Indiana Harbor Belt of Texas

The Indiana Harbor Belt of Texas is a walk in, switching layout representing South Chicago and Gary IN from Michigan Ave. Yard to the steel mills and oil refineries of Whiting and Gary.

Operations start from the yard where one operator classifies cars from the 4 track interchange yard where connecting railroads have dropped off that day’s cuts of cars and will switch adjacent industries, including grain elevators, concrete plant, and gravel pit.

Transfer runs begin with cars to the end of the line (i.e. refinery and steel mill) followed by others to various industries along the branch, including a brewery, pipe manufacturer, cold storage, logistics center, newsprint supplier, and propane distributor, lumber, rail/truck transfer tracks, and others. These branch operations are usually split into 3-4 distinct runs, which usually take less than an hour to run. Another operator is kept busy with internal switching of the steel mill.

One side of the layout is the 7 track yard, and the other is loosely based on the track patterns of the famous N scale Kingsbury Branch by Bill Denton, adapted to Atlas Code 55 N Scale track. The new section in the next room features a steel mill and oil refinery, as well as the smaller "oil and coil" yard servicing them.

Hard flooring, 4 foot aisle width, and layout height of 36-38” make this a potential “roll around” layout for maximum comfort.

The original section was built starting in 2016, with the steel mill/refinery section a new addition this year.

Layout Owner

Jeffrey Brauer

Location

Arlington, TX

Scale

N

Layout Size

17 ft x 12 ft

Mainline Size

40 ft

Era

Early 2000's

Crew Complement

3 - 4

Completion

Track: 100%
Scenery: 50%
Electrical: 99%

Control System

MRC

Dispatching Method

Sequential

Car Forwarding

Tab on Car

Pets

Yes - 2 Doodles, supposedly non-allergenic

COVID-19 Vaccine Policy

Vaccine recommended