A group from the San Diego Chapter of ETE visited Wil Van Oldenmark's AC layout. His home with layout
is  snuggled in the foot hills of San Diego County. The layout is housed in a room which is 50x28
feet square. To say we were impressed when we walked into the train room is an understatement. The layout
has many Shattenbahnhof, a large main station  and is completely analog! Wil uses relay logic to control the trains
on the main line while he works the main station or auxiliary control panels. His loks and last car of the
train have magnets for train detection. This system works very well and trains depart and arrive
in the Shattenbahnhof.

The layout uses Marklin K and M track. Wil prefers them to C track which resonates as trains run
over it. You see that the hidden track is laid on rug scraps. He uses Merkur and hand ballasting for the
visible K track. The M track is integrated into the scenery in the Steam BW yard so the rails appear to be at ground level. There is a metal turntable in the Steam BW to turn the Steam loks. His main station is called Marcel and Wil uses the Bonn station. He has an older 50's Faller station which formerly was the main station but will be used elsewhere on the layout. Currently he has three double track mainlines arriving at one end and two two track main departing the other. Only one is active as the other hasn't been finished.  This will change as he hads more to the layout. Well builds his own control panels and relay boards. The main can be operated by the relays and the yards can be isolated for individual operation.

Will sat two of us down in front of control panels set up his layout for continuous run on the main and then
diverted a train into the hump yard and steam engine BW. This kept Richard Coons busy cutting the engine
and last car off the train sending them around the reverse loop and reconnecting to the train and then sending
it back on the main. Don Gaw was kept busy servicing the engines and exchanging them when the train arrived for
turning around.

Enjoy these photos of Wil's layout.
 
 

The sight which greets a visitor to Wil's layout!

Here we see (left to right) Don Gaw, Richard Coons, Erik Nielson, John Oberhauser, Rudi Pfeiffer and Wil Van Oldenmark.
This is the main station Marcel.

Another view of the main layout. Here you can see the hump yard and Steam BW. Don Gaw is operating the Steam BW
while Richard Coons operates the approach and cuts off the engine and last car to reverse. The control panels are interlock
to allow operators to pass trains and loks from one area to another.

Here's the Elok BW. You can see the catenary has yet to go up  but there is a considerable number of Eloks
patiently awaiting the wire.

The hump yard. To the left you can see the line going up to the main yard and a cut off for trains or loks to return to the staging area.
You also see how Wil blends the M and K track.

Here's Don moving a Br 85 out of the service area to the main line. In the background you can see one of the
Shattenbahnhof's. When complete there will be three Shattenbahnhof located here stacked on top of each other.