan is a VIA engineer and I worked with him many years ago when he had just hired on as a brakeman. Now he was showing me the ropes. Jordan really gave me a good feel for the layout and after the first run I felt confident i could handle a train on my own. |
| Jordan McCallum and Chris Wright are busy working the temple yard, sorting cars for pickups and local industries |
Davin's layout is an around the wall shelf type layout and there is a section of double deck where the staging yard is below a sceniced section. Locations are well marked and the track layout and industries are very prototypical. There are also track schematics at each location to help when doing switching. The main hub is the large yard and engine facility at Temple, Texas which also has a number of major industries. The thing that impressed me the most was how well the layout ran and the amount of very nice finished scenery that really represented the Texas landscape. That made operations even more realistic.
Davin acted as the dispatcher from his office behind the bar. Rule "G" does not exist on the Slaton Sub. All operators had headsets which they used to communicate with the dispatcher. Once I got familiar with the layout I ran a couple of trains on my own and for the most part it went well. Temple yard marshalling got a little more complicated so I paired up with Tim, a retired CPR engineer who had a lot more experience operating on the layout so I ran the engine and Tim did all the switching on the ground so cars would end up in the right place.
All in all, it was a great experience and after the session we all sat and watched some railroad videos and enjoyed a drink and nice meal supplied by the host. I hope to get back to Davin's again and take part in another operating session.
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| A manifest freight winds through the Texas landscape |
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| Here we see Davin dispatching from The Dispatchers Office, a fully stocked bar. |
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| Davin takes a break with a drink from the bar between trains, doesn't get any better than that for a dispatcher |
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| Chris van der Heide Working the Temple Yard. All photos above are industries in Temple.. |
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| A boxcar has been spotted at a lumber dealer |
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| This stone quarry was located on an isolated peninsula at one end of the layout. Access is by the drop down bridge across the doorway. |
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| This was the power on the manifest freight that I ran |
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| A local freight has just stopped at Edgeview to do some switching |
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